I’m not here today, but I’m thinking of you!

I ought to be in Lisbon, Ohio this morning, worshiping at the church I grew up in. The Melanson family should be there, too, Lord willing, and I have a hunch they are also coming to a realization of how much they appreciate all of you. I bet our “small” church does not seem so small to them, not anymore if it ever did!

It’s strange writing a bulletin “in advance” (it’s actually June 24th right now) and knowing you won’t be reading it for a couple weeks. I’ve made plans to be somewhere, it’s as if I was some kind of prophet. I’m anxious for you to be reading this, because when you do I will hopefully be where I claim to be above.

Is this how writers of the bible felt? They wrote about events that were coming in the future, often things they were also anxiously awaiting. Things like the birth of Christ, redemption of their nation, and of course judgment day. I have a pretty good chance of being right, though, since my “predictions” are quite modestly only a couple weeks ahead. Still, it’s a strange thing. So much could go wrong in the meantime!

We all make plans, don’t we? And they don’t always, if ever, work out exactly as we expected. That doesn’t mean they work out poorly! I always planned on being married, having children, buying a house. This is a pretty common idea, is it not? Yet not all of us get here the way we intended, if at all. There are lots of bumps on the road, and twists of fate in our lives that sometimes put us in completely different directions, and focused on entirely new things. Perhaps put another way, prayers can be answered in a manner we didn’t expect.

The Jews wanted an earthly king. They understood a king was to be born, of the line of David. They knew he was to be the greatest king they were ever to have. Would that not include a kingdom, of might, power, and glory? And it does! But not in the physical way they expected it to be. What they ended up with, what we all ended up with, was something so much better than a physical kingdom that would have faded away.

When I finished college while living in Denver, I moved to Colorado Springs hoping to get away from girls. Really! My plan was to just buy a house, work for a while, save some money, get everything perfectly in order, and then I would be ready to move on in life. Yet there in the church was a sparkly-eyed gal who was perfect for me, and I have never looked back with regret of any kind. (She, on the other hand, may have the occasional doubts!)

This trip I am on was long in the planning, and I hope to have a lot of fun on it. But what I see came about as a consequence, something I didn’t plan on, was the opportunity for so many of the men there to serve at such a condensed rate. I didn’t think about the Christians I hope to edify as we visit among them. Nor did I consider the example I would be setting with Matt and Ben, displaying to them the earnest desire to please God no matter where we go, on this trip or on the trip we call life. Never mind the awesome works of God they will be seeing. Interesting how when you plan to do physical things, and plan on keeping yourself spiritually on track as well, the physical things can fall apart but the spiritual ones always seem to have a way of working out, even better than you’d planned. Perhaps someone else put some planning into this trip that I was not aware of, and found uses for us beyond memories of spacious skies, amber waves of grain, and mountain majesty.

Randy