Patient Trust
Patient Trust
By Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
Shared by
Pastor Ryan Paulson
Until You Increase
Throughout the years of the Exodus, the Israelites feared the pagan kingdoms that dwelled in the land that God promised as their inheritance. In Exodus 23:30, the Lord told the Israelites, “Little by little I will drive them [your enemies] out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land.” Even after the great victory God gave them against the city of Jericho when they first crossed into Canaan, their effort to occupy the rest of the Promised Land would take many more years, numerous battles, and countless learning experiences for the young nation of Israel. But with each new challenge they encountered, Yahweh increased their strength, courage, and faith.
Many believers experience times of waiting on the Lord when it might feel like God has forgotten them. Yet in those times of waiting God often does some of his best work in preparing us, his children, for opportunities he has yet to reveal. I experienced that in the years after my seminary graduation. God didn’t call me to seminary until I was in my mid-40s but I was convinced God had called me to church ministry. In my final year of seminary, I had the joy of doing a pastoral internship at EFCC. Then for the next 15 years, the Lord took me from church ministry into chaplaincy in the military reserves, hospitals, and other venues providing spiritual and emotional care for hurting people. I could see God’s blessing upon my chaplaincy but it seemed like God had forgotten my hope for serving in church ministry. Finally, an opening came up in pastoral care at EFCC on staff. When Pastor Dennis Keating extended an offer he said, “You’ve worked with enough hurting people that we can use you now!” He was right. Those 15 years in various chaplaincy venues had equipped me for pastoral care ministry in ways that seminary never could. God used that time to increase my compassion, sensitivity, and ability to bring God’s grace to hurting hearts. As I now prepare to retire from EFCC staff it’s clear those years of “waiting” were truly needed for God to equip me for the next step in His perfect plan.
Truly, his yoke is easy and his burden is light if we stay in step with His plan!
Pastor Dave Korinek
Growth through the Battle
Have you ever hated doing something that was good for you?
I can think of lots of things: exercising, eating vegetables, reading my Bible, going to church, visiting a loved one, following through with plans I now regret making, being the first one to say “I’m sorry,” washing the dishes, cooking, cleaning the bathroom, and practicing the piano.
Thankfully, I don’t struggle with everything on the list like I used to. There isn’t a single thing on the list today that I would say I hate doing though I would have said that about all of them at some point in the past. I’ve learned that tackling things that need to be done is good and has helped me grow. That doesn’t mean I always want to do whatever is in front of me that needs to be done. That battle continues.
God grows us through the battles of life. Sometimes those are nation versus nation battles and sometimes they are internal, or me versus me or me versus God, battles. In Exodus 23:30 the prophet writes; “Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land.” God prepared the way for his people to take over the promised land, but the people still had to go out, march to, and fight the battle. This made them stronger, helped them increase in number, and over time they took possession of the land.
God grew them through the battle and he grows us as we battle, fight for what is right, work for his purposes, and generally do what needs to be done. Every time we avoid the spiritual and physical battles of life before us, we miss the opportunities God has for us to grow. Let’s pray that all the folks of our church would be willing to face and fight the daily battles and grow to be the church God would have us be.
Pastor John Riley
Jealous for our Worship
This week we find ourselves in the Old Testament, Exodus 23. We’ve spent the past year studying the life of Jesus through the eyes of the poetic apostle John. Or as John refers to himself, the one whom Jesus loved.
Well, John, you weren’t the first guy Jesus loved. The Father, Son, and Spirit have loved and longed for fellowship with humanity since day one in Eden.
When Abraham came along in Genesis 12, God promised a covenantal relationship to Abraham and all of his descendants….the people group who would eventually come to be known as the nation of Israel.
Jumping to Exodus…more than 400 years past the covenantal promise made to Father Abraham. God, through his servant Moses, rescues his people, about 1.5 million descendants, from Egyptian bondage. This army people group, who only knew oppression, miraculously crossed the Red Sea in utter amazement. This story would be chronicled, retold from grandfather to father to son….generation after generation. It was an exclamation point of a message to the Israelites that they were loved and cared for by God, the almighty one. He was faithful, he was powerful, and he was worthy of worship.
In Exodus 20:3-5 God says, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God ...”
Three chapters later in Exodus 23, the Lord reminded them again they were going into the lands of foreign people who did not worship him. Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices, instead, worship the LORD your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness and none will miscarry or be barren in your land, I will give you a full life span.
Those are serious promises, if they would do but . . .one…..thing . . .worship. Ultimately that one word sums up the purpose of your life and mine—worshiping the one who is holy and worthy of worship.
In Romans 12:1, Paul urges you and me, given God’s mercy, to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—he says this giving 100% of me, my whole being—this is my spiritual act of worship.
He is still worthy. How will you worship today?
Donielle Winter
EFCC Member
Little by Little
I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land.
Exodus 23:29,30
God tells Joshua how He plans the invasion to play out. He points out that the entire campaign will take some time. God knows all the practical steps of occupying a new land and has promised to go ahead of them and hand it to them on a platter. People are generally impatient and all but demand things to hurry up. Fortunately, God has never been beholden to our timetables.
One of the most fascinating examples of doing things little by little is Noah’s Ark. God told Noah to build an entire ship and then gave him the specifications. It took Noah roughly 100 years to finish building this thing. That is a huge amount of time to devote to one thing. He would’ve had to spend his time wisely to keep at it for that long. He may have made plans, schedules, and achievable goals. We can do incredible things if we work little by little with the Lord.
Another thing God does little by little is walk with us through our sanctification. We grow more like Christ as we follow Him and subdue and destroy our carnal selves. It is a lifelong process that will not end while we live in this world. If it were up to me, I’d skip to the end and live my life out having been sanctified. What a shame it would be to skip the triumphant love story of our lives. The ups and downs and all the little ways God has delivered life to us on a platter.
Jonathan Duncan
EFCC Member
Little By Little
Series: The Easy Yoke
Text: Exodus 23:23-33
Speaker: Pastors Ryan Paulson & Esteban Tapia
May 19, 2024: On Sunday, Pastors Ryan Paulson and Esteban Tapia completed our brief topical study called The Easy Yoke. The last message in this series is entitled "Little By Little."
Purity Made Possible
I’m a mother to 4 young adult sons. One entertaining aspect of having children is watching them morph from babies into children, then pre-teenagers into young adults. Along the journey, you notice physical traits develop that resemble their parents; sometimes mannerisms and patterns of speech bear similarities to mom and dad over time. Our oldest son got my curly hair, the next son has his Dad’s demeanor, our 3rd son looks most like his Dad did as a kid, and the youngest son shares my smile and expressions. None of that is very surprising— they’re our children.
The apostle John says in the first chapter of his gospel that for those who received Jesus—as God in the flesh, those who believed in his name, he gave the right to be called “children of God”. He adds we’re children “born of God”. In 1 John 3, he reminds us that because of God’s unfathomable yet unshakable love for us, our “children of God” status is a fact we confidently place our hope in.
Physically, I resemble my dad, but my mannerisms are more like my mom. I wonder though, as a daughter, do I look like my Father in Heaven? Do people see glimpses of his Spirit in me? The Father delights in what his kids look like. He cares about our character, what we are becoming is important to God.
1 John 3:3 says I am to purify myself as he is pure. Purity is freedom from anything that contaminates. And God knows that nothing contaminates his children more than sin. Purity is important to God because he alone is pure, holy, and perfect. Because he wants nothing but the best for his children, he calls us to live pure lives free from sin. John continues in verse 6 “no one who lives in him keeps on sinning”… and “those who have been born into God’s family do not sin, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they have been born of God.” verse 9
I attended a baptism out of state last week. The church provided black t-shirts to those being baptized and across the front in large, bold block letters was one word: CHANGED. By his blood, and his sacrificial work on the cross, Jesus forever CHANGED my identity, my hope, my eternity. And at the same time, he calls us to live CHANGED every day, as born again new creations, pure and holy children of a pure and holy Father. I can think and speak and live pure because I have a pure Holy Spirit dwelling in me, powering me to purify myself as He is pure.
Donielle Winters EFCC Member
What We Will Be
Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared.
- 1 John 3:2
If you are a person who has trusted in Jesus for your salvation, then you are currently God’s child. That is not a hopeful, one-day reality, that is an assured, today reality. However, that reality hasn’t fully worked its way into all we are. If everyone who trusted Jesus grew a few inches or gained new abilities, it would be awesome! However, the truth is God’s children don’t look any different from people who are still running from God, and sometimes they don’t even feel all that different. This is why John reminds us that although we are God’s children now, what we will be has not yet been seen. In other words, what we will be is going to be drastically different from what we are now.
C.S. Lewis describes this future transformation powerfully in his essay entitled, “The Weight of Glory.” He’s talking here about how we should look at our neighbors, but as you read, consider that this too is what you will one day be…
"The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, to some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors."
So, as children of God, what we will be, is everlasting splendors, the likes of which, if people saw you as you one day will be, they would be tempted to worship!! Wow! Now, go live like the Son or Daughter of God that you are.
Josh Rose
Discipleship Pastor
Family Trails
My family and I went on a winter getaway to a cabin in Mammoth one year in January. I was newly freed from being a teenager and had become masterful at feigning confidence, as one does. One day, my Dad and my three brothers decided we should go rent snowmobiles and make a day of it. After arriving at the rental place, my Dad goes to rent the five snowmobiles, and the agent counts the men before him and gets to me. I stood there with my walker, trying my very best to look like I was using someone else’s walker just for fun. The agent saw through my facade somehow and eyed my Dad with skepticism. Meeting his eye, my Dad packed in a whole lot of meaning behind the words, “He’s fine.” My hopes soared!
I quickly learned how snowmobiles worked as I kept up with my brothers along the trails. We followed our guide through a particularly dense forest, bobbed and weaved, and I got a feel for it. We hit this expansive meadow blanketed with fresh, untouched snow. It was truly beautiful and we all gunned it! We opened it up and just tore through that serene meadow like nobody’s business. We were all family, indistinguishable, just five Duncan guys having an unmitigated blast! It was awesome!
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that
we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
1 John 3:1a
The most wonderful thing was we were together, and I felt the importance of it. That’s how it is being children of God! We fit because the Father said so, like my Dad’s, “He’s fine.” We fit, defying even our expectations sometimes. To say I am blessed by my family is a massive understatement. My Dad included me and inadvertently demonstrated how the Father includes us all.
Jonathan Duncan
EFCC Member
The Power of Love
Don't tell anyone, but I consider people-watching an enjoyable hobby. Sitting on a park bench or at the airport waiting to board a plane, I delight in observing interactions around me. I see the small acts of kindness, grumpy moments of rush or worry, and emotions of sorrow painted on faces as creases of expression give the heart away. You can tell a lot about people just by looking closely, but you never know the whole story without taking the initiative to start a relationship. In relationships, we learn about the other person and ourselves, but it doesn’t end there. We are changed as stories intertwine and we become known and loved by one another.
Dr. Curt Thompson wrote in Anatomy of the Soul, “Yet it is only when we are known that we are positioned to become conduits of love. And it is love that transforms our minds, makes forgiveness possible, and weaves a community of disparate people into the tapestry of God’s family.”
God does more than people watch. He enters our stories through relationships and changes us into people of love as He lavishes His love upon us. This love makes us conduits of love that is meant to transform but love in its purest form is God Himself. The power of love changes us into the humanity that He wants us to be and as we are transformed the world is watching. So, children of God — that is what we are — let’s love, forgive, live peaceable lives, contribute to beauty, outdo one another in doing good, and count on the purity of His love to transform.
Jessica Klootwyk
Groups & Women’s Discipleship Director
