David Black posted on March 14, 2008 13:08
Yesterday we had a day off from school to attend our district's annual Nurturing the Faith seminar. The session is designed to build our faith and relationship with Jesus amidst the busy times of the school year. I must say that yesterday's presentation was absolutely excellent, providing the spiritual nourishment needed to grow and the encouragement to remember those things which are truly most important in life.
Pastor Ahlman from Peace Lutheran in Arvada, CO, was the presenter. While there were many valuable insights throughout the day, one of the most important came when Pastor Ahlman talked about working and non-working parts.
Those of you who work regularly with technology know that on any given day there will be many parts of a lab or a network that are working as well as some parts that are not working. That one computer that dies or the one hub that malfunctions may create chaos for us. Typically we can survive without these parts, but the broken parts frustrate us and are never far from our mind. In fact, just one broken part may often steal the joy that Jesus wants us to have.
As we go through our day of living for Christ, we experience many working and broken parts. Perhaps a marriage relationship is strong but the broken part that threatens to drag one down is a disagreement with a parent. It could be that one has a good day in teaching but also has a medical condition that needs attention. The encouragement from Pastor Ahlman was for each of us to intentionally recall those working parts, reminding ourselves that God is indeed with us, watching over us, and blessing us, especially at those times when so many other parts seem broken. Our joy is in Jesus and the gifts He has given us, most importantly, the hope of eternal life through faith in Christ.
How many of us truly face situations when we have only one working part. Pastor Ahlman brought forth the example of Paul and Silas as they languished in prison in the book of Acts. They had only ONE working part -- their faith in Jesus. Everything else had been taken from them. Yet they chose to embrace that one working part by singing praises to God in their prison cell and witnessing to the others that were imprisoned. Their joy was truly in Jesus.
It is about noon as I finish writing this post, and already today I seem to have more than my share of broken parts. Yet the focus on those working parts -- those sustained blessings from God -- serve to keep me going. May we all truly seek out the working parts of life as we seek to give glory to God through our words and actions.