Sunday Reflections

It was a great day at Idlewild today. It was great to see many of our members back in the swing of things, after dealing with this sickness that has been floating around. I have really been enjoying this series on Ruth. The title of the series is "The Providence of God In the Lives of His People." Today we covered probably the most peculiar passage of the book, Chapter 3. We looked at "The Providence of God In Our Plans." We saw how Naomi tried to rush God's plan to redeem Ruth, by devising a plan that was quite risky for Ruth.

The author of Ruth is quite meticulous in his form. It is almost as if he wants you to ask questions of the text, like "what was the motivation?" or "was Ruth seeking to seduce Boaz?" Obviously due to the fact that Boaz was a "worthy man" and Ruth was a "worthy woman", we realize that this act, however risky and questionable it may be, is innocent and not sexual in nature. What we learn from this passage is God is both sovereign and good, and he does have plans for each of his children. However, his plans work out according to his timing, and most of the time that is not acceptable to us, because we like Naomi, want God to show up according to our will and our timing. What we learn is that we must wait patiently and trust in the faithfulness and timing of our soveriegn and good God.

Tonight we focused our attention on Luke 10:38-42. This is the story of when Jesus visits with Mary and Martha, and while Martha is busy working hard, Mary is sitting at Jesus feet. Martha tries to get Jesus to reprimand her sister, but Jesus instead teaches Martha a little about how being follower of him works. He told her that she was focused and worried about many things, good things, but Mary had focused her attention on the one thing that was most important, Him.

I think we can all learn a lot from this story. Most of our Christian lives, especially with in the church, is wrapped up in being active in service, good things, but I fear that while we are busy we tend to miss out on the most important thing, Jesus. Jesus was in the living room of Martha's house, and yet she was so busy trying to please him, that she missed him. Sound familiar?

Overall, it was a great weekend. I am stoked about our Easter plans. We are doing our church's first Good Friday service which I am so excited about. Then on Sunday we have a wonderful service planned and I just pray that God will be glorified with all that takes place.