“And
though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction,
yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your
Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word
behind you, saying ‘This is the way, walk in it’, when you turn to the right or
when you turn to the left.”
(Isaiah 30:20-21 ESV)
The latter part of this passage was
our key verse for this past week of VBS, and a great lesson for the kids to
learn, but I think there is something in there for the adults as well. Our daily theme for Thursday was to “Stay on
Track”. Even when the way is uncertain,
even when others might try to pull us in a different direction, we are to stay
on track.
The song that went along with that
theme encouraged us to “stay on track, never look back, keeping our eyes on
Jesus!” There are so many things that
the devil uses to try to discourage us, to distract us, to raise doubts and
fears in our minds. If we allow
ourselves to become preoccupied by those things, we get off track, and not only
is our work for Him diminished, but our minds can become so troubled that we
end up being paralyzed, unable to make any headway for a time.
Part of the benefit of belonging to
a local church is that we can help each other to stay on track. When life gets difficult, or extremely busy,
or for whatever reason we are away for a period of time, the body is there to
come along side, and help us to get back on track, help us through the
difficult periods, and keep moving forward in our walk with God.
When the church comes together to
work together in this way, it is the added benefit of us putting aside some of
the less important things that we can become focused on that are not really a
part of us reaching our goal as a church—which is to see lives transformed by
the power of Jesus Christ. We can get
wrapped up in temporary things which, in light of eternity, really aren’t
significant. But when we set those
aside, and focus on caring for one another, helping one another, helping share
the love of Christ together, all those lesser things are left behind.
I’m reminded of another hymn, this
one written by Helen Lemmel in 1922: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His
wonderful face, And the things of this earth will grow strangely dim in the
light of His glory and grace.”
Our daily themes from Lifeway’s Journey Off the Map VBS were: Know
your Guide, Follow Your Guide, Trust your Guide, Stay on Track, and Keep
Watching”. We need to know who our
Guide is, and only Jesus can guide us where we need to go. We need to follow that guide, as it isn’t
enough to know who He is, we need to follow Him. We need to trust that He knows the right way,
even when we are pressured to go a different way. We need to stay on track, because life throws
lots of distractions our way to get us to take unhealthy detours. And finally we need to keep watching,
watching for further instructions as God draws us closer to Him, and watching
for Him to return for us to take us home with Him, as He has promised.
These were great themes for VBS, but
they’re not just for the little children.
Those themes are great themes for us as adults to live by as well. It may well be that the Lord will allow
adversity and/or affliction to come our way, but His goal, even in this, is to
draw us close to Himself so that we would come to lean and depend on Him more
and more. He is a trustworthy God, who
keeps His promises, and always has our best in mind. We can trust that He knows what the best is
ultimately for us.
By
His Grace Alone,
Pastor
Bruce Jacobsen
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