Out of Our Hands

It was one of those Sundays. You know...soloist for the choral anthem could not attend because his wife was in emergency room; choir attendance for early service is way down because of the churches 75th Anniversary dinner Saturday evening; acoustic guitar player for praise band was out as he was the same one at the hospital with his wife; praise team and band had horrible microphone and monitor problems because much of the sound equipment had been used at the Community Center on Saturday night for the dinner; three of the praise team members were losing their voices; the soloist for the last service could not get the sound team's attentione to turn down the blaring monitors and wound up forgetting her words (something she has never done and of course happens in the service while we are live on the radio); and I could not see when the pastor was finished with the Baptism, so I sat there waiting in silence for a while before I realized he was done.

I am a true believer that we are to always try our best or God will not accept the offerings of our talents. I also am a strong believer in God's promise that if we will lift Him up, He will do the work of drawing people unto Himself. And so... the attendance today was up over the past few months; we started the services by Baptizing about eight people; we had about a dozen people join the church (many by accepting Christ recently); and several individuals spent some time in private consultation with ministers as the Spirit was working in their lives. You see... it really isn't in our hands. God has just called us to be faithful and willing.