The first week of this New Year I challenged myself and others to “Dare to believe God for the Impossible!”   My second week into this New Year I challenged myself and others to go forward trusting in the Providential care of God as our Great shepherd (cf. Psalm 23).   My third week going into this New Year I was hit by a truck, not literally but figuratively.  I caught some kind of stomach virus that put me down for over two days, even as I pen this pastor’s desk I’m not feeling one hundred percent.  It raises the question, “If God is a loving then why…?”   Oh, my little stomach virus is nothing compared to what is going on in the lives of others and our world, I am fully aware of that, but it still raises the question why…?  If, like a puzzle, we frame in (edges and corners first) our world with the Bible we can find the missing pieces and find the “why” to our questions.   

We can trace all the evil going on in our world and the disturbances we are witnessing in nature itself to the original fall of mankind (Adam) - a big piece of the puzzle.  Romans 5:11 tells us “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.” - thats the bad, but necessary piece of the puzzle.  Here is the good piece of the puzzle, “for as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience (Jesus Christ) many will be made righteous.” (cf. Romans 5: 19)

Therefore, says Romans 5:1, “having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We may not always understand the “why’s”, but we know the “Who” that will carry us through it. He promises, “fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned…for I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”

(cf. Isaiah 43)

In His Service,

Pastor Rodney