Reflection
I have a bit of a New Years tradition I follow every year. You know my love of music and pop culture. Agt the start of the year I will google a few things.
Songs that turn 10 years old. Songs that turn 20 years old…and this year I found myself adding songs that turn 30 years old…
It makes me laugh; it makes me feel nostalgic…sometimes it makes me feel old. Often it makes me remember a memory that was on the very verge of being forgotten. This year as I opened my computer up and I started preparing to write this devotion I wandered back to the very beginning. The first devotion I wrote for the church was in 2014. I had written for the youth newsletter as far back as 2010, but the idea of a family table devotion turns ten this year. For most of its existence it has been a two person operation. Two devotions a week, doing our best to make sure you get an opportunity to dwell on God’s Word. I bring this up not because I am looking for a congratulations or anything like that, but because if you don’t look back once and a while you forget where you came from. Ten years ago I was being mentored by Pastor John Duerr through the SMP program and he wrote a Tuesday Tune-up. It was a weekly check in and a chance to check to recenter your faith. Partnering with Bob Scholl, who wrote an amazing devotion, he and I started going back and forth. The rest, as they say is history.
So why do we do these? Because the Bible makes it very clear that we are to be diligent in our studies and we need to pass on what we learn to our brothers and sisters in Christ. We need to support each other.
Or, as Paul writes to Timothy
You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.
We teach so that you may be encouraged to teach. We share so that you will be encouraged to share.
So here is too another ten years, and a special thanks to all of our writers, past and present. Bob Scholl, Jim Schurig, Mike Putman, Steve Skiver, thank you for a consistent meal set upon the table. And thanks to guest writers like Charlie Blankenship and Erin Jones who have volunteered to jump in and help.
And to take a line from the writer of Hebrews;
Thanks be to Jesus Christ the author and finisher of our faith.
See you Sunday my friends,
- Pastor Dan