Queen Mine RV Park, Bisbee, Arizona
A man’s steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand his own way? ~ Proverbs 20:24
We finally visited an honest to goodness sanctuary today to worship; albeit a small one ~ First Baptist Church Bisbee (founded in 1904). And all of the hymns we sang today were great. How Great Is Our God; How Great Thou Art; Great Is Thy Faithfulness; Great Is the Darkness. 😊 I’ll bet there were only 50-60 very friendly people in attendance today though. Their pastor is young and extremely passionate and energetic, so maybe he can add to the demographics of this group of worshippers.
Today’s message was based on Chapter 3 of Nehemiah. It’s 32 verses long and contains the list of who rebuilt which portion of the collapsed wall around Jerusalem almost 100 years (93 to be exact) after the exiles had returned from captivity ~ something that should’ve been done immediately after they returned. It took Nehemiah, a Jewish cupbearer for the Persian King of the day, to go to Jerusalem under God’s direction, and lead and organize and prod them to complete the task. What took them 93 years to begin, took them only 52 days for them to complete, once they all began working together.
Anyone who can make a message out of those verses, is truly inspired by God Himself! At least in our humble opinion. But a relevant message he gave. After he very quickly read every verse out loud. These verses are practically nothing but ancient Jewish names and yet he rattled them off like they were all John, Jim and Tom. And he only stumbled once, and I think that was just because he needed to take a breath. 😊
His message today was about God’s design for us to build together. To work together. Despite our various ages, personalities, desires, races, or backgrounds. These men in Nehemiah each took on a section of the task. Just as we should. We aren’t all designed to be leaders. We aren’t all designed to be organizers. We aren’t all designed to be followers, or hard-workers, or engineers or artists or teachers. But each of us has a God-given gift that we are to use in the building of His kingdom.
As Paul tells us not only in Romans 12 ~ Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. ~ vs 4-6a, but he also tells us in I Corinthians 12:14-26 ~ Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts of the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be. . . . The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
Leaders working alongside helpers, alongside craftsmen, alongside . . .
This is the message from Nehemiah 3. If you read the chapter, you’ll see a high priest performing physical labor. You’ll also see a perfume maker, men and women (which was unheard of at the time), and others. You’ll see that some worked harder than others. And some (like some nobles) who didn’t work at all. But God (in other places) calls these men – men who refuse to work – sluggards, and has nothing good to say about them.
So the question becomes, what can you do for God?
According to I Corinthians 10:31 ~ So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. And yes, in context it’s talking about eating food sacrificed to idols, but it still applies to every moment of our day. Whatever we do should be an act of worship.
God doesn’t waste anything, so whatever our age (old, young or inbetween), whatever our stage in life (retired, student and everything in between), whatever our vocation, whatever our interest, even in illness, God wants us to worship where we are in life. We are to work as though we plan to finish. And we should work with excellence, putting 100% of our effort into it.
God is the author and finisher. His Will will always be accomplished.
Our part is to discover God’s plan for our life and follow it.
Since it’s the beginning of a new month, and we’re heading towards Daylight Saving Time, I thought I’d take this opportunity to let you know we’ll be in Arizona at that time. And you say, “sooooo???” Well, Arizona, in all their infinite wisdom decided years ago not to go along with the crowd. And you say, “soooo??” Since they don’t acknowledge Daylight Saving Time (except for the Navajo Nation that occupies 27,000 square miles of Arizona), that means that in addition to being 2 hours behind our home state of Ohio due to time zones, on March 8th, we’ll be 3 hours behind until we leave Arizona on April 27th. This is the first time. We leave Arizona for about two weeks, and re-enter Arizona again from May 11 – May 23 and we’ll have to deal with it all over again.
The only other bit of information I have for today is that I diligently worked on the blog and Blaine went for a walk around town. It’s good I’ve finally trained him to take pictures in my absence, otherwise all you’d have to look at today is black text. 😊
Case in point – as we were walking around town the other day, one family had this little roller coaster-type track with a small car on it to ride from the street up to their house, and back down. You can just imagine how badly I wanted a picture of that! But the people were out in their yard, so we just walked on by.
Maybe that’s why it’s mounted to the wall.
They can’t because the mountains are too steep! : )
This is the same logo that I discovered on their city letterhead the other day.
