by Ron Morrow ...
I don’t know about you, but I came to church on Sunday morning expecting to hear a sermon about Spring. So, when I discovered that Pastor Alan would be delivering “Winter: Part 2,” it was a little like finding out that the groundhog had seen his shadow and there would be six more weeks of Winter. Waiting can be hard.
Just over two years ago, a few weeks after I started coming to WPBC, I learned about an information meeting for anyone interested in being part of a mission trip to Bolivia. I was definitely interested, but it just wasn’t the right time. So, I watched from the sidelines as the team prepared themselves to go and, then, took great delight in hearing all about their experiences when they returned.
A few months ago, the invitation went out again. This time I decided to attend the information meeting. I went there with a firm sense of conviction that God was calling me to go. However, by the time I walked out of the meeting, I was no longer feeling so sure. One of the first things I did was to contact Pastor Alan. We had a coffee together, and I talked with him about how I was feeling. He helped me to gain some much needed perspective on things.
From there I made a conscious decision not to do what I would normally do – find out as much as I could about Bolivia, talk with people who had been on previous trips and dissect each verse of Scripture I read in search of any clue it may contain about what I should do. Instead, I chose to just . . . be still. This enabled me to listen to what God was saying. Or, rather, what He wasn’t saying. He wasn’t saying not to go. And, day by day, I became more convinced that going to Bolivia was the right thing for me to do.
Between now and when we’re scheduled to leave, I’m sure there will be times when I’m going to wish that I’d never made the decision to go. It may turn out to be one of the best experiences of my life, or one of the worst. However, none of that is as important to me as knowing that God – for whatever reason He may have – has called me to go.
If you’re starting to feel as though you’re stuck in a Winter that will never end, know that God loves you, that He will be with you every step of the way and that Spring is closer than you imagine.
Listen to this sermon here!