God is Amazing in His Timing

Hear this ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this (the locust plague) been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? Tell your children of it and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. Joel 1:2-3

Our recent neighborhood Bible Study with eleven ladies on Zoom had this first discussion question:

What is the most traumatic worldwide or national event each of the generations represented in your group has experienced?

WOW! How did God know we would need this lesson right now? Our group started in the 1990s with Genesis I, II, III. We have followed the Bible all the way to Joel and this Life Guide study presents this question because of a traumatic event. Oh, yeah, we have experienced 2020 with its worldwide Coronavirus and the very divisive national presidential election. We have had at least three different study leaders over the years but to come to this question in the book of Joel study at this exact time is an act of God. Matthew McConaughey, actor, father of three and author of “Greenlights,” said this in Guideposts magazine, “Life’s the movie. God’s the director.” I believe this is so true.

We decided it is important to pass on our knowledge of these life changing events to future generations as Joel instructs us to do. This would include making sure all our history is remembered. The history of the old testament is relevant to the New Testament. Our history and our country’s history are relevant to our lives. Our children need to know the good and the bad of our history. We cannot change it by rewriting our history books or tearing down our leaders’ statues.

Prayer: Dear Lord, we thank you for giving us your history in the Bible. Help us pass it on to our children. We realize you breathed life into us as humans and gave us the potential to understand there was a time before our consciousness. Thank you for your amazing timing of this Bible study and in our lives. Remind us to tell our children. Amen.

Sandra Hilsabeck

Relationship and Compassion

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Compassion

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We Are Conquerors

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35-39

We have faced an unusual year with the worldwide pandemic and the national election. But neither of these troubles or hardships will separate us from our Lord Jesus Christ. This is promised to us in Romans.

Being separated from our families has caused almost all of us to be distressed as we want to hold and hug those who are precious to us. Our troubled country is being looked upon as a third world country as foreign nations watch across the globe.

Prayer: Dear Father in heaven, we thank you for our Christian founders and pray that we can follow their constitution as written. We thank you for the promises of the Bible knowing no matter what happens in the U.S. or anywhere on earth, we know we have the love of your son Jesus. Help us remember the Bible’s words, “Let not your heart be troubled.” Amen.

Sandra Hilsabeck

In the Beginning

 

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,  and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. Genesis 1

Spreading Kindness

And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. Luke 6:31 

I have a former co-worker who has started a church in our community, the focus of this church is on being a good neighbor. You might have seen this church on the local news when they started meeting at an apartment complex clubhouse.  Or heard about this church when the Mister Rogers movie with Tom Hanks came out last year. As I have mentioned before, with virtual church, we sometimes attend more than one church service in a week, sometimes more than one in a single day.  At that church’s service this week, the musician sang a song called Revolutionary by Josh Wilson. If you keep up with current Christian music maybe you have heard it. The music is lovely and the lyrics really lead to introspection.  The chorus of the song returns to “Why does kindness seem revolutionary, when did we let hate get so ordinary”. The artist wrote it to document all of the turmoil we experienced in 2020 and efforts for us to overcome this through kindness, collaboration and perspective.  

We have a lovely and eccentric gentleman who lives down the street from us. He is single, retired, served more than 40 years in the national guard and has been deployed many times. He always has older cars that seem to be in jeopardy of falling apart. When they will cost more to repair than what he paid for them he leaves them where they die. Monday very early as I pulled out of our driveway this neighbor was pulling into the neighborhood and his car was shooting flames out the back (imagine Back to the Future). As he turned onto his street he realized that the car was on fire. I yelled to him to park and get out while I called 911. He ran into his home to get the fire extinguisher but by then the car was too far engulfed. We stood together in our driveway as we waited for the Fire Department to arrive and we hoped that they could maybe salvage his belongings, even if the car was no longer drivable. Sadly, the car and virtually everything in it was a total loss. The fire investigator found that he had driven oven a sign post on the highway that someone else had hit and it punctured his gas tank. The post created the spark for the gas and he was lucky to escape when he did. 

Our neighborhood is amazing. People came to make sure he was ok, one of our neighbors has an older vehicle they will be selling (exactly the kind of on-its-last-legs cars that he likes) and people were quick to help with clean-up. They also shared with him how glad they were that he was ok. As Brian and I talked about this throughout the last few days we mentioned this song and the fact that our experience, even in this terrible event, reflects the kind of Nebraska that we want to live in.  And the kind of country that we want to live in. A place where when a tragedy strikes people call for help, and they support each other. A place where we tell our neighbors – I’m glad you are safe. A place where a police officer gently asks questions of an older gentleman moments after a shocking event and commiserates with him about the wallet that was on the front seat of the car – and is now burned up. A place where kindness isn’t that unusual.  

Prayer: Creator God, thank you for watching over us. Thank you for helping us spread your love and your kindness to our families, friends, neighbors and strangers. Help us to increase the spread of kindness everywhere that we go. Amen    

Christi Moock          

A Word from Jeremiah

 

I will put My law within them and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

They shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Jeremiah 31: 33b-34