Midweek Message: Keep Going

2 Thessalonians 3:5 May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance. (NIV)

 When I was in High School, I enjoyed all sorts of athletic sports, especially anything to do with running. I was on the school’s senior sprint relay team, but I much preferred the middle and long distance events. I enjoyed running laps around the track and usually ended up as one of the first three runners to finish a race. The secret was to pace myself and to endure the number of laps required and then, with a burst of speed on the last lap, overtake most of the other runners.

 One season, my gym teacher invited me to represent the school in a cross-country race. I had never done this before, but I thought it would easy because I could cover the distance. When the race started, I was determined to keep up with the leading pack, but they were running much faster than I anticipated. I very soon got winded and fell back down the field. I had not anticipated the difficulties of running up and down hillsides, instead of being on a flat track. As I watched many other competitors gleefully run past me, I realized I was in the wrong kind of race. After it was over, I was glad to get back to running on a flat field.

 I still admire cross-country runners to this very day. Their perseverance and stamina, as well as their focus and determination, are qualities I deeply respect. They taught me a lesson about endurance which I often find relevant in today’s church world.

 Maintaining our faith in these trying times frequently requires patience and perseverance. The ups and downs of our daily lives are sometimes difficult to endure. Congregations like our own sometime experience bumpy roads and even a few setbacks. Thankfully, however, just as today’s verse amply expresses, God’s love always guides us while Christ’s perseverance helps us to prevail.

 May Jesus continue to bless us as a church of God’s people who faithfully keep going on.

Book review" Out of Colditz by David Lascelles

As a kid growing up in Scotland, I can remember both the movie “The Colditz Story,” and the television series simply called “Colditz.” Both were dramatic representations of what actually occurred to Allied Prisoners of War during World War 2. My impression was that the survivors of Colditz were national heroes and great escapers, so when I began reading David Lascelles’ book “Out of Colditz” I was intrigued by what happened to his father during the last year of World War.

I had never heard of the group of men called ‘The Prominente’ who were kept in isolation from the other prisoners because of their connections to the Royal family and European political leaders. It was interesting to note that they were largely being used as pawns to possibly negotiate surrender deals with the victorious Allied Forces.

Lascelles personal experiences with the German Commandant’s family as he researched material for his book were also fascinating. He gave us ‘the rest of the story,’ especially when he described several events which the Colditz Commandant used to gain some credible defense of not following Hitler’s orders to kill his prominent prisoners.

The book is well written and provides an ample history of some of the last days of the Second World War in Europe and the subsequent war-criminal trials. I would recommend it to anyone who is really interested in the Allied prisoners and the defeat of Germany in World War 2.

The book will be published by St. Martin’s Press in January 2027

Midweek Message: Have Patience

Ecclesiastes 7:8   Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. (ESV)

            Sometimes when I am looking for a quick answer to things and pray for a swift resolution, the Bible reminds me that God’s timing may not be the same as my own. Take today’s highlighted verse, for example. It’s a wise way of telling us to slow down and wait for a positive result rather than hastily trying to enforce our own. We all look for a quick end to our issues, problems, and struggles, but sometimes we have to endure what’s happening for a while before we can reach a satisfactory conclusion. Sometimes this occurs when we’re recovering from an illness, surgery, or treatment, or when we’re looking for news about a meeting, a problem at work, or an incident with our family.

 

              I like what the ancient teacher has to write about being patient in spirit rather than being proud. It’s meant to teach us a lesson that patience requires some level of humility in order to reduce our anxiety and diminish our concerns. How many times have we worried about something that never transpired, or lost sleep over an issue that was never fulfilled? Rather than wasting our time with ‘what ifs,’ God often invites us to place all our anxieties into Christ’s hands and wait for the right moment for everything to be revealed or fulfilled.

 

              May God be with you and all your loved ones today, blessing you with patience and faith, hope and love.

 

Pastor John