Greetings from Pastor Pat

Trust

My sister Carol and her husband Ray visited with us the middle of June.  Their first comment as they pulled into our drive was how green everything is.  Unfortunately, they have not received the rain in North Carolina as we have had and their brown yards are a testimony.  New plants that were just planted will most likely 
die.  The opposite has been true for this part of Berks County.  It has been perfect grass-growing weather and I have a newly planted yard to prove it! 

It’s the farmer in me that keeps me fixated on the weather, I just can’t help myself.  “Weather can make you or break you,” as the saying goes.  There is another saying that proclaims “you can talk about the weather but you can’t do anything about it.”  Truer words were never spoken! 

During times of heavy rains the name “Noah” and the idea of “ark construction” comes to mind.  The story of Noah is perhaps the most well known of all Bible stories.  You cannot go into a craft shop without seeing some reference to Noah, a dove, or the rainbow.   

The one take away for me when I think of the story is “trust.”  The story of Noah is about a man doing something totally ridiculous simply because God asked him to.  I know I am over simplifying the story, but when you boil the story down to its most minute particle, “trust” is the message. 

Faith is another word we use to talk about trust.  I have faith in God.  As New Testament believers we are called to have faith in Jesus, God incarnate.  That faith will be tested from time to time; you may be in the midst of that testing this very day, but this is what I believe.  God may have created the world but God does not control the world.  The planet that we live on is alive and sometimes rain comes and sometimes it does not.  Fires will burn out of control and if we are not careful we will get in the way.  Volcanoes erupt, sea winds ravage the coast, and the blustery winter winds will blow.  And all of the weather-related phenomena can also be used metaphorically to talk about life. 

But here, my beloved, is the bottom line; the dove will always, always, return with a branch of life in its beak and the rainbow will always, always be a sign of God’s promise.  It is where I place my trust. To coin a phrase of a friend Ernest Ephriam, The God I worship is not a liar!  Amen and Amen 

Blessings,
Pastor Pat