Day 3 -- Faith and Fear

A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" -- Mark 4:37-38

Haven't you ever felt that way when life's furious squalls come your way? The waves begin to break over your boat and you realize that you're probably not going to make it out of this one without some major damage. Do you every wonder, "Jesus, don't you care if I drown?"

Jesus is in the boat with his disciples. It's been a long day of teaching, preaching and healing, so he's catching a few winks before they get to the other side of the lake. Galilee was famous for it's sudden squalls. The sky would go from bright blue to gray to black in a matter of minutes and before you could do anything about it the wind and the rain were beating down. That's what happens to the disciples and it must have been pretty bad for these experienced fishermen to feel afraid.

That's what happens to us in life. We're experienced with stress. So when trials come we think we can handle it. Until it's a little too late. The thing is overwhelming us and we're about to drown before we admit fear and are willing to concede that we CAN'T handle it.

The thing about the disciples (an us) is that they had Jesus in the boat with them. Mark has worked his first three chapters to brilliantly establish the identity and authority of Jesus. Now he'll place the exclamation point on his work. Jesus wakes up and yells at the wind and the waves, and in an istant the lake is like glass. He looks at the disciples, and rolls his eyes as he says, "Where's your faith?"

The other day when we had a thundestorm, the lights in our house went out for about an hour. We scrambled for candles and flashlights. We have an entire collection of flashlights, but no batteries. I finally found one flash light that had tired, but working batteries. The light was strong ... at first. But as time went on its ray weakened and towards the end of the hour of darkenss it was flickering, sometimes on, sometimes off.

My faith tends to be like that flashlight. Sometimes piercing the darkness with a light whose strength surprsises even me. Other times weaker, but still working. And sometimes, when the darkness lingers as black as a starless, moonless night in the country, I find my faith flickering, sometimes on, sometimes off.

But here's the thing: No matter how weak (or strong) my faith shines, Jesus is always in the boat with me. The one who has power over the wind and the waves (and the darkness) is in my boat. And even when my faith is too weak, he will arise and act.

That's all I really needed to know ...

Ask God to give you a sense of HIS light shining in you even when your own faith is runing out of batteries.

Blessings,
Pastor Ellis

Day 2 -- No Moving Targets

There are several things I want to accomplish in my first 100 days as your pastor. One of the most important is to clarify our expectations. If you ask 1000 Baptists what they expect their pastor to accomplish you'll get about 1500 different answers (some Baptist are a little schizophrenic). Add to that the human tendency to change our minds ... and the end result is alot of moving targets. I'm pretty good at hitting targets. I think I hit them about 90% of the time. But when the targets start moving my accuracy plummets to 40% or less. Put 1000 moving targets in front of me and I go a little insane. Believe me ... you don't want an insane man preaching to you every Sunday (I've heard a few of them on TV and it's not pretty).

Hitting 40% of the targets may be good enough for some endeavors, but it's unacceptable when eternal lives are at stake. I want us to be able to hit the target atleast 90% of the time. In order to do that we need to nail down those targets. By the end of my first 100 days I want us to be clear on what targets (goals, initiatives, and expectations) we are going to hit in my first two years at FBC Richardson. I have a very specific method for discerning what those should be. I'll be sharing more about that over the next few weeks ... so keep in touch.

Until then ... reflect on these two questions:
1. What one thing would you want to preserve about FBC Richardson?
2. What one thing would you want to change about FBC Richardson?

You can answer in the comment section of this blog ... or, if you prefer privacy, you can email me your answers. Just click on the CONTACT button on the menu bar above for my email address.

Ask God to give you a heart that daily turns to Him and is able to discern the moving of His Spirit. Ask God to cover you with his Spirit of love and give you a hunger to be a part of what HE is doing in HIS Church.

Blessings,
Pastor Ellis