PASTOR’S COLUMN – September 2024
“There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death.”
Proverbs 16:25
According to legend, former President George W. Bush was once in an airport lobby, when he noticed a man in a long, flowing, white robe with a long, flowing, white beard and long, flowing, white hair. The man had a staff in one hand and some stone tablets under the other arm. George W., struck by the man’s appearance, approached the man and asked “Aren’t you Moses?”
The man ignored George W. and stared at the ceiling.
George W., unaccustomed to being ignored, positioned himself more directly in the man’s view and asked again, “Aren’t you Moses?”
The man continued staring at the ceiling.
George W. then tugged at the man’s sleeve and asked once again, “Aren’t you Moses?”
The man finally responded in an irritated voice, “Yes I am.”
George W. asked him why he ignored him and the man replied:
“The last time I spoke to a Bush I had to spend forty years in the desert!”
The callings of God… and our resistance to them.
This Fall we begin a new Adult Bible Study in which we are going to be looking at the book of Exodus – the story of Moses. This will be an 8-session study with classes meeting every Wednesday at 7pm (beginning September 18), and all are invited.
But along with this “commercial announcement,” I was thinking about Moses, and most particularly, about the great calling that was asked of him:
To go forth and lead the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt.
I was thinking about what a frightening, costly, difficult thing and about how much he wanted to have nothing to do with this, tried to get out of it.
And I couldn’t help but wonder:
What would have happened if he had refused the call? Sure, he would have remained safe, comfortable, unbothered; but just think about how much he – and the world – would have missed out on.
My question for us all being: How are we doing the same? Specifically: How in our personal lives, and as a church, is God calling us to something brand new, calling us to break out of our comfort zones, calling us to allow great things to be asked of us; but we’re resisting – we don’t want to be bothered, to be upset, to be challenged? And what is this ultimately doing to us? How much are we missing out on?
As we begin to journey forth into this new church year, this is the question I would ask us each hold before us: How is God calling me to some new, scary, difficult, costly task? And how am I being held back because I’m insisting on going the way that suits me and not the way that suits God?
In Christ,
Rev. Clark Lynn Callender