Hearing God in the Family

Written July 5 - 

It's a Sunday morning at the cabin. For many years our habit here as a family was to go into town on Sunday mornings to the church that my father-in-law had pastored way back in the late '50s and early 60s. Today we're gathering as a family on the deck and in a while we will join together in a time of worship right here.

When I got up today I was thinking about what we might successfully be open to what the Lord wants to say to us during our worship time. I'm sure we'll have a great time singing and praising Jesus together. We have an abundance of musicians in this group. But how will we hear God's voice together? We're not planning on having anyone preach.

So far this morning two little Bible verses have presented themselves to me as perhaps most relevant to our time together.

• The first is from Mark 6. Jesus in this section has gone to his home town but there many of the people there were offended by him. He then says, in verse 4, that a prophet is not generally honored among his relatives. 
• And the second is from Hebrews 13:7 -- in that verse the Lord also speaks to us about honor. The context here has been about honoring and respecting the government and those in authority--but verse 7 moves us to honoring--and loving--everyone.

How can we honor the Word that God is speaking to us here at the cabin this morning during our family worship time when it is our very own relatives that will be speaking that Word to us? How can we be open to hearing the Lord speak to us through those we know?

Written July 6 - 
We did have a sweet worship time yesterday morning. It was capped off by Toni's dad Dick Dahlin sharing The Words of Institution and the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper with us, right there on the cabin deck. We joined in prayers of thanks and prayers of intercession. God's Love and God's Word blended together in a way that allowed freedom, vulnerability and prayer to flow. They flowed even though we don't all see everything in identical ways. And the questions I asked above stay open, and other questions arose. Still, I will trust God to be active through His Word and in ways I cannot fully understand. I would do it again.

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By the way, I'm home in Cokato now. Today our class finished our time at the Metro Transit Instruction Center. In the morning I'll head in to the Fred T. Heywood garage otherwise known as FTH or "Heywood." I was assigned to that garage last week. Tomorrow we'll be oriented to garage operations and will "pick" the work (routes) that we'll be trained to drive. Lots more to learn.

Here in Cokato I was able to do some pastoral work in the last few hours. I also mowed the lawn. It's good to be home.

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