Beloved Ones- Here's another episode from the cold north country.
OUT OUR WAY: 26 Guardians
With the cold winter winds blowing, I am so grateful to the Church for sending Goliath and Babe two round bales of hay during Pastor Appreciation Month. They always catch me by surprise because in my 35+ of ministry, no other congregation has ever bothered. Goliath may have gotten the hay, but I’m the one feeling the warmth.
It’s a good thing too because its not only the Alberta Clippers than
send chills down my spine. Sometimes it is an e-mail from a friend with a
story of God’s faithfulness. Many of you may have read this on the internet as well and I have no way of knowing if the story is true – but neither have I any way of knowing the story is not true. As I have shared with you some of the
inexplicable events I have heard about or personally witnessed, I am
not unaware that miracles and the miraculous are still occurring in our
world for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. So while the tale
may be nothing more than one of those
phony stories that make the rounds on the e-mail from time to time, it
might also be a real event accurately reported. Nevertheless, it gave
me chills.
Briefly, the story revolves around a
missionary in Africa who regularly made the rounds between villages on
his bicycle. Due to the distance between the villages, he was obliged to
camp out in the wild bush on his journey between the two missions.
AS the story goes, on one of his trips he came across two men fighting and one of them
was severely injured. The missionary stopped to give him aid and then
continued on his way without incident. Sometime later, that man came
into one of the missions and confessed that he and a gang of thieves had intended to rob and kill the missionary. However,
when they approached his camp they discovered 26 armed guards
surrounding the site and the cutthroats retreated in panic and fled in
terror from the camp. The missionary was amazed at the story and told
the man, “You must be mistaken, for I was quite alone as always that
night.” “ No, no mistake,” the man replied, “ we counted twice and we
all see 26 men. You were not alone!”
Sometime later while on furlough, the missionary related this story to one of the sponsoring congregations of his mission, when he was suddenly interrupted by one of the
church members. “ What day did this event happen? What was the date?”
The missionary told him and then the man turned around and addressed
the congregation.
“On that very day I had an overwhelming sense of urgency
to pray for this man – and so I did. But I also had the sense that
others needed to be praying as ell so I contacted my prayer group. I
want every member of my prayer group who prayed that day for this man as I did to stand up.” Exactly 26 men arose.
Now in this day and age of skepticism and secularism, such a story is likely to be dismissed as sheer malarkey and just another one of those phony baloney stories that circulate on the Internet all the time. And perhaps it is.
But what if it is not?
What if God really IS at work in our midst today and that we are not
merely accidental life forms floating aimlessly on a ball surrounded by
the abyss and nothingness of empty space? It doesn’t matter what you believe about the story of the 26 Guardians – what matters is what you believe about the God Whose existence make the story possible.
On these cold winter days there are good chills and bad chills. Being
outside when its 40 below is one sort – meditating and realizing the
possibility of the Living God actively at work in your own life is another. When I have that second kind of chill working its way through my soul, the other kind doesn’t seem to matter as much.
Dr. Bruington is pastor of First
Presbyterian Church in Havre. Goliath’s book, Out our Way, Theology
Under Saddle is available on order from Amazon.com or from “The Press”
Christian Book store in the Holiday Village Mall.
OUT OUR WAY: 26 Guardians
With the cold winter winds blowing, I am so grateful to the Church for sending Goliath and Babe two round bales of hay during Pastor Appreciation Month. They always catch me by surprise because in my 35+ of ministry, no other congregation has ever bothered. Goliath may have gotten the hay, but I’m the one feeling the warmth.
It’s a good thing too because its not only the Alberta Clippers than send chills down my spine. Sometimes it is an e-mail from a friend with a story of God’s faithfulness. Many of you may have read this on the internet as well and I have no way of knowing if the story is true – but neither have I any way of knowing the story is not true. As I have shared with you some of the inexplicable events I have heard about or personally witnessed, I am not unaware that miracles and the miraculous are still occurring in our world for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. So while the tale may be nothing more than one of those phony stories that make the rounds on the e-mail from time to time, it might also be a real event accurately reported. Nevertheless, it gave me chills.
Briefly, the story revolves around a missionary in Africa who regularly made the rounds between villages on his bicycle. Due to the distance between the villages, he was obliged to camp out in the wild bush on his journey between the two missions.
AS the story goes, on one of his trips he came across two men fighting and one of them was severely injured. The missionary stopped to give him aid and then continued on his way without incident. Sometime later, that man came into one of the missions and confessed that he and a gang of thieves had intended to rob and kill the missionary. However, when they approached his camp they discovered 26 armed guards surrounding the site and the cutthroats retreated in panic and fled in terror from the camp. The missionary was amazed at the story and told the man, “You must be mistaken, for I was quite alone as always that night.” “ No, no mistake,” the man replied, “ we counted twice and we all see 26 men. You were not alone!”
Sometime later while on furlough, the missionary related this story to one of the sponsoring congregations of his mission, when he was suddenly interrupted by one of the church members. “ What day did this event happen? What was the date?” The missionary told him and then the man turned around and addressed the congregation.
“On that very day I had an overwhelming sense of urgency to pray for this man – and so I did. But I also had the sense that others needed to be praying as ell so I contacted my prayer group. I want every member of my prayer group who prayed that day for this man as I did to stand up.” Exactly 26 men arose.
Now in this day and age of skepticism and secularism, such a story is likely to be dismissed as sheer malarkey and just another one of those phony baloney stories that circulate on the Internet all the time. And perhaps it is.
But what if it is not?
What if God really IS at work in our midst today and that we are not merely accidental life forms floating aimlessly on a ball surrounded by the abyss and nothingness of empty space? It doesn’t matter what you believe about the story of the 26 Guardians – what matters is what you believe about the God Whose existence make the story possible.
On these cold winter days there are good chills and bad chills. Being outside when its 40 below is one sort – meditating and realizing the possibility of the Living God actively at work in your own life is another. When I have that second kind of chill working its way through my soul, the other kind doesn’t seem to matter as much.
Dr. Bruington is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Havre. Goliath’s book, Out our Way, Theology Under Saddle is available on order from Amazon.com or from “The Press” Christian Book store in the Holiday Village Mall.
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