The Cost of Obedience - 1-30-18

Ruth opens this evening's church gathering with songs and praises to God. Hands are clapping. A tambourine jingles. Bodies are moving in time to the music, keeping step with the Spirit. Ruth and the other musicians switch from English to Spanish and back again. Every time she switches to Spanish, it as if the small congregation receives new fuel. They sing enthusiastically. “Send the rain and open the floodgates of heaven.”

Our team is asked to share and many of us take a turn up front, sharing what God has been showing us. We look out on a see of faces. Young and old. Men and women. Latinos and Non-Latinos. The people have made us feel so welcome, we feel like family. Steve Slyder tells the story of the beggar at the temple who had nothing and was asking for money and how Peter came and by the power of God, healed the beggar. God gave the beggar one hundred times over what he asked for, Steve says. That's what he's doing here for us. We didn't know what to expect when we came, but we have been blessed abundantly. Jeff Stock speaks of unity. Glenn Martin says how this is a week he and Millie will never forget. Many of the team say how they have received immense blessing by coming.

I don't want to speak. Fibromyalgia has been rearing it's ugly head today and the pain is pretty bad. I sit in my chair, arguing with myself. I feel too sick to get up there. If I get up there and it hurts too bad I'll get clumsy and I'll get confused about what I want to say and it will be awkward. But I feel God, clear as day saying, “No, I'd like you to go up.” I make my way up front and look at Pastor Carlos. Well, here goes.

I greet everyone and then say that I hadn't expected to feel hit so hard by the stories I have been hearing and the people I have met. But, I say, it hasn't been hitting me in a bad way. I don't feel a lack of hope from the devastation. Rather, I have seen what Job 1:21 says, “The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” I don't understand it, though you have been through so much, you are still praising God. The congregation nods, with a few soft teary eyes too. I thank them for their testimony. They have made a big impact on me.

Pastor Carlos shares his story then. He chokes up as he talks about his oldest son, Josiah. After the flood, Josiah asked him, “What are you going to do to help?” Pastor Carlos said, “Son, we are a small church. We can do nada, nothing. Josiah asked again, “What are you going to do to help. You preach about helping.”

“I have never said 'no' since that day,” Pastor Carlos said. We would get food and hand it out and the food would be almost gone and here would come another truck with more food. The sanctuary was stacked full of it. We have been able to help so many. Being a Pastor is hard. I don't know where the money will come from. I don't know how everything will get done, but God is faithful and just when we needed something, it came, every single time.”

There is a cost of obedience, a cost to following God, to listening for his spirit and obeying when he speaks to us. But the cost is not devastation. The cost paid out to us one hundred fold over is hope and restoration and joy. Job lost everything and received back several times over what he had. God has been doing the same for His people here at Templo Emmanuel and Pasedena Alliance and many others in the Houston area. God is good.