Thoughts Before the Fellowship Meeting

Tomorrow I will travel to Minneapolis, where I will spend part of the day with my daughter and her family. Afterwards, they will drop me off at a large hotel where a conference will begin that might change the tiny face of Presbyterianism a tiny bit. It also might result is nothing of significance. These two possibilities are each living in a future only God knows.

I believe in Personal  Providence, not in mechanical fate. While God is an eternal being and largely unknowable, He has entered our time (which is really His time, since He created all time.) This day, I feel very temporal, that is, very old, and yet I feel God’s eternal life in me, that is, I also feel very young. I will move through our times under the supervision and superintendence of the Trinity.  Bottom line, we are in God’s care.

God’s providential care is constructed of a vast matrix of millions of contingencies. They are finite. Each is under human control, within human freedom but under Devine superintendence. God will work His will for us through these human events. God will also work His in spite of all our foolish designs. The exact way this works is beyond my understanding yet I trust it still. Every triumphant and every tragedy of my life passed through Divine Providence. This Gathering is no exception to fact of God's perfect plan for His creation.

Hope is the activity of the heart where we dare to guess the outcome of a set of events. I hope this event produces something better than we currently have. I guess I hope, perhaps better to say “pray” tomorrow, Thursday and Friday will result in a new Church that will produce a set of programs through which the Gospel of Jesus Christ will more effectively reach the hearts of those who are lost. What I want is better evangelism. In the part of God’s Church I currently serve we are ashamed of the Gospel. I want that to change in a new Church structure.

I ought to desire God’s glory. I guess I do. Oh, piously he says, “I know I do.” Our prayer ought to be that in all things the glory of God is perfectly made manifest. Our disobedience brings no glory to God, our obedience does. May God glorify Himself in our Fellowship meeting. That is, may we be obedient to His will for us.

We are such cowards, God, give us courage to move boldly. At every decision, may we breathe a prayer – “Is this what you want for us, Father?” I trust the Bible to be a record of God’s own words. I know that nothing done that contradicts His clear biblical teaching can ever be His will and can ever glorify our God.

I remember feeling, after every General Assembly I attended that no glory resulted. We brought vain glory to the wicked cause of the Libertines. We brought vain glory to those of who called ourselves Renewalist. The Libertines have won their battle to license sin. This is the will of God. I accept that and understand that His ultimate will includes the sins of His children. Our Father, it seems, let us do foolish things and, He even transforms our folly into His wisdom. May it be so at this meeting.