I love Sundays. It’s the first day of the week. It’s a day we set aside to honor our Creator – for the local church to worship together, celebrate together, and grow together.
We were on one of our weekend Georgia visits, so I worshipped at the home of my spiritual roots. Dad began a series on minor prophets. It’s really a series on minor league prophets with major league issues. Yesterday, he covered Habakkuk.
What stood out the most to me besides the obvious despair, questioning of God, and rescue was that God was always in the middle of the mess. How easy it is to be in the middle of our stuff – our valley – our own despair, and wonder “where is God in this?” We pray fervently for Him to do something. To deliver. To take away the heartache. And, we question His presence in it all.
A good friend of mine is really going through a difficult time. Someone told him recently, “God is behind the scenes working in this.” His response made me laugh: “If He’s behind the scenes, man, He is way behind the scenes.”
It feels like that sometimes, doesn’t it?
But, He is. Not only is He behind the scenes, He is in the middle, and He is already ahead of you. Pray that God will open your eyes to see Him in your difficulty. When Elisha’s servant told him that enemy armies were standing against them, 2 Kings 6:17 says that “Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” And the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
God, open our eyes and let us see You. That you are a God who goes before us and makes a way.
Not sure what I’d do without those Sunday experiences. It’s a great start to a week, and an even better reminder that God is on the throne. And, He deserves my praise.
How was your Sunday experience?
DustyTakle.com 
Same as yours!!! Sundays at EWC are such a wonderful experiences.
Great post and thoughts!
A couple of years ago we started attending the Sat night service (we were caring for Dirk’s mom 24/7 at the time). We’ve never left!
So Sundays? They’re wonderful family times! We love it. Took a few weeks to get past the feeling that we were being heathens though. 🙂
I took love to be hear something that will get me through my week, with hope, yesterday, was a great service, always is. But when i got home, to hear some distressing news about a young baby that had a fatal accident, wow, did I need to KNOW God was there with them, and was listening to our prayers, and believing God’s will was the best for that child, trusting God, to impart that to my friend, but in the middle of all of that, she said, “I am fine, I have peace”, so, even non controlling circumstances, are in GOD’S hands, learned that Sunday. (for our eyes to opened to KNOW God is compassionate, loving, strong, moving….)Good to know. Your Dad did a great job on that message!
You were pretty super too, loved the blog!
I did not get to attend the service because it was my Sunday in the nursery. I got to spend two hours with an awesome baby boy named Lani. Beautiful brown hair, big blue eyes, a sweet baseball outfit – complete with a hat, and an unfortunate case of severe diaper rash. He’d had an allergic reaction to rice cereal this past Thursday and it was still bothering his tummy on Sunday. So momma Mandy, rocked and held and prayed over him the whole time. I even got a few giggles out of him. So we lathered on the Buttpaste, kept our diaper clean and got a few snores in before his momma picked him up. I love my babies and thank Him everyday for everyone of them that I can hold and love.
Robin, I think Saturday nights are a wonderful alternative!
Amanda, I love your response. You have the understanding that church isn’t about us, but about serving so others can come to know Him. How refreshing to hear someone share of their Sunday experience as a “contributor”. Awesome!
I didn’t get this one today. I had to come and get it!
I’m with Bonnie! Boo!
Boo & Kristen, my apologies. Must have been some sort of glitch across the web. I’ll talk to my people.
We are so much alike at times, Dusty. I have to give it to you. You are one of my earthly inspirations. Know that you are serving the Lord in all of your blogging.
Anyhoo, I absolutely love Sundays. Sunday has been my favorite day of the week since I was a child. I always wished that we had an assembly to start off our days at school. What a difference it would make. Plus, I love the time to rest and relax with my family.
Shortly after Kole was born and Michael and I seperated, I served as the maid of honor in one of our good friend’s wedding. Coincidentally, the wedding was in Madison. This is the town in Shady Dale that Michael and I spent most of our Sundays and planned to raise Kole in. This along with trying to remain joyful for this happy couple was extremly hard after a broken engagement. What do you think I chose to do to kill the pain in that instant? I got wasted. I became an embarassing mess.
Fortunately, a small group gathers in the place of her reception for a church service each Sunday. As they were setting up and rehearsing their praise songs, I felt the spirit fall on me. With the stain of red wine covering my designer dress, I cried, poured out my heart, and prayed. Of course this praise team gave me a card and invited me to the service. That Sunday I was definately too hungover to attend, probably still drunk. And the many Sundays afterward, I was just too ashamed to face these people again. This Sunday though, I decided to give it a shot. So thankful I am that I chose to drive that extra 15 minutes.
The service was laid back. The acoustics of the praise band was phenomenal. With the preacher having a background in theatre and law, I was able to relate pretty easily. He finished a series of sermons on the bondage of prison. Here are a few of the notes I took:
Prison takes you to a place out of your element. You are required to get along with other people in order to survive. Often times, personalities change after spending time in captivity.
9 Keys to Prison:
1. Prison is a state of mind.
2. No one in prison is who you think they are. It takes time and trials to really get to know someone.
3. No one is perfect.
4. Freedom can not be confined. In his explaination of this, he explained how a buzzard will not escape from an opened cage. So often, we as humans simply need to just change one behavior in order to escape.
5. Everyone wants to be free, but sometimes we become bound by our efforts to be free.
6. Everyone is afraid to be free.
7. Most people live in the past. This could explain the rate of return prisoners. We are all guilty of putting ourselves on probation. Give it to God. Let Him free you.
8. Most people let others define who they are. Instead, let God speak words of truth about you.
9. Freedom is really too good to be true.
We all have something in our lives that frequently holds us captive. I am certainly giving this some thought this week as I go into my first week of teaching at the college.