When times of refreshing come

 

“Mr. Miller, your father has died in an accident.  We are sorry.”

“Mr. Miller, you owe $20,000 in back payments because your accountant did your taxes wrong for the last five years in a row.”

“Mr. Miller, your little girl has a degenerative illness for which there is no cure.”

Geez.  All of these things and more have been said to me in the last few years of my life.  I’ve been tempted to look back to ‘the good old days’ when things were easier.  The sun seemed to rise brighter, I slept better, my body hurt less.

I think that we all have a sense of idealism that tells us at an early age that ‘life is good’, as the t-shirt says.  Life is good – there is so much to be thankful for.  But all of us know that at some point our idealism can begin to crumble, leaving the harsh reality of how hard life really is.  This often takes our mind to a pretty dark place.

A tragedy strikes.  Marriage is a lot harder than you thought it would be.   Your kids are turning out quite differently than you’d planned.  Money is tight, the rat race seems to be never-ending, and the wrinkles in the mirror are a reminder than you’re not getting any younger in the midst of this weary battle.

The Bible is not always a happy book either.  I don’t think there is any sort of pain or suffering that could happen to a person that is not found documented in a real life somewhere in the Bible.  As we read it, really read it, we are often shocked at what we find seemingly hidden between the well-known and often-quoted familiar passages.

As soon as they learned to read I have taught my kids to read the Bible cover-to-cover.  Some of it is R-rated and needs to be saved for a more mature age.  Over the years it is a normal thing for one of my boys to bring up a passage they read the previous night and ask me how in the world something like that could be.  It lends to great discussion.

In the middle of all of these harsh realities we also have wonderful promises.  And often eternal life seems to invade our gritty gravity.  I remember taking a long walk in college one day; youthful angst had gotten the best of me which led to me neglecting my classes and exploring the edges of the campus in search of something yet defined.  I turned a corner in the woods and came upon a huge field of wild flowers.  The fragrance and the beauty of it all swept me up and put things in perspective.  Everything was going to be OK.  Often God works that way in our lives.

In Acts chapter 3 we have a little phrase that speaks of these things.  Throughout this book, which records the history of the early Christian church, we see members of the same hunted down, jailed, and executed.  Yet in the midst of this and throughout this book we see incredible joy and love among God’s people.

The word says this: “Repent and return that your sins may be wiped away, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”

So it is today.  We draw near to the Lord in the midst of our daily struggles and we experience refreshing.  It may be a field of flowers, it may be something very plain, or it may be something that transcends the rational and causes you to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the presence of God is near.

In all these times we are given little appetizers of eternal life.  It is as if it breaks in to the now, even for just a moment, and reminds us that, as 1 Corinthians 2:9 says, our eyes have never seen and our ears have never heard and our minds cannot even imagine what great things God has coming up soon for those who love him.

This Week’s Calendar

Click above for a list of groups meeting this week.

Upcoming Events

We meet every Sunday at 10:00 am
to worship God together, and throughout the week in home groups all over the city. Please click the link to the left for a complete schedule of home groups.

Our Community

At VCC, we believe that church is not a function: it is a family. Our religion is only as alive as we are, the people that pursue it. So, rather than acting as an organization, we want to act as an organism. We have no time for casual contacts and meaningless formalities. We are a fellowship on an adventure towards the stuff of God. Church means worshipping God together, studying the Bible together, fixing our cars together, hiking together, eating together, playing together, praying together... enjoying the warmth of the Holy Spirit in all parts of our lives together, not just in appointed meeting times.