New Opportunities
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I’m just excited and wanted to tell someone
This post is purely personal. I guess that’s ok to do here. It’s not for any publication, or any real purpose other than to share what God is doing in my life right now. Perhaps it will encourage someone that God isn’t done with us yet.
If you’ve read some of my posts (and if you haven’t, why not?) you will get some of my backstory. Suffice it to say here that I used to be in ministry, even full time for a while, and through a series of choices all that went away. It left in such a fashion that I never thought it would return. It was a miracle that I even began attending church again.
But attend church I did, and have been going to a Methodist church for about 3 years now. This is still an amazing fact to me, as I have been about as far away theologically from Methodist as you can get. But I found there people that love Jesus and that loved me, even before they knew me. It was refreshing and exactly the show of God’s grace and mercy that I needed, and continue to need today.
Well, I had been dipping my toe in serving in various ways at this church. I taught a couple of Sunday school classes, have sang a few special numbers, have helped take up offering and such. I did all this with great hesitation, but God was working on me.
It has culminated now in a recent sermon my pastor preached about the woman that touched the hem of Jesus’s garment. He brought out something I don’t remember ever considering, even though I have heard and told this story many times. Near the end of the sermon, he emphasized the risk that it was for that woman to touch Jesus. It was a risk for her to even be in town. According to the law, she was unclean, and anyone she touched would have been unclean as well. Her simple act of touching Jesus’s garment was actually an extremely courageous and bold risk. She was risking everything. The pastor then challenged us to risk.
Well, the next day the worship leader reached out to me about being in the worship band at church. I knew my answer right away, but put the decision off for a bit to “pray about it.” That’s “Christianese” for trying to talk myself out of it. But God had been preparing me and I am ready to step back up. I have sat on the sidelines for far too long. Yes, to many I may be fully…
