Pastor's Message
August 2024
Pastor Ivy Gauvin
The Short Hot Summer
Do you remember the song, “The Long Hot Summer” by Jimmie Rogers? It was the theme song to the 1958 movie by the same name. Everyone has been talking about how quickly this summer is flying, so it's like “The Short Hot Summer.”
What have you been doing this summer? Are you more involved in physical activities like golf, kayaking, swimming? Are you trying to stay cool inside, getting some long awaited reading done? What else have you been doing? Whatever it is, have you sensed God's presence with you? We cannot escape God. The psalmist wrote:
Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night’,
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Many of us have a greater sense of communion with God while in nature. I always think of the first few verses of Psalm 19 when it comes to God's presence in nature:
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
Why do we need to get together when we can spend time with God in the outdoors? It's not a matter of either/or, but of both/and. It's not just for our own benefit that we gather with other believers; we can encourage others. As we as a community sing and worship, we can lift the struggling. By the same token, sometimes we struggle, and those of the family of God lift us up.
I will never forget a particularly difficult period when my family and I were living in the Holy Land in the 1980s. It was rumored that radicals wanted to kidnap Americans. Also, at that time, there were many roadblocks between Bethlehem, where we lived, and Jerusalem, where we went to church. Would we make it back? We never knew from one time to the next. However, it was in the company of the people of God that the liturgy of worship lifted me. We were unaware from hour to hour, minute to minute, what would be next. However, the steadiness, the repetition of the liturgy, lifted me and gave me peace. I could count on it. We can count on God and our brothers and sisters in Christ.
God's peace be yours,
Pastor Ivy