To My Church

But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance, persecutions, afflictions... what persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

-II Timothy 3:10-17

I don't talk about my faith a lot on this blog. I have never been a deep theological person, and I very rarely will come out and talk about my walk and my faith. There come times, though, that life is wrought with spiritual battles and it all seems to hit at the same time. At these times, I find it hard to not think about my faith, and when I'm thinking about God, God spills onto the page as I write. 

I'm 6000 miles away from my church family right now, but through a variety of different mediums, I have heard about the fight that the church has been up against. At first, I breathed a sigh of relief. "Good for me," I thought, "I escaped just in time. Thank you, God!" And then it kept piling up, one thing after another. and I began to feel guilty for not being there to stand and fight with them and helping in anyway that I could. 

The worst thing you could do when you read this is leave a comment and say, "Don't worry about us; you have a higher calling and more important things to worry about us. You just worry about what you're doing." I know you people mean well, but that church is my church, will always be my church, and when things go down in my church, I want to help fight with the church family who's been there for me in some tough times. Particularly over the past month. 

I know that not many of the people from church read this, but for those who do, this post is for you. It's not a lot, but it's the only help I can offer you from a different hemisphere. I can only encourage and uplift you, and let you know that prayers are going up from here, as I know that they've been going up for me from all of you. This fight is for a reason. Something good is going to happen. Something is right on the horizon that is going to make this little taste of Hell that so many families have been having in their lives seem worth it. Hang in there and be strong. I know it all seems cliche. I hate cliches. My friends know that more than anyone. But it's the truth. Do not give up.  That's the only thing that I can say.

Pretty much anyone who has been in church for any length of time (or has happened to turn on the radio and heard the song) is familiar with Ecclesiastes 3.

1	To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2	a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which isplanted;
3	a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4	a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5	a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6	a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7	a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8	a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
9	What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboreth?
10	¶ I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.
11	He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

God will make these battles worth it in his time. He's still there even if some of you can't see him. This will not last forever. If you notice, the time of war is listed before the time of peace. The peace does come. Just a little later.

I don't think that this is one of the best posts I've ever written. Probably one of the least literary sound pieces, actually. But I hope that someone was able to draw some encouragement out of it.