God's Workmanship

Having recently celebrated another birthday (as I have heard it said “this was the 20th celebration of my 39th birthday”), I have come to appreciate some of the finer things of this life. I believe those finer things are the people God brings into our lives.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we have some pretty fantastic people around our church. I have been particularly “blown away” by some of the young people who are interning at Washington Cathedral in areas of ministry. These men and women have a love for God that is inspiring to watch. They all have jobs, go to school, and yet find time to serve the church in amazing ways. They are people like Becca White, McKenzie DeBow, David Gunther, Sara Clark, Ben McCary and Ricardo Uribe. If you ever think that God’s workmanship is in anyway lacking in our young people, you need to sit down with anyone of these people and just talk to them for a few minutes. You will find out that God has prepared some great people to do His work. They organize and lead some of our worship services; they lead praise teams; they lead youth groups, and they display the love of Christ while they are doing God’s work.

Last Saturday night at about 7:30 pm, after dinner in the HRC, Rich and I walked through the Atrium and saw Becca White and Ben McCary stacking and rearranging chairs for the 8:00 service. I stopped and asked if they needed any help because it looked like a big job for just the two of them. Becca smiled and said “No thank you, this is a good time for us to pray for the service while we’re moving the chairs.” I walked out and breathed a prayer of “thank you Lord for people like Becca and Ben--I know Your work will continue because of Your workmanship in them.”

I could tell you similar stories about each of the interns but we’ll save those for later. My prayer for all of us is that we all take stock of the finer things in our lives--the people around us – those works of God doing what they were created to do.

Great Master, teach us with Your skillful hand;

Let not the music that is in us die!

Great Sculptor, hew and polish us;

nor letHidden and lost, Your form within us lie!

—Horatius Bonar

God Loves Science

He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power, his understanding has no limit. Psalm 147:4-5

My Dad taught me to love the stars. He pointed out the constellations to me and told me their names. Our family camped in the Adirondack Mountains for two weeks each summer. That was the best place for stargazing.

The air was clean and there wasn’t much manmade light to mess up the show. The sky was spectacular. We’d stare into the vast canopy until our necks were sore.

Science doesn’t dim the wonder of Nature; in fact, it can be a lens that allows us to look more deeply into God’s handiwork.
Dr. Paul Brand was a pioneer in restorative surgery for leprosy victims. He said, “I have been through medical school, and was trained in surgery. I learned about anatomy and physiology and pathology. I studied germs and cancer. I know what to do when people are injured. Yet, I have come to realize that every patient of mine, every new-born baby, in every cell of its body, has a basic knowledge about how to survive and how to heal, that exceeds anything that I shall ever know. That knowledge is the gift of God, who has made our bodies more perfectly than we could ever have devised.”

Molecular Biologist and author, Dr. John Medina, has said, “When you are curious, you become fearless. You don’t care what’s out there. You just want to know. Curiosity has the strong ability to make you look at the world with wide-eyed wonder and ask How was this made?”

Dr. Medina is very clear about the passion that animates his scientific investigations...

“Curiosity means more to me than I can tell you. It even influences my theology. If you are curious enough about your origins, you’ll bump face-to-face with Jesus Christ – because nobody else is out there.”

Scott Burnett

If you’re interested in hearing more from Dr. John Medina, he’ll be interviewed by Pastor Tim in our Sunday morning services on August 26th.

A Time of Inspiration

And I have put my words in your mouth and hidden you safely in my hand. I stretched out the sky like a canopy and laid the foundations of the earth. I am the one who says to Israel, ‘You are my people!’ Isaiah 51:16 (NLT)

Weekly at our staff meetings we have been discussing in sequence each book of the Bible. This past week our topic was Psalms. We all agreed how much the Psalms mean to each of us because they are a collection of poetry and in this collection there is a Psalm that speaks to just about every human emotion we have experienced or will experience.
We shared with each other our favorite of the Psalms and as each person shared their favorite, everyone was blessed by the other’s sharing. We then had an assignment to take 10 minutes to write devotionally about our favorite Psalm. Many had some wonderful things to share, but one particular person when they shared everyone in the room knew that this was a “God inspired” moment.

Merriam Webster Dictionary defines “inspiration” as “a divine influence or action on a person believed to qualify him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation.” The pause of silence (which it is very unusual for our staff to experience silence in one of our meetings) and the look of reverence on everyone’s face exposed to any observer that this is a “divine moment” inspired by God.

The favorite Psalm of this person was a favorite of many – Psalm 23. And as she shared her inspiration, she did so with such humility saying “I just wrote Psalm 23 in my own words; nothing special.” Then she went on to read what she wrote down. Here is Psalm 23 as Pastor Marilyn Biggs was inspired to paraphrase it for us (Our prayer is that you find it as divine as we did at the reading of these words):

Psalm 23Paraphrased by Marilyn Biggs

The Lord is my shepherd-And I am one of his little lambs
He leads me and guides me and walks with meAnd protects me and provides for me.
When I am going through difficult times and dark placesHe walks with me through them.
He comforts me and when I am sad or hurting.My cup overflows,
And His goodness and love and mercy are always with me.
And that will continue all the days of my life here on earth and in Heaven forever.