Dear Church Family – 

My son goes to the gym.  He hates January at the gym because all the newbies come with their New Years resolutions to get fit and they don’t always know what they are doing, they crowd the space, etc.  So often he will go late at night when it’s less crowded.  He said the upside is that most quit after a few weeks and things return to normal.  Yikes!

We are over the halfway mark to Easter.  Have you had a chance to get alone with God, to seek His face, to ask the Holy Spirit to shine His light on those areas that need attention?  We don’t want to give up at this point.  Keep going, or get started!  I get it, we are busy.  Life is happening all around us and we have things to do.  It reminds me of a song I learned in Sunday school as a little girl based on the story in Matthew 22:1-14, called, “The Wedding Banquet” by Sister Miriam Therese Winter

.  It’s about a man who was having a wedding feast and invited his neighbors to come.  He prepared a lavish banquet, and the chorus was their reply, “I cannot come.  I cannot come to the banquet don’t trouble me now.  I have married a wife, I have bought me a cow.  I have fields and commitments that cost a pretty sum.  Pray hold me excused I cannot come“.  The man goes on to invite others yet his table was still not full.  He sent for the blind and lame and anyone who would come.  It ends with: “God has written a lesson for the rest of mankind; if we are slow in responding, He may leave us behind.  He’s preparing a banquet for that great and glorious day, when the Lord and Master calls us, be certain not to say, “I cannot come…“.

Last year, Dylan Thomas, John Michael Howell, Josiah Queen and Zachery Lawson wrote a song called “Dusty Bibles”, the chorus saying:  “We got dust on our Bibles, brand new iPhones; we wonder why we feel this way“.

Whether you exercise your faith on a regular basis or only when in a tough spot; if you have dust on your Bible or read it a lot; I encourage you to seek the Lord while He may be found.  We all have burdens but we can lay them down.  

The whole purpose for Easter was to restore our relationship with God, for He longs to spend time with us.  He invites us to His table to sup with Him.  Please don’t reply, “I cannot come.”