THE SHEPHERD’S CORNER

The other day I got a call from somebody a few thousand miles away. She is a mother, who like Santy and I, is facing a similar problem: One of her children has abandoned her faith in Jesus. Like Santy and I, she is hurting. She told me that every day she calls her daughter and almost every day she receives no answer. Her daughter shuts her off from her life. Santy and I can relate to her.

Experiences like these remind us of a couple of things. First, we’re reminded of how fragile life is. Like Santy and I, she, too, raised her children in the Lord. She, too, prays for them and since early on, led them to church. But, then, one day everything changed. Her oldest rejected her faith and her younger one began to step out of faith. Like Santy and I, she, too, is confused, not knowing what went wrong. Life is fragile; we just do not know what the future holds.

The second lesson we can take away is this: Only faith can carry us through the uncertainty and surprises of life. In our deacons’ meeting, our brother Bram shared a lesson he recently learned. It’s about faith. He said, when David was anointed by Samuel to be king, he had no idea that as a result of that anointing, he would have to live in the desert as a fugitive and his own son would rebel and even try to kill him. David didn’t know and perhaps, had he known, he would have said, no, to God’s anointing. Faith carried David through all these uncertainty and surprises of life.

God’s willing, Santy will be back tomorrow. She is grateful to God for giving her the opportunity to see her childhood friend, who has been closer to her than a sister. Linda, her friend, now only weighs 25 kg. But, she remains strong; she does not mind losing the rest of her flesh. She knows she will receive a new body anyway.

Pastor Paul