If God’s willing, this coming Thanksgiving we will have our annual retreat again.  This time the theme will be, “Prove What Is That Good and Acceptable and Perfect Will of God,” taken Romans 12:2.  I will divide this topic into four sub-topics: (a) Prayer and the Will of God, (b) Pain and the Will of God, (c) Temptation and the Will of God, and (d) Planning and the Will of God.  I hope we’ll gain a better understanding of the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.

Every child of God must grapple with, not only understanding, but also accepting the will of God.  The bigger the impact the will of God is on our lives, the harder it is to understand and accept it. How can we call losing our loved ones “good, acceptable, and perfect”? How can we call terminal illness “good, acceptable, and perfect”?  How can we call losing a job “good, acceptable, and perfect”?  Yet God challenges us to prove or in other translation, to test and approve, that His will is good, acceptable, and perfect.  So, let’s delve deeply into His will, learn why Paul calls it, “good, acceptable, and perfect.” 

On a slightly different note, I want to share with you the wonder of the mind.  What we think of when we talk about the wonder of the mind is usually the amazing power of the mind to process and store data.  Well, as I grow older, I have found another aspect of the mind that’s totally amazing: the power to forget!  You see, this semester I teach an online class on Wednesday and Thursday evening.  At the end of my class on Wednesday, I still talked about meeting with this same group of students on the following day.  What happened on Thursday really caught me by surprise: I completely forgot about it!  When a couple of friends came over and Santy suggested that we go out to dinner, I just said, yes.  It was after we got home that I had an epiphany: I suddenly remembered that I had a class to teach! O no! If all the gifts of the Spirit will one day cease, so will this gift of mind.

Pastor Paul