Sweet and Lovely

Go get your Thelonius Monk out and put on "Sweet and Lovely." I know you have it.

SO, what a day in worship! The two 11 o'clock services were all in one place for Bill Arnold to preach. Bill is an Asbury Seminary Professor of Old Testament, a great pastor, teacher, mentor and friend. He gave a great sermon on "Love and Fear." I think we all know how to love God a little bit more now.

After the service, Ryan Neff said to me, "That's the best sermon you ever preached." I deserved that. But I will get him back.

Because it was a mixed service, we had a mixed bag of music-- very traditional, folkgrass, and praise songs. Our organist got backed up in traffic, so the folkgrass group played the Prelude. It was just nice to have so many people able to jump in and make the service work.

I don't know what it was, but I was just feeling worship all day long. I hope others were, too. At the altar call, I was praying with two folks and then I noticed Bill Arnold praying with Joseph. I had to wipe away some tears because I know why Joe is at the altar. He wants help from God to not be so sad about his mom dying. And there is Bill, someone so close to Joe's mom, Melissa, from years before Joe was born, praying with him and ministering comfort to him.

The evil one has been trying to discourage me on Sundays lately. Today it was fear that if something were to happen to me, how devastated would the boys, Nadia, and Jessie be, esp the boys. And would our mixed family get split up, and the boys not see their baby sister as much. Irrational, I know, but it's how the evil one works to discourage people, filling them with fear that can only be cast out by love. And so I knew also the touch of the Lord seeing Bill there with Joseph.