[amc] a note from the pastor
- From: "garland robertson" <pastor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Austin Mennonite Church" <amc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 12:49:18 -0500
Members and Friends of Austin Mennonite Church
Whenever someone claims to have heard God speaking and giving instruction to
them that must be passed on to those of us who for some indefinable reason
are unable to hear God directly, a certain tinge occurs. It is not that we
resist or seek to avoid a fresh, direct word from God. Rather it is that we
hesitate to embrace just any comment that originates from a source isolated
from our personal frame of reference. I suspect we all have a sense that
such an important 'divine word' must be processed by some method of
validation before it is taken into the soul to reorder and reorient our
practice of engaging life. We come to this cautious response because of our
experience. All of us recall incidents in which we have had a vague sense
that God might be urging us on to some action, yet we have no basis for
infallibly interpreting this intuitive perception. Is it our emotional
state that suggests this specific approach? Is it our ego that prompts this
particular action? Is it a psychological phenomenon that produces an
imaginary field of idealism into which we are invited? And we wrestle
simultaneously with another related concern: is this hesitation to move
ahead without criticism a lack of faith, a failure to be spiritually
spontaneous and courageous enough to risk the unexplored consequences of
this perceived option? We can find help by observing how persons before us
have sensed God's manner of communicating divine purpose. Perhaps by using
this history as a reference we can comfortably and confidently fashion
ourselves into witnesses that honor God's intention for the creation. These
thoughts will compose the sermon for this next Sunday, "Testimonies of
divine purpose."
May it go well with you. Sincerely,
Garland Robertson
...always hold firmly to the thought that each one of us can do something to
bring some portion of misery to an end
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