And Off We Go!
Treasured Friends,
It seems odd to write the words, “I’m starting a blog” halfway through the year 2024. Of course, you all know me well enough by now to know that I’m far more comfortable with books than computers, and that my preference in books tends to lie with the old over the new. So I suppose it’s no real surprise that I’m only beginning this endeavor long after the world has moved on from blogs to whatever is the new fad.
That said, I’m not writing this blog for the world, but for you. As your pastor, that is always my hope and aim: to do what I do for your sake. To hand over to you whatever I have to give of God and His wonderful promises, because those promises belong to you!
When I was first learning theology, I enjoyed theology for its own sake. Later I began to realize how pointless theology is – Christian theology, in particular – if it isn’t done for the sake of the people sitting in the pews, and trying to live out their faith day to day. So that’s my hope here. To offer something that will scratch my own creative itch, but only along the way to that far more important goal of giving you bread from God and His Word for the journey we share together.
I don’t know exactly how this will work out. I suppose it’s a little like launching a ship for the first time: will it float? Will we be blown off course? Did we account for all the obstacles and challenges we might encounter along the way? I hope this little exercise will prove beneficial enough for both of us that it will keep me writing and you coming back. I hope to post something here at least a few times each week, and perhaps more. I suspect the more this blog seems to serve a real purpose in our life together, the more motivated I will be to keep it up!
With that said, I hope you will let me know what you think of what you read. Believe it or not, I crave your thoughts. I love to know your opinions, and what you’re thinking about. If you have pressing questions related to our Christian faith, or just a random thing you’ve always wondered about, let me know and I will write about it. Again, I want this to be as much for you as it is for me.
***
This week, I was listening to a song that reminded me of a quote from a movie based on a book. One, ironically enough, that is all about a long journey full of unknowns.
Toward the very end of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings saga, in the final book The Return of the King, the brave hobbit Sam Gamgee is shocked to see the great wizard, Gandalf. Much earlier in the story, Sam and his traveling companions saw Gandalf fall into an abyss, which they assumed meant a fall to his death. Only now, at the very end, was Sam learning the joyous news that Gandalf, who had indeed fallen to the very depths of death and darkness, was back.
“Is everything sad going to come untrue?,” Sam exclaims as he tries to process how the sight of Gandalf now changes everything.
My beloved friends, I have no greater joy as your pastor than to get to tell you over and over again that everything sad is going to come untrue. Everything dark is going to become light. Everything hard is going to give way to everlasting joy.
As we run this race, we will hit obstacles. There will be dark times. But up ahead shines that everlasting light: our Lord lives! Our Lord reigns! And everything sad is going to come untrue.
On the journey with you,
Mike