Words cannot describe how happy I am about our recent church picnic.

If you don’t know anything about it, our young adults, ELEVATION, treated the whole church to a Sunday afternoon picnic.  I arrived at the recreation complex where the event was held not really thinking about what I would soon witness.  For starters, the turnout was one of the largest for a picnic that our church has ever had.  Youth and young adults made up at least fifty percent of the group.  The difference…the food was being organized by young adults, the hamburgers and hotdogs were being grilled by young adults.  The games and recreation were organized by young adults.  FOR THE RECORD:  the whole thing was conceived, planned, organized and carried out by young adults.

For anything like this to take place it takes good leadership and for that I would like to thank those at the top of the heap:  Vance & Myra, Derek & Mela, and Brian & Andrea who led this young adult crew to a glorious success at serving our body of believers. 

Now understand that other ages contributed to the menu and to the recreation but that’s what family does.  One of my highlights for the afternoon was observing the kick ball game with Bill Burkard pitching and just about every age in the church playing on one of the teams.

I see a generation rising up to take their place in leadership in all areas of our church.

I applaud them for their love and commitment to God, each other and the family here at the Warehouse Church.

Randy

The Lord gave me a message Sunday, and as usual I didn’t want to speak to the crowd. Also, there were so many who spoke, I didn’t want to take up any more time. But He has impressed on me that maybe it was also for someone else. During the song, At the Foot of the Cross, the Lord spoke to me and told me, “You are a clutter bug; you have a lot of junk.”
He gave me these scriptures: Ephesians 3: 17b-20, “…And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us."
And Philippians 3:13b, …"Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

He gave me a vision of my physical life and inner most being. He revealed to me some of the junk in my physical life, such as my stash of magazines (in every room, baskets and stacks of magazines), collections of favorite things (I have a lot of favorites), craft and sewing stuff (I have been working on for over 30 years), and precious possessions that were passed to me from my mother or made by my children that I cannot bring myself to get rid of. He revealed to me the unrest all of this clutter creates in my life and how it suffocates me to be surrounded by so much stuff.

I love to have the things that were in my mother’s kitchen hanging in mine, it brings comfort and sweet memories, even if I never use them. I just like to look at them and they prompt me to share stories with everyone about my mother in her kitchen, the great meals she prepared from scratch, and all the baking she did. I have saved almost every card, gift, and creation my children have given me. They are precious reminders of cherished days gone by. The Lord showed me that my house and bedroom should be a place of rest and peace--my sanctuary, a place to go where I can peel off the world and find quiet and reprieve (I looked up the word reprieve and it said, “A brief period of rest and recovery between periods of exertion or after something disagreeable; To postpone somebody’s punishment; To provide somebody with temporary relief from something harmful, especially danger or pain; A stay of execution). But having so much clutter around me steals the peace and creates unrest, because I have an overwhelming feeling that I need to clean up or unclutter the suffocating stuff. It makes me feel claustrophobic.

He showed me that in the same way I have too much stuff in my inner most being. I have hung onto things for years that I should have shed. I have hung onto insecurities and hurts and wounds and offenses that I should have given to Him a long time ago. “Forgetting what is behind (Phil. 3:13b).” What am I going to do with them anyway? I have kept worries and tabs concerning my children (who are all grown) when I should have handed them over to the Lord and trusted Him with them. I cannot be everywhere and everything for my kids, but the Lord can. I need to leave all of it at the foot of the Cross.
He told me that I was suffocating my relationship with Him, because there is so much stuff I need to deal with and that I bring before Him every time I pray. If I would just give it to Him, He would deal with it and I would be rid of the very heavy burden and suffocating presence it brings. Then it would just be me and my Lord in my inner most being, my sanctuary “Filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:17b).” It would truly be my sanctuary of peace and rest and much more of my Lord.

Then after time alone with Him, He will help me deal with what to do with all the stuff in my physical world. And maybe some magazines in baskets aren’t so bad. 

Blessings, Becky Anderson