Pastor's Note | Saturday, May 24th

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Isaiah 40.28-31 in which the Lord asks the people of Israel a profound question in the midst of the threat of captivity in Babylon:

Do you not know?
   Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
   the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
   and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
   and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
   and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
   will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
   they will run and not grow weary,
   they will walk and not be faint.

It's a powerful promise of God's redemption and strengthening in the face of calamity. It's a potent portent of delivery and being cared for and delivered in the face of catastrophe.

I think that the emphasis on hope resonates with us all. So it should. God is ultimately in control of things like efforts to align with a denomination that better supports our call to make disciples. God is in control of things like transitions of pastoral leadership. God is in control of our individual futures and Good Shepherd's corporate future. I expect us to "hope in the Lord" so that we experience the wonder of soaring "on wings like eagles... running and not growing weary... walking and not growing faint" as we go through these transitions.

But did you catch the phrase "...and his understanding no one can fathom?" The everlasting (or "always existing") God, the Creator... no one can fathom.

The term "fathom" is derived from the Latin word "pandere" that means "to spread out." In Old and Middle English "faethm" meant "the length of outstretched arms." From there the use of "fathom" has come to include two things: 1) a unit of length equal to six feet (approximately 1.8 meters), chiefly used in reference to the depth of water, and 2) a verb meaning to understand (a difficult problem or an enigmatic person) after much thought.

How can we "fathom" a God who is utterly other than we are? How can we know God who is beyond our ability to comprehend?

We can know God because our Creator has, thankfully, disclosed things to us that we can comprehend. We can know God yet we can never say we know God fully. That's an on-going process of "fathoming".

So, I am very enthused as we embark on a new series of messages on "Strengthening the Soul of Your Faith." This is a great opportunity for us to go deeper in our understanding of God, deeper in our experience of God's presence and hearing God's voice, and deeper in our understanding of ourselves in relation to God and other people.

I cannot fathom a more significant pursuit.

On another note, the pledges towards the Joint Solution are nearing the $200,000 mark. Thank you for your support and generosity. Please continue to pray for a gracious separation when the Presbytery votes on our Joint Solution on June 7th.

Pastor Jim