Preaching to the Baptist's in the Back

Church was great today! It was soooooooooo good to be back in fellowship!



The message was on being optimistic. It contained a lot of stuff I needed to hear about looking at situations with optimism. We saw a film clip from the movie "Alive" about the Uruguayan soccer team crashing in the Andes and how those that survived 70 days in the wintry mountains had optimism keeping them going. Paul, our pastor, shared about how Caleb came back to Moses with a spy report and said "we can take that land", but the others advised against it out of fear. Paul said that if we don't look at things optimistically, the outcome isn't very optimistic!



He used an analogy about a bunch of grapes. When you open the fridge to eat some grapes, sometimes in that bunch, there is one grape that looks rather "malignant" he said. I chuckled at that. He asked "what do you do with that bunch of grapes? Do you throw them all away? He said, "no, you remove that malignant grape and throw it away and then enjoy the rest of the grapes." Paul explained that often times we get so fixated on that one tiny malignancy, that we don't enjoy the rest of life.



Paul talked about how we need to learn to be optimistic in the face of many turns in life, including: Challenge, Adversity, Failure, Change and God's Work. It was a great message.



At one point Paul said "hey, I just thought of something...everyone stand up and turn around." So we all obliged and then he went hustling back into the sound booth at the back of the church. It was funny because on his way back up the aisle he said "everybody watch me, oh, I'm in a hurry, I have to go to the bathroom!" LOL Anyway, once he was back in the booth, he started preaching from there! He said, be optimistic about this change...those of you who normally sit in the back are now in the front. HA! This is one way to preach to the Baptist's in the back! and those in the front are now uncomfortable with being in the back." It was an interesting illustration for us today.



It is amazing how God speaks through His people and can use humor to do it! I was laughing a lot during this message today, but it really spoke to me.



There is nothing, absolutely no situation that God can not handle. What appears as a boulder of trouble weighing me down, is a BB bouncing around in the boxcar that God just sent off with all my problems.



The whole point? Don't let what you see control you, let God work.