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When the Plan Is Exile

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By Hannah Comerford

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

This verse was every teenager’s life verse when I was in youth group. I’ve seen it on plaques and in greeting cards. It’s used to bring comfort and assurance in the midst of difficult circumstances.

But what if those plans God has for us are painful?

I don’t want to deny that God can bring comfort through it. He does work all things together for good (Romans 8:28). So the sentiment that God has plans for us is true. But Jeremiah 29:11 is much more complex and not as easy as it might seem.

I tend toward the pessimistic end of the attitude spectrum. When things go wrong, it’s easy for me to dwell on the negative and get frustrated by pat answers and efforts to cheer me up. And, well, I won’t pretend like the last couple of years have been easy at Elim. We’ve seen three pastors leave for various reasons in a short amount of time. I don’t doubt that God is in control of these situations and is working good in us, but it’s hard. We might have a future and a hope, but right now we’re living in a hard place. It’s painful.

And I think that’s okay.

If you look at Jeremiah 29:11 in context, God isn’t actually offering a hope for immediate good things. God was speaking through Jeremiah to the exiled people of Israel. They’d been forcefully taken to Babylon. They’d lost everything. Other prophets were telling them good news, that their exile would be short and they’d be going home soon. They wanted to cling to those promises. Yet God wasn’t speaking through those prophets. He wasn’t telling them to prepare for their happy return.

Instead, God told the people through Jeremiah that they should build houses, marry, plant gardens—settle in for the long haul. God was going to keep them in Babylon for 70 years, and then they would see their release from captivity, the hope and the future they were promised in verse 11.

God was calling His people to trust Him and find peace where they were placed, even though it was heartbreaking.

I don’t know what the future holds for Elim. Of course, we aren’t exiles in Babylon, but it’s okay to acknowledge that this isn’t a comfortable place to be in. Some of us miss how things used to be, the comfort we had in the home that Elim was to us. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s okay to be homesick.

But maybe we can learn to find comfort now, when we don’t see the future. Maybe we can trust that God will still be with us even here, in the uncomfortable places, when we don’t have our bright future yet. Maybe we won’t see the future and hope for a long while, but we can learn to grow and live and find contentment in the exile.

We don’t know when we’ll welcome our good future. But we do have a God who is with us now, in the land that doesn’t feel like home.

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Trust and Obey

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by Brian Waple

“Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”

John Henry Sammis (1887)

By the very sound of the word, obey has negative connotations. It’s as though in certain situations we’re being told we have to suspend our free will and submit to a power over which we have no control. You have to do as you’ve been told. Growing up, you obey your parents. You have to pay your taxes. I remember in Air Force Basic Training, you had to obey the Military Training Instructors. Throughout my Air Force career, there were regulations and orders that I had to obey. It wasn’t something I enjoyed, but I knew that in the long run, obeying the regulations and the orders of those appointed over me ensured the success of a mission and maintained a necessary degree of order and discipline.

Then there’s the word trust. Now that’s a word I can embrace, but it’s a lot harder to always see the outcome that you’re expecting. You trust the sun will come up in the morning (except in the Pacific Northwest). You trust that if you do the right thing, a good outcome will result. And doesn’t God tell us to trust in Him? On our money, it says “In God We Trust,” right?

Many years ago, while serving in the Air Force, our family was living in Naples, Italy. One of our sons got into some trouble at school . . . serious trouble. So serious that there was a good chance he would be sent back to the United States. We felt that the best course of action would be for him to obey the school superiors and tell the truth as to what happened. I trusted in God’s sovereignty and my sense of fair play, believing that by obeying the school and military officials and telling the truth, our son would be shown leniency. Our son told the truth . . . and he was sent back to the United States (actually, it was our decision, as the military officials would have made it difficult for him to stay). I was devastated and confused. Doesn’t God tell us to trust in Him? And doesn’t He say that He wants only the best for us? How is our son being sent back to the United States the best for him and our family? (As I write this, it takes me back to a not-so-happy time.)

I struggled with this for a while, but I came to see that obeying God and trusting in His Word isn’t always easy. As Pastor Steve was saying Sunday, “Being a Christian doesn’t mean you won’t have problems . . . in fact, you may have more.” Your prayers won’t always be answered the way you want them answered. Healings won’t always take place. You will lose. You will be hurt. And you could even be separated from your kids. But, by obeying Him and trusting in Him, through faith, you can believe that even though you may not see it at the time, God is working.

Trusting and obeying God doesn’t mean we’ll always be happy. But it brings us comfort knowing that even in the darkest of nights, morning is coming. And as we trust that the sun will rise, trusting in Him also means that we have the assurance that God is in control.

Are there any areas where you have difficulty trusting and obeying God’s call on your life? Where do you sense God is working in these situations?

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On a Mission from God

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Jeff Foerster

What is a missionary? One description I found on Wikipedia defines a missionary as, “a member of a religious group sent into an area to promote their faith or perform ministries of service”. 

Allow me to recalibrate my question: Who is a missionary? 

The Apostle Paul was a missionary. In the back of my Bible are maps that trace three missionary journeys he took. Paul was imprisoned, beaten innumerable times, whipped, stoned, beaten with rods, shipwrecked, and faced many other hardships.  With Paul’s exploits I find it hard to identify.

I recall hearing of missionaries when I was a child and thinking of a land far away inhabited by people of a different tongue and living in poverty and ignorance. Like you might see in commercials where a white, salt-and-pepper bearded man approximately 60 years of age, walks slowly toward a camera among destitute black children surrounded by an obscene number of flies. He carefully gesticulates to accentuate the surrounding poverty while asking you for donations. If you’re like me, this takes place while resting comfortably on a couch while digging greasy fingers into a waning bowl of butter-slathered popcorn and binge watching several episodes of whatever-the-heck.  But I digress.

We have missionaries connected with our church whom we support financially and through prayer. They, like my missionaries of childhood, are, for the most part, in a land far away and among a people speaking a different language. It is possible for any among us to become a missionary, in this sense, and indeed some have sacrificed much in doing so.

However, I don’t see myself leaving everything behind and moving out of the country. For several reasons this is currently not realistic. Indeed, if many were to do so those left behind would find it difficult to financially support those working abroad.

Yet, here we are faced with the Great Commission commanding us to go out into the world and make disciples of Jesus among all people.  What to do?  How are we to fulfill our mandate?  Is it possible that each one of us has been given a mission to a unique people in our sphere of influence? Has God made us to be missionaries to those at our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, even in our own home? Is there any place or any time or any person to which the Great Commission does not apply?

At Elim, just above  the double doors at the front entrance is a sign that reads, “You are now entering the mission field”.  Is it possible that this sign is correct and each of us is a missionary to those in our path, in our influence, in our lives?

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Other People and the Glory of God

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By Jason Comerford

I first came to Elim nine years ago, in early 2011. I had been dating my wife (then girlfriend) for over two years and would be proposing to her later that year. The months following my first trip to Elim were a whirlwind of forming new relationships, meeting new people, attending a community group, and trying to figure out my place at my new church.

Looking back, I’ve noticed a pattern to the relationships I formed. Nearly every person that I now count a dear and respected friend was, early on, someone I couldn’t stand. They were always (from my perspective) some combination of annoying, disrespectful, weird, or some other gripe I conjured up.

This led to . . . well, not returning phone calls. Deleting messages. Ignoring people walking right toward me on Sunday mornings. Figuring out ways to cut conversations short and being terribly annoyed when Hannah suggested inviting certain people over to our home.

All this time, I actually thought I was obeying Romans 12:16: “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.” By spending time with certain people, I thought I was associating with the lowly. I thought I was being humble.

Fortunately for me, God is very patient in correcting petty, judgmental, self-absorbed jerks.

(I would like to use much stronger language in my self-assessment here, but this is a church blog. Use your imagination.)

The words of C. S. Lewis were helpful in correcting this attitude problem. His book The Weight of Glory (p. 15) says the following:

It is a serious thing, to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or another of those destinations. . . . It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no ordinary people.

Stumbling on these words came as a gentle slap to the face. In a moment, I realized how blindingly arrogant and uncharitable I had been in my treatment of certain people. And I suddenly realized how odious my attitude had been—indeed, still is sometimes. It’s dishearteningly easy to value people on the sole basis of how much I enjoy talking to them.

The best people and greatest friends I’ve met came not from finding the one person I clicked with, but from meeting someone whom God revealed to me as a being created in His Holy image, full of God’s own dignity and value and wonder. Those boring and uncomfortable people I once eschewed for my preferred friends have since blessed me with more kindness, wisdom, and patience than I once thought possible.

I’m a better person, indeed a better Christian, because God was gracious enough to open my eyes to the wonder of other people.

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God’s Perfect Plan Can Be Stressful

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by Kendrick and Janna Gilli

Change is hard, and goodbyes can be even harder. Over the past six months, we grieved as we said goodbye to the Schlomers, then Cheryl retired . . . and now Brian and Tomina are moving to Colorado. To an outsider or a non-Christian, it might seem as if our church is in trouble. However, for those of us left at Elim, we can be assured of something very different, because our God is in the business of change. In fact, he is right in the middle of it.  In Jeremiah 29:11, God promises us that He has a good plan for our future, a plan to prosper us. He uses change, grief, hardship, and sorrow to refine and mold us into the people He wants us to be. And He is definitely working at Elim.

As I reflect on a certain loud-mouthed, rather brash New Yorker who came into Janna’s and my life over 20 years ago, I am reminded of that. In fact, as Brian’s brother-in-law, I have had a front-row seat to witness the astounding ways God has changed Brian through Elim and Elim through Brian. When Brian came to Elim, he was little more than 20, young and inexperienced and often immature. He often said things before thinking and rubbed some people the wrong way. However, we watched God begin to change Brian, to give him wisdom and to humble him. Over the years, he learned to listen more before speaking, to forgive more, and to judge less. He has become a man whom I respect and admire and one who has had an incredible impact on our congregation, particularly our youth.

God knew that Elim needed Brian when he came to us almost 18 years ago. We needed someone who would change the youth program and train up leaders. And Brian is so, so good at that. He has raised youth into leaders who in time became adult leaders and continue to pour into the youth at Elim. In fact, Brian has passed on his heart for the Lord so well, that we know that the youth program will be fine when he leaves. The legacy that he is leaving is incredible and will not soon be forgotten.

Just as God has a perfect plan for Elim, he has a perfect plan for all of his people. As Brian was changed and molded during his time with us, he was being prepared for a certain church in Colorado Springs. It is so hard to see him go, but I am also so joyful and proud of Brian. It is so good to see God working and carrying out his plan and it gives me such hope for the changes coming to Elim.

And change IS coming to Elim—but it doesn’t have to be scary or overwhelming. If we remember that God is in the business of change and that He has a good and perfect plan for us, change can actually be quite exciting. What is God going to do at Elim next?

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