Saturday, January 31, 2015

ELEVATION NORTH has NEWS for YOU!


IT’S AMAZING HOW ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER!  When we moved to Owatonna almost nine years ago, following God’s call to ministry in this town – we prayed that He would help us find a home.  Not just any home – but THE home that HE wanted us to have, because after all, it would be His to use for His purposes.  After much searching and steadfast prayer, a Christian realtor led us to the home that was actually the first home we had ever purchased.  You see, we had lived in church parsonages almost all of our married lives.  We loved them and we made them our own as much as you can without having ownership, and we cared for them as if these homes were our own!  But there is something about finally having your own home, and God in His loving faithfulness led us to the place that we would call “home” – but will always know that it belongs to Him.  Upon moving in, with help from some of our new congregation, we turned the stark white walls into inviting colors that gave it our personality.  Well, that is – on the lower level.  We had full intentions of doing a repeat splash of color on the upper level once we settled in a bit more and things calmed down.  I am smiling … because LIFE happened … and the remaining unpainted walls have remained primer white for all this time.  That was alright, really!  We were busy in our new ministry and later in the marketplace ministry, and later yet, with the brand new ministry birthed out of extreme pain and suffering – named Elevation North.  And over the years as we lived our blended lives and multi-tasked in a myriad of directions, God brought people to live with us “in His House” from time to time.  Each time took a little getting used to as our empty nest expanded – but we loved the opportunities to touch these lives and fill their “homeless void” for this point and time.  And upon their times of departure, we knew that God had used their stay to be a change-point for them as well as for us.  We were always aware of His presence and His provision, especially when we were not sure that the resources that we had would stretch far enough.  Guess what?  They ALWAYS did!  I think the REAL owner of this home had something to do with that!  He owns it and we just get to take care of it for Him!  Well, back to the colorless walls.  Our sons and their wives had given us gift cards and cash a few years ago at Christmas-time, which we had stashed away waiting to “find” the time to be able to transform our walls with our color choices.  How it ever took nine years is amazing in itself, but when “the time” finally comes, you just know it and you leap into action!  There were a few trips to the store to choose samples and bring them home and “look at them” before making the final decision.  But then, more months went by before we were actually able to take the painting plunge and yes, to pray about the right color choices.  Now we are in process, and loving the fact that as we stand in the store waiting for our cans of color to be mixed, we discover the extra blessing of God “just happening to have a special paint sale going on!”  Who says God doesn’t care about the things that matter to us, especially when we seek His hand of blessing and favor?!  So, after several evenings of my hubby’s hard work and my “extra trimming and clean-up” … miracle of miracles, we now have beautiful color flowing all through our home; well, through God’s home.  And getting back to my opening statement, you know how doing one thing leads to another.  Well, so does painting!  The painting leads to needed deep cleaning.  And the cleaning leads to purging lots of things that need to go.  Things are just that – things.  Either they have been used to the end of their usefulness, or they become “too many” things and only add clutter and end up defeating the plan to keep our lives as simple and unencumbered as possible.  It’s actually a very freeing thing to exercise purging your home of all that extra stuff that God knows we do not need.  Doing this has reminded me all over again what is recorded for us in scripture, and how we need to be purging “stuff” from our own lives as we walk with Christ.  Listen to what we are instructed to do:  “Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses (who have borne testimony to the Truth), let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us.”  (Hebrews 12:1)  Oh, Lord, may it not take us nine years or nine months or even nine weeks to get busy with the purging of our sins, our bad attitudes, our wanting our own way, our thinking we need this or that – like right now, our filling the hours of our days with everything but You!  Help us to throw it all off, all out, all away – all that unnecessary heaviness, so that we can purposely run with unhindered gait and focused persistence the race You have marked out for us.  We want to run like You want us to run!  We want to run unhindered – straight to the finish line! 

REMEMBER . . .

“He is right here.
With an unyielding desire that is willing to trust,
we may call out to our heavenly Father and know that He will answer,
filling our hearts with bright colors and freshness of life.”
~ Unknown  


Serving Christ Joyfully . . .

Pastor Doug and Debbie



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