Once upon a time there was a nation of pencils who loved to write. They wrote volumes of words, sentences and paragraphs, all bound together in book after book. They called it history. But they had a big problem. Not one of the pencils had an eraser. So when a mistake was made, there was no way to correct it. The mistake couldn’t be fixed. And no matter how hard they tried to not make a mistake, they still did. ‘What can we do?” they lamented.
Then one day a stranger showed up, a pencil with of all things, an eraser. But stranger still was this pencil never, ever made a mistake. “Why do you have an eraser if you don’t make mistakes,” the other pencils asked. Replied the perfect pencil, “I have it to erase all your mistakes.” And so he did. A happier group of pencils you never saw.
This week I thank God for His mercy, for erasing so many of my sins. And there are plenty. As the wonderful old hymn says, “Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.”
Good-bye for Now: This is the last prayer letter for awhile as Nikki and I are taking a trip to Canada, Nova Scotia and the New England coast, leaving Friday morning. While on the trip I will celebrate my 75th birthday. Getting closer to heaven every day. See you in a few weeks.
Thank You: to Greg Sowle who will oversee morning prayer while I’m gone. If you’ve never been, stop by the Upper Room (up the stairs in the back of the church) between 8-9 am.
The Most Important Part of Sunday’s Message: “Fight the good fight; stay the course; keep the faith.” With all the chaos and craziness going on in this world, these words are incredibly relevant.
Prayer Focus This Week: Please pray for our church, Little Church by the Sea, that we would become everything God wants us to be, a church that increasingly loves God and loves one another.
Country of the Week – where Christians are persecuted – Laos, controlled by a Communist government that has outlawed Christianity. Yet God is moving there, especially among the Hmong people in the mountains
From Mary Hurlbut: one of the sweetest prayers ever (source unknown)
“Give us, Lord, a bit o’ sun,
A bit o’ work and a bit o’ fun.
Give us all in th’ struggle and splutter,
Our daily bread and bit o’ butter.
Give us health, our keep to make,
An’ a bit to spare for poor folks’ sake.
Give us sense, for we are some of us duffers,
An’ a heart to feel for all that suffers.”
Our youth writing encouraging prayers to be sent to a church in Las Vegas
Pastor Jay