HAPPY FATHER’S DAY 2022

Hey Everybody!

I hope you are enjoying the freedom, activities, and (ferocious) heat of summer. While I am not schooled on global warming, I am convinced that ‘summer warming’ thrives in North Carolina.

My nephew wrote our church’s weekly newsletter this week. I enjoyed it and thought you might, too. I wish you all a wonderful Sunday with the people you most love.

Blessings to you, Janet

Father’s Day 2022

As a boy, I loved to draw. I drew animals, dinosaurs, trains, superheroes – if it was a part of my life, I put it on paper. Of course, the problem with my drawings was that they weren’t very good. They were merely crude circles put together, given a face, and haphazardly colored. When I finished one of these masterpieces I would hurry to show my mom. Her response was always the same, ‘Wow!’, ‘That’s amazing!’, and ‘Did you draw that?’. On the other hand, my dad usually replied, ‘Oh, that’s nice, son’, or ‘That’s pretty good.’  His remarks were invariably less enthusiastic than my mom’s and sometimes, in my child’s mind, I would think that my father indifferent to my artistic endeavors.

One day, out of the blue, my dad took one of my Dinosaur books and began drawing a grid over the top of the T-Rex. He drew the same grid on a piece of blank paper and said, “Draw only what you see in each box.” So I did. To my astonishment, I had drawn a picture that looked just like it was supposed to! It was the first time I remember feeling like a true artist. My drawing continued to improve until, in high school, I won two Gold Keys and my work was displayed on a museum wall.  

And it all started when my dad drew a grid.

Sometimes it seems that God is indifferent to our prayers. I’m sure it felt that way for men like Joseph, David, and Elijah. But the grid of time always proves God’s faithfulness and we realize that, in His great love, God has laid a path, a grid, over each of our lives to guide us toward Him, one box at a time.

It must have seemed strange to the disciples when they asked Jesus how they should pray? He did not begin with pompous words, “Oh, great and terrible God of Israel,” but, rather, “Our Father.”

The God we serve wears many hats: Creator, Judge, Executioner, Redeemer, King, Lord. But first and foremost, He is a Father.

June 16, 2022 / Rev. Benjamin Loftis

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