Dear Bethany Baptist Church of Christ Family:
In addition to our Sunday interactions, monthly Christian conversations, first Wednesday 6:00 am prayer time, and weekly Bible study, I have been led to come to you each month, with reflections the Lord has put on my heart. I am affectionately referring to these new monthly reflections as “The Pastor’s Page.” It is my prayer and hope that these messages will encourage you in your faith, stretch you to grow, and lead you to a greater desire for studying the Bible, as well as, into a deeper relationship with God.
In this inaugural page, I want to share my experience of July 19th, 2016. It was approximately 8:00 pm eastern standard time and I was sitting in seat 11C, on American Airlines flight #3294, returning home from Columbus Ohio. While waiting for my plane to take off and thinking about us as a church family, I asked God what I might say in this first pastor’s page edition and as my plane ascended higher into the air, God said tell them, “The higher they go in me, the smaller life’s problems and situations become.” As an illustration He further called my attention to how much smaller and invisible the trees, houses, cars, and people that were life size when the plane was low to the ground, became as plane went higher and higher. Finally, when the pilot declared we had reached our maximum flying altitude of 26 thousand feet, everything below was nonexistent and all I could see was a layer of beautiful blue sky and thick, white, billowy clouds in the image of huge cotton balls!
It was a serene, spiritual, experience that caused me to completely focus on the magnificence and closeness of God and Phillippians 4:8 “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things!” The size of life’s challenges are no comparison to the size if our God and He wants to take us higher in Him, through fellowship, prayer, Bible study, and worship. As a church family, I want us to soar together in faith and practice, and remain confident the Lord will renew our strength, we will mount up with wings as eagles, we will run and not get weary, walk and not faint, yes, WE WILL SOAR in the name of Jesus!
Lovingly yours,
Pastor Holmes 82016#1
