Helping Daddy

Unless the LORD builds the house,
the builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the guards stand watch in vain.

Psalm 127:1 (NIV)

I've been reminded lately of the profound veracity of this verse. I have sensed for a long time that God is on the verge of doing something big here at Estevan Alliance Church. I have long held the belief that in the words of that great Switchfoot song "We we meant to live for so much more" than we have been. Lately I feel like we're getting glimpses of what that might look like. Neat things are happening in our midst, prayers are getting answered, people are experiencing healing, the lonely are being reached out to, new people are darkening our doors and I feel like we're starting to gain a credible witness in this community. And the coolest part of it all - none of it is anything that we, or I, can take credit for.

God has had his fingerprints all over this process - there has been an increase in prayer, in transparency, in vulnerability, in service, and in attendance. As the Lead pastor I have only been in place for less than a month - and the seeds of this growth have been planted long before that. As an interim leader in the months preceding I did nothing grand and intentional that could have possibly produced this type of growth - it seems to be happening almost organically. God - and God alone is doing something powerful and the best thing as a pastor I can do is to get on board and get out of the way.

Just this morning we opened our doors for our Tuesday morning prayer time, which although it is only 3 weeks old has already produced another prayer group of extremely dedicated prayer warriors who meet 90 minutes earlier for an EARLY Tuesday morning prayer meeting. At the regular meeting we were praying for an opportunity to minister to a certain family in our community and no word of a lie - within an hour of that prayer meeting concluding God had answered that prayer in a way that I hadn't expected.

God is busy building this house and I feel like a little kid hanging around dad during a work project - not really needed but begging for a way to help out. "Can I swing the hammer Dad?", "Can I hold that for you Dad?" "What can I do Dad?" The answer I keep getting is to watch and pray and see what Daddy can do. What an exciting time to be a part of the church!

Now for the Transformers:

Today's figure is Classics Mirage. Mirage is an F1 style race car in his traditional blue and white deco. In the Generation 1 Continuity he was not the most well liked of the Autobots. Some of the other Autobots didn't trust Mirage. He felt that the war, even after all these millions of years, was beneath him. War is not, after all, how civilized, erudite beings conduct themselves. He often questioned the Autobots' violent means, and not-so-secretly hoped they and the Decepticons could get along. Because of this, he has been labelled by a few others as a Decepticon sympathizer. Still, he sided with the Autobots for a reason, and he was always there for the Autobots when they need him.

Mirage was notable as the only Autobot that could render himself invisible and through the use of holographic technology create a holographic replica of himself to distract and confuse the enemy. In the North American cartoon continuity he was suspected of being a Decepticon traitor by Cliffjumper until at last it was revealed that he was a mole planted by Optimus Prime to spy on the Decepticons and was ultimately loyal to the Autobots. Beyond this one episode, Mirage played a background role in the cartoon leaving most of his deep back story and interesting personality to be developed by the writers of the Generation One Marvel comics.

Until tomorrow,

Chris