Our first post from our house church services!

Scripture Readings:

I Samuel 14:1-23
Psalm 11
Proverbs 8:12-26
I Timothy 1:1-11

After lunch we took turns reading the scriptures. The kids really got into the OT reading and begged me to keep going when I got to the end of the section ( I was mean and made them wait until next week even though I knew that they would be sneaky and read it on their own before then). It was the story of King Saul’s son, Jonathan and his battle against the Philistines. The armies of Israel were encamped opposite the Philistines and Jonathan and his armor bearer went to check out the enemy. Jonathan gets it into his head to attack the entire army by himself and asks the Lord for a sign which he receives. Just before this we learn that many Israelites had abandoned the army and some even joined the Philistines leaving Israel with only about 600 men to the thousands in the Philistine camp. But Jonathan, following the Lord’s sign, attacks the Philistine camp alone freaking out their army who begins fighting amongst themselves. An earthquake occurs at the same time adding to the confusion and the Israelites finally join in and defeat the lot of them.
We talked about how the Lord isn’t concerned with how outnumbered we are or how bad the odds are. If we follow Him we will always emerge victorious.

Psalm 11 was the icing on the cake!

“I trust in the Lord for protection,
So why do you say to me,
Fly to the mountains for safety!
…the foundations of law and order have collapsed.
What can the righteous do?
But the Lord is in His holy Temple;
the Lord still rules from heaven…”

The “adults” discussed how this speaks to our collapsing economy, political structure, job market, etc.. And how we feel like running someplace safe like building a cabin in the mountains to escape all the chaos. It was the ‘child’ who spoke up and connected our reading this afternoon. 6-year-old Daniel said, “that’s just like what Jonathan did! He trusted in the Lord and even though he was all alone he was able to attack and destroy the Philistines all by himself because God was still in charge!” I am so glad we decided to allow the children to have equal voice, participation and responsibility during church (how much we missed pushing the kids out of the "big ppl's service"!).

We ended our time in prayer, praying especially for some friends and family members who are battling cancer, my son, as always requested prayer for Haiti. He never fails to pray for Haiti before bedtime and always mentions the nation during service time. Of course we prayed for mom and the new baby coming in less than two weeks!