C. S. Lewis once wrote ‘faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.’

I know all about moods; some would say that the definition of being a woman is being moody! But all of us experience different moods: joy, elation, apprehension, fear, anxiety, indecision, terror, misery, boredom, bewilderment, confusion, to name just a few. A mood is a ‘temporary state of mind or feeling’, but at the time, there doesn’t seem to be anything very temporary about it!

My mother always used to say that moods needed to be ‘kicked into touch’, and the older I get, the more I see the wisdom of those words. C. S. Lewis went on to say ‘moods will change, whatever view your reason takes… Unless you teach your moods “where they get off”, you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith.’ (‘Mere Christianity’)

James says something similar: ‘If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.‘ (James 1:5-8).

Training the habit of faith is not easy. It requires determination and conscious choice: we determine and speak to ourselves that we will believe and praise, whatever the mood (see Ps 34:1-3, Ps 27:8, Ps 42:5-6). As Eugene Peterson remarks, the command to ‘lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord’ (Ps 134:2) involves a simple motor movement: ‘you may not be ab le to command your heart, but you can command your arms. Lift your arms in blessing; just maybe your heart will get the message and be lifted up also in praise.’ (‘The Journey’, P 176) Today, whatever our moods, we can, by faith, bless the Lord; it’s surprising how feelings follow faith and action, rather than preceding them!

Further work continued on the house for the Open Day on 9th July:

To find out more, you’ll have to come along to the Open Day which will run from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. All are welcome. There will be a range of craft activities, face-painting, a pilgrim trail and the usual refreshments, with displays showing what has been happening at church over the past six years. In the evening at 6 p.m., we’ll also be having a family film night, watching ‘The Jungle Book’ and enjoying chip butties!

We’ll be setting up for the Open Day on Friday 8th July in the evening (7 p.m.), so there will be no badminton that night. Please come along and help us get ready, though!

Six years ago, Stephen spent his birthday at the official opening of the church in the Market Street building! Tonight, he was still celebrating God’s good plans for his life at church!

Mark used the plans of the church building to send us on a treasure hunt to find out a key Bible verse about plans:

The verse was Proverbs 16:9 – ‘In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.‘

Stephen then took us through the meaning of life through the illustration of flat-pack furniture:

Life comes with instructions, but so often, we feel we can disregard these and build life according to our plans. The results can be somewhat confusing:

Only when we finally follow God’s instructions do we find out what He plans to give us!

God has good plans to give us hope and a future (Jer 29:11). We need to take hold of His plans for our lives and live according to the Maker’s instructions!

Part of the problems we face in life is the gap between our plans and God’s plans. We have dreams, plans and purposes, and they can be all-consuming. We can spend a lot of time, money and energy on these dreams and plans. But it’s crucial that we recognise that the only dreams and plans which will actually last into eternity are those birthed in eternity. We have to be willing to trade our dreams for God’s dreams (‘Somewhere In The Middle’, Casting Crowns), because ultimately, God’s dreams and plans for us are so much wilder and better than anything we can dream up ourselves. Casting Crowns have written a song called ‘Dream For You’, which looks at the dreams and plans David and Mary might have had: dreams about being a big-time shepherd one day, dreams about a ‘picture perfect family.’ God speaks to both of them, though, showing them that their dreams are as nothing compared to God’s dreams: that David can be used to bring down the giant Goliath and that his ‘shepherd songs’ will be sung the world over, that Mary’s ideal family will actually include the Saviour of the world. They are both reminded:

‘So let go of your plan

Be caught by my hand,

I’ll show you what I can do

When I dream for you.

My child, if you only knew
All the plans that I have for you
Just trust me, I will follow through.
You can follow Me.’ (‘Dream For You’, Casting Crowns)

On 3rd July 2010, we celebrated the official opening of Goldthorpe Pentecostal Community Church on Market Street. That day marked the end of one era and the beginning of another. The journey to buy the former Methodist church St Mark’s started well before then, but as we were given the keys to the building in February 2010, we began to glimpse something of God’s plans for us as a church.

There was a lot of hard work between February and July 2010, with volunteers spending hours restoring the building so that it could house God’s people again. As we prepare to celebrate the anniversary of our move next Saturday (9th July) with another community open day, our family service looked at the topic of God’s good plans for us as individuals and as a church.

Jer 29:11 reminds us that God has plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future. Making plans is an essential part of life, from the mundane (‘what are we going to have for dinner?’) to the more exotic (holiday destinations beckon at this time of year!) There’s nothing wrong with making plans, but James 4:13-17 reminds us that it’s unwise to make plans without God. James reminds us that we don’t even know what will happen tomorrow, that life is God’s gift to us, and that we need to think about Him in all the plans we make. If we don’t, then we run the risk of making plans that are futile (Ps 94:11), because ‘a person may think their own ways are right, but the Lord weighs the heart.’ (Prov 21:2) Proverbs reminds us that ‘there is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.’ (Prov 14:12, 16:25)

God’s plans for us are good, even if life sometimes seems to shatter those plans (as both Job and Joseph experienced.) When life is dark and confusing, we have to trust that the God who thwarts the plans of the crafty (Job 5:12), the God who foils the plans of the nations (Ps 33:10), will not allow His purposes to be thwarted and will bring good out of every situation (see Ps 33:11, Rom 8:28).

Our plans are based on limited knowledge and ability, but God’s plans are based on His omniscience and omnipotence. Prov 19:21 reminds us that ‘many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.’ We can be secure at all times in the good plans God has for each one of us. (Eph 2:10)