Advent Words
And God said, “Let there be light…;” And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures…” Genesis 1:3, 20
In the summer of 2012, I retired from serving South Main as Minister of Music. Brenda and I knew it would be a totally new chapter if not a new book in our lives. So many things to be worked out. After 25 years on one job and 50 years of doing the same work in various places, new routines and new means of dealing with finances and other matters demanded much attention. Early on I had decided one of my goals would be to have a “thank you” tour of churches I’d served in my first 25 years of ministry. The other goal was two-fold: 1) to study the history of Christian thought to help me understand how the church had grown and behaved after the book of Acts and 2) to visit various Christian churches from a variety of branches to personally experience today’s church. I will forever be grateful for the opportunity these afforded.
One of our visits, October 21, 2012, took Brenda and me to St. John’s United Methodist in downtown Houston where Juanita Rasmus, who with her husband Rudy serves as pastor, was preaching that day. Her text, from Genesis 1, creatively illustrated a variety of ways by which ones actions and words create “trash or treasure.” She concluded by saying, “God spoke His world into creation.” Her “stinger” followed, “Your words are creating your world.”
So what difference do our words make? The results can be surprising. They really do create “trash or treasure.” So when we consider Mary’s response to the angel when she spoke these words, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said,” she spoke words which would create the foundation for the Christ event to follow and literally changed all of history. Thanks be to God. What are your words creating?
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Psalm 19:14. Amen.
Thomas and Brenda are the parents of three grown children and proud grandparents of seven grandchildren and three stepgrandchildren. They are active members of the Power and Light Sunday School class.
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