Lifting Up A Snapdragon

Psalms 147 (ESV)
1 Praise the LORD!
For it is good to sing praises to our God;
for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting.
2 The LORD builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
3 He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
4 He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
5 Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.
6 The LORD lifts up the humble;
he casts the wicked to the ground.

Our experiment planting Snapdragons last year turned out to be a beautiful success for our flower garden.  My wife Lisa and I decided we would plant them again.  We began the process of planting new Snapdragons.

Things were going well, quickly digging holes, removing the young plants from the plats, placing them in the newly dug holes and filling up the gaps with fresh soil; we got into a routine.  By the thirtieth plant we got careless and broke one of the stems holding up the plants first tender blossom in our dig, separate, plant and fill routine. Thirty-five healthy young Snapdragons reaching for the sun and one broken blossom, bent over pointing towards the ground, a casualty of our carelessness. Being the garden pessimist of the back-yard garden team, I was waiting for the young blossom to die and fall off in the days to come.

A week later, on a Sunday, I visited my broken Snapdragon to see if the blossom had fallen off yet, but I saw the flower facing the sun, again.  Though the stem was still broken, its flower was healed as it faced the sun, again.  It was as if some invisible gardener had "lifted up" the beautiful blossom on the broken stem to rebuke my pessimism.

Often we have experienced brokenness because of our own carelessness and thoughtless reliance upon routine.  Sometimes it is at the hands of others who were equally careless with words or actions.  The world may seem like it was waiting for our hopes and dreams to be destroyed because we have been broken, but for those of us who have struggled to keep our eyes fixed upon the Son, the invisible gardener of our souls has lifted us up and healed us, again and again.  We may still bear some of the scars of our brokenness, but we no less blossomed in His light. For this we can sing praises to our God.

II Corinthians 4:9 (ESV)
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

by Pastor John

''God Did It All For You" by Daniel Padgett

The Power of Prayer

The more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be, the mightier the forces against evil everywhere. Prayer, in one phase of its operation, is a disinfectant and a preventive. It purifies the air; it destroys the contagion of evil. Prayer is no fitful, short-lived thing. It is no voice crying unheard and unheeded in the silence. It is a voice which goes into God's ear, and it lives as long as God's ear is open to holy pleas, as long as God's heart is alive to holy things. God shapes the world by prayer.

Prayers are deathless. The lips that uttered them may be closed to death, the heart that felt them may have ceased to beat, but the prayers live before God, and God's heart is set on them and prayers outlive the lives of those who uttered them; they outlive a generation, outlive an age, outlive a world. That man is the most immortal who has done the most and the best praying. They are God's heroes, God's saints, God's servants, God's vicegerents.

A man can pray better because of the prayers of the past; a man can live holier because of the prayers of the past; the man of many and acceptable prayers has done the truest and greatest service to the incoming generation. The prayers of God's saints strengthen the unborn generation against the desolating waves of sin and evil.

"A-Team"

Holy Hands member, Dee N.(center), finds herself at the center of care for the homeless.

Special guests Jose and Lois are becoming regulars at Holy Hands.

Jose loves to play the tambourine with Pastor John during our praise and worship.  Lois loves the "Children's Sermon", sitting next to Pastor John at the altar.

Matthew 19:13 Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, 14 but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”