The weather outside is a bit rainy and cold, so I took a few minutes to compose a list brought to mind by our wild swings the last few days.

You might live in Michigan if…

If you recognize the two official seasons: Winter and Road Construction.

If you have the sub-season MUD between the above seasons!

If your winter coat stays on the hook by the door until the beginning of June…just in case.

If you know what UP really stands for.

If you are used to seeing people wear flip-flops, shorts and a sweat shirt or coat.

If at least half of your church goes to Florida for the winter…and the U.P. for the summer.

If you don’t think much of it being in the 40’s one day and 70’s the next.

If you just left reading (or writing) this post to go start a fire even though its the end of MAY!

If you can remember both 80 degree days and days with 4+ feet of snow in the month of March.

If you plan on spending at least 2 hours at the secretary of state–just to get a title transfer.

If you’ve seen a species that doesn’t exist in your state….at least according to the DNR.

If some years you have flowers for Easter…and other years for Memorial Day.

If you’re always pointing to your hand to show people where you live.

If an antique tractor or steam engine show will draw people from over 100 miles away.

If your state is home to one of the biggest empty cities in the USA.

If you know how far you have to drive to get to the closest bridge to Canada.

If you’ve been to the locks…and know what they are!

If a quarter of the little towns around you have a maple syrup festival.

If the arrival of your state bird signals the beginning of Spring…you hope.

If you have “resident” Canada geese that you can’t keep from making a mess all around your pond.

If you give your distances as a measure of time from “The Bridge.”

If you know how to properly pronounce “Mackinac.”

If a snowmobile is considered a reasonable means of transportation and they fill up at your gas station.

If you have the some of the highest gas taxes in the country and the worst roads!

 
That will have to do for now…though I’m still hoping to get an update on the lambing up sometime soon.

Praising God that HE isn’t like the weather!

Matthew

April disappeared in a whirl of frost and now we are 7 (!) days into May already….how does time go by so fast?

In April we were wondering if Spring would ever arrive in Michigan–we have certainly had a cooler and later spring than last year!  No 80 degree days in March for us this year. (which is really alright, because when it cooled back down to more normal temperatures in April last year the trees and flowers had a hard time coping!)

Also last month after a special Thursday Awana night at our church where the kids put on  a talent show and a Friday afternoon Band Festival (Jonathan and Dad play their horns with the Homeschool Band), Jonathan and I made a trip down to southern Tennessee to visit some special friends!

This is our first view of TN, from the top of the rest area trail

For about a week we enjoyed fabulous fellowship, fantastic food and frantic fun!  Staying at their newish farm allowed us to help out with a few projects and enjoy “roughing it” a little bit…though we really felt like we were living like kings!  After all what more could a man ask for–Godly friends (given to us by God!),  great food (especially those cookies–thanks again ladies! ;-), a few firearms (OK, so more than a few), big fires (gotta love burning brush!) and a farm to facilitate it all!  We have a lot of memories that we will cherish for a long time and are already looking for God to send us the opportunity to do it all over again!

We miss this place–but we miss the people more!

Another field in green, green TN!

We arrived back in Michigan with praise and thanks in our hearts to God for His goodness to us and dove, that is tried to dive, back into our daily schedules with a mix of renewed zest and sheer desperation…we had have a lot to do in only a few before some other friends come to visit us the middle of this week!

In the meantime God had an idea that I needed some more rest because I ended up with a flu bug of some sort and didn’t do much but sleep for three days….and I was expecting to be able to use that time to get ready for the baby pigs, lambs and chicks that were all due to start arriving the end of last week!  Thankfully the little ones held off and before they came I was back on my feet and able to get some different arraignments made to accommodate their arrivals.  Lord Willing I’ll post some pictures of the little cuties soon!

So far we have only had one ewe lamb and while one gilt did farrow yesterday afternoon we are still waiting for the sow and other gilt to decide they can’t possibly hold those little pigs in any longer…they almost look like they’re going to explode!

This old girl is due any day (minute?!?) now….

There are still several things that I need to do as quickly as possible–like get the sheep out on grass, but as God gives strength I know that everything will happen in good time.  His time and not mine!  How glad I am that He has a plan and all my concern needs to be is cooperating with Him!

The last few days have been warm and sunny-just what the grasses needed to use the rain of April and jump start their growth. The trees have finally gotten a good start towards leafing out and the mid-Spring flowers are starting to make their appearance.  It is not the green and warmth of Tennessee but we are thankful that the snow that was on the ground when we left did not stay and wait for our return!

We are starting to get a bit of green here.

If you drop by for a visit, you’d drive through the golden maples…

And come calling at ol PotterVilla

We have more to share, but finding the time to sit and write while outside projects are calling is difficult, so until the next time, whenever that may be we wish you God’s best!

May God be gracious to us and bless us, and make his face to shine upon us, so that your ways may be known on the earth and your saving power among all the nations.  Let the peoples praise you; O God,
let all the peoples praise you! (Ps 67)

Matthew

So we gathered with other believers today, on the first day of the week, at our little country church; one that still has a dirt parking lot, gets the majority of its heat from burning wood, has an average attendance of hardly more than 50 people.  We are a jumbled mix of people and personalities: retirees, farmers, bankers, computer programmers, school teachers…..some attend sporadically, others are there with their families every week like clockwork….. some are the third generation of their families to attend here, others only came because they were in town to visit a friend.  Some people come only for Sunday School, some only for the main service.

We gathered today, on the first day of the week.  A motley crew to be sure–but what brought us together?  There are so many differences, so many opinions and personalities…. And why to this little out of the way church in the country?

It is not a gathering of intellectual philosophers, nor a band of bawdy revelers.  We are just “plain, ordinary folks.”  We don’t have “star power”, filling the pews by the winsome ways of a nationally know figure; we don’t cater to the entertainment crowd–those only looking for a good time; we don’t have a souped up ‘worship’ band to liven the place up and bring in the crowds with adrenaline pumping rhythms; the attendance has actually dwindled over the last few years.

Are we the perfect bunch that just has everything figured out?  Far from it!  Do we, simply tow the “center line” because we fear extremes finding apathy preferable to risk?  I pray not!  Is it societal and peer pressures that cause us to congregate for this weekly assembly?  I long for a nation that is Godly enough for this to even enter into the equation!

So why do we come?

Simply put, we come because God called us.

“And those he [God] predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” (Romans 8:30)

We come because he called.  It is a call that is open to all, but only those who choose to respond will gain what is promised.

“[The righteous], who through faith conquered…and gained what was promised.” (Heb 11:33)

We must order our lives through faith, it is faith that must be at the core of our existence, and it is faith that must be the driving force of our actions.

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Heb 11:1)

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this it not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph 2:8-9)

But we see that faith cannot be uninformed–we must know the reason for the hope that is with in us. (1 Peter 3:15) Faith in faith itself is not a saving faith. Nor will faith in a lie prove to be salvific–if one believes a lie that does not make it true–even for that individual.

We gather together, on the first day of the week, because we have been called by God, because we have faith in our hearts, because Christ has conquered.

We affirm that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised again on the third day according to the Scriptures.” (1 Cor 15:3-4)  

This is what is necessary for salvation–to avoid the terrible and eternal punishment of a Jealous God–but more to receive the life everlasting, the gift of the Spirit, and to know the power of a transcendent and omnipotent God at work in our lives.

“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” (Ro 10:9-10) 

What is more “As Scripture says, ‘Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.'” (Ro 10:11)

This is why we few–imperfect and blighted by sin–come to the little church in the country with a dirt lot and wood for heat: We are called according to his purpose.  He who calls has the right and the authority to do so.

We “know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, an his incomparably great power for us who believe.  That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.  God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be the head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” (Eph 1:18-23)

Christ who calls us together, on this first day of the week, is our head; he is our Lord.  He is over all and it is through him that we have strength.

As we look forward this week to Good Friday, when on that black day in History; that day when “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21a),we remember the rest of the story….

We remember that the wrath of an infinitely holy and righteous God had to be satisfied, so at infinite cost God sacrificed his only son: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (Jn 3:16-17) “So that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21b)

And though this could not be accomplished without the death of Christ, we must not stop there!  Indeed though the death and burial of Christ were necessary to vindicate the Mercy of God and to clear him of any accusation of injustice the Resurrection of Christ is required to vindicate the Son (Paraphrase of Paul Washer in The Power and Message of the Gospel)

It is the Resurrection that is the cornerstone of our faith, the lynch pin of our beliefs and the cause for our gathering…on the first day of the week.

And so we come. And we rejoice.

To God alone be the glory!

Matthew