Each night at the Robinson household holds a special ritual. At a designated time my wife and I begin the launch sequence to put our son to bed. Simultaneous to our plans, Josh launches a counterattack. He makes it his mission to do whatever it takes to stay awake. His strategy is simple, start doing as many things as possible to keep from going to bed. He is quite predictable. First he will cry and say he is not tired (as he yawns and rubs his eyes.) Then he will suddenly become extremely thirsty (asking for water with the fervency of a nomad at an oasis). Then he will want to play for just five more minutes (a unit of time that is equal to an eternity in his mind). Then he will want to watch “just a little bit of TV.”
Having become wise to his ways, Kimberly and I are prepared with a counterattack of our own. “Let’s read a story.” This gets him every time. The stack of books beside his bed is filled with Berenstein Bear books, Dr. Seuss, and Disney, but the book he is stuck on right now is the “Read Aloud Bible Stories” book series by Ella Lindvall. Each night Kimberly and/or I sit in his room and read to him these amazing Bible stories. Right now some of his favorites are Creation, David and Goliath, Jesus calling Simon, Zaccheus, and Bartimaeus. As we have read him these stories over and over again, I have been blessed by the great truth that underlies these stories. While these are stories that I (as a Father) read to my son, I am coming to see that these are really stories about our Heavenly Father, and how He cares for us.
Over the next five weeks at Wildwood, we will be walking through a 5 week series looking more in depth at these “Father’s Stories” to see their implication for our lives. We hope you can join us in one of our two worship services at either 9:30 or 10:50 AM.
This Sunday, we will be looking at the creation account of Genesis 1. This is a very important passage of Scripture for us to understand as Christians. We could probably spend several weeks in this chapter alone, however, we are going to attempt to cover it in one week. As such, we will be simply flying over this passage at “10,000 feet” to see the big truths that I believe God wants us to see. We will not be looking intensely at the duration or scope of each day of creation. Instead we will be focusing on the macro-level truths of the creation story and what it means for us as human beings living in relationship with our Creator God. Hope you can join us this Sunday!
Feel free to post any comments or thoughts you have heading into this Sunday’s message in the comments section for this blog post.
Heather and I really enjoyed your message today Mark. We both came away with the same base conviction that we too often feel or react to “big” issues/problems in our life more unilaterally. Almost like we know and understand that God is big enough to create the world in the beginning, but maybe I should just take care of this “problem” myself. Thank you for the work you put into this series, we look forward to finishing the rest of it this month.
I enjoyed your sermon very much and am looking forward to the others.
Thank you for all you do!