MERRY MONDAY — BY PARRIS –

“While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:18.

Sometimes things that are in front of us seem so colossus. Building the church on Airline seemed that way to me. It was over 27 years ago, and I would have been 36! When we started out building it, everything seemed so doable, but oh how wrong we were! The timing wasn’t right, the plans weren’t right and even the parish said we weren’t right. To this day, I can still remember the fog Frank and I were in because of what seemed to be a bunch of mistakes.

But God has another story. He told Abraham to do some star gazing, David to sing to sheep, Jacob to mark spot and speckled sheep and so one.
Mcclaren writes, “A man, standing on the deck of a ship, casts a languid eye for a moment out on to the horizon, and sees nothing. A keen-eyed sailor by his side shades his eyes with his hand, and shuts out cross-lights, and looks, and peers, and keeps his eyes steady, and he sees the filmy outline of the mountain land. If you look for a minute, not much caring whether you see anything or not, and then turn away, and get your eye dazzled with all those vulgar, crude, high colors round about you here on earth, it is very little that you will see of ‘the things that are not seen.’ Concentrated attention, and a steadfast look, are wanted to make the invisible visible. You have to alter the focus of your eye if you are to see the thing that is afar off.” (LOVE THIS!)
So thats it! Changing the way you look at things. Yes, Frank and I were in a lot of financial trouble when we built “this thing”. During this time, a wonderful pastor of a large church came to speak to our church. At dinner he leaned over and spoke to Frank about how we “can’t see the forest because of the trees”. He was 15 years older than us and am sure he saw the beauty of our youth and the willingness to risk it all. God was speaking to us that night to hold on, humble ourselves and keep the steadfast look.
Mcclaren-“Here they are pressing in upon our eyeballs, all round us, insisting on being looked at, and unless we resolutely avert our eyes, we shall not see anything else. They monopolize us unless we resist the intrusive appeals that they make to us. We are like men down in some fertile valley, surrounded by rich vegetation, but seeing nothing beyond the green sides of the glen. We have to go up to the hill-top if we are to look out over the flashing ocean, and behold afar off the towers of the mother city across the restless waves. Brethren, unless you shut out the world you will never see the things that are not seen.”