Another Pastoral Epistle 6/26/19

Holy discontentment! Is that an oxymoron? We usually associate discontentment as something to be avoided; as something negative. Didn’t Paul speak of being content in any and every circumstance? It is true that we can be content with what we have because God will always give us whatever we need when we truly need it? Yet, as we live in a fallen world, we are aware of pain and the consequences of sin and sorrow, our hearts cry out, “This isn’t the way things ought to be.”

It was disturbing to see the picture of the debris of the motorcycles strewn on Route 2 in Randolph, NH. It is tough to read about legislation supporting the taking of the lives of the unborn. This isn’t the way things ought to be! Marriages break-up, children suffer, leaders let us down, shootings and violence and prejudice abound and the “things hoped for” have not yet come to pass. There is a holy discontentment.

It was a holy discontentment that led the late Mother Teresa to the homeless, diseased and destitute people in Calcutta. It was a holy discontentment that fueled Martin Luther King’s outrage of racial oppression in our country. It is often holy discontentment that spurs us to take some positive action toward a solution to the way things are.

In my own life I am thankful for where I am in Christ, yet know I am not what I should be as a husband, father, friend, pastor, and like Christ in attitude and conduct. As a leader, I am encouraged by the work God is doing in His church yet live with the tension of what could be at EBC and in this community. And as much as I might prefer status quo, a holy discontent compels me to ask, “How can things be better?” Someone jokingly said to me after hearing the sermon this past week, “Just for once could you give a sermon that doesn’t make me think?”

What I want for you (and for myself) is to find freedom from the bondage of the daily rut that leaves us the same to experiencing all that God has for us beyond status quo. As I have quoted before as to the essence of a pastor’s call, “Comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” Growth comes as we own our fear of moving forward into uncertainty and our discontent to remain safe in the present. As your pastor, I want to call you to better things. I call you to holy discontentment!

In reading through the Bible, I recently came to Ecclesiastes 11:1-6. The only thing that is predictable about under the sun living is that it is unpredictable. We cannot control outcomes nor can we be certain of what the future holds. If we wait for all the conditions to be right before we do anything, we will miss out in seeing the work of God. What will we miss by clinging to the status quo? Let’s keep spurring each other on to a life of adventure with the God who holds the future and has greater things for us at EBC!

Thankfully in His grip,
Pastor Brian