IBC Jurbise

Last week something happened to our church. Something so violating and shocking that I still have a very hard time thinking about it. Our church was robbed. When I first walked into the building I noticed that it was colder then normal but I did not think much of it at the time. It was after entering my office and seeing my son’s Awana bag and his Awana money spread out over the floor that I realized that something was not right. I normally kept his bag in the locked portion of my desk. Looking around my office I noticed that the computer was gone and the place had been ransacked. The evidence of the violence was all around me and as I left my office I began to wander around the building looking for a point of entry. When I made it to the youth girl’s room I saw the window just hanging there by a single hinge it was at that moment the reality of the situation hammered home to me. Looking at the broken window I felt a sense of violation so powerful that it I felt dizzy. At that moment as my mind was racing to make sense of this I just could not understand why any one would do such a thing to this place. It was only after I called the folks that needed calling that I started to truly take in what happened. The biggest thing I felt was that I was not safe in the House of God and that shock me. I have pulled a table and a couple of chairs into the fellowship hall to work at because I could not do anything in my office until the police had finished. It was at that table that I started to pray and pray in earnest. I opened my bible to the book of Psalms and started to browse not really knowing what I was looking for. I have often done this in the past; I called it window shopping in the Word.

In the window shopping I stopped first in chapter 14 and read the first few verses. It was a Psalm of David as he lamented at the fallen state of mankind. I could relate. I then made my way to chapter 31 and read the first four verses:

In You, O LORD, I have taken refuge; Let me never be ashamed; In Your righteousness deliver me. Incline Your ear to me, rescue me quickly; Be to me a rock of strength, A stronghold to save me. For You are my rock and my fortress; For Your name’s sake You will lead me and guide me. You will pull me out of the net which they have secretly laid for me, For You are my strength.

I took a moment to just sit back and reflect on what the Lord had given me. At this point I was no longer dwelling on the invasion and I was chasing God through Psalms, I felt a little like a kid playing hide and go seek. I could almost hear the laughter of God just up ahead and around the corner of the next Psalm. I plunged ahead to chapter 35 and I could hear Him say, “I will take care of those that hurt you as I take care of you, then in my minds eye He skipped ahead just out of reach. I followed on to chapter 40 only to come face to face with:

I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear And will trust in the LORD. How blessed is the man who has made the LORD his trust, And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood. Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with You If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count.

Wow, was all I could say. I do not know is the Lord ever giggles, the Bible said he wept, so in my mind I would say that if he can cry he can laugh. I hope that no one feels that this is sacrilegious but in my mind I heard the Lord giggle and take off again. I followed him all the way to Psalm 90. It is the oldest Psalm, one that Moses wrote, and through it I could hear the Lord say playfully, it is all stuff, meaningless and lost in the vastness of eternity. We are only here for a short time then we will play, dance, and laugh with Jesus for all eternity and this part of our existence will seem like a monochromatic dream that fades almost as soon as we wake. He then took a serious tone with me as He ran on to chapter 144. He told me that although this is the shadow land with heaven being the reality, I still needed to take it seriously for there is a war being fought. I sat there dumbfounded. The night of the break in we were up at the Hotel on post and through an odd turn of events we got to talk to every single person in the hotel. The fire alarm went off during our meal and as we were standing outside in the cold looking at all the warm soup in the lobby we started to talk to everyone. I came away from that meal feeling like it was the best one that we as a church had sponsored in a long time. I could tell that my game of hide and seek with the Lord was coming to an end for this moment as he lead me to one last chapter, 145. It is a hymn of praise that brought tears to my eyes. He is my rock and in Him will I ever sing my praises to. Closing the Bible at that moment I felt the presence of the Lord more strongly then I have felt in many years.

As I write this first entry of a blog that will hopefully run for a good long time it is my hope and prayer that in times of distress you turn to God’ Word. Chasing God through the pages is just a foretaste of what heaven will be like.