Pastor David Cameron has written this week’s letter. We hope you are blessed by his thoughts this week.
This is an article I wrote a few years back while serving at CHBC Martinsville. It has been on my mind of late, so I thought I’d share it with HRBC. – David Cameron
“Learn to hold loosely ALL that is not eternal.” – A Maude Royden
I found the quote above seventeen years ago, and it really struck me as wisdom. So much so that I took time to write it out on a slip of specialty paper, in what passes for my best handwriting, and post it on the bulletin board across from my desk, just above the planning calendar. That way I’d see it often and take it into account as plans and seasons changed.
Over the years it has become so much a part of the standard background that I really hadn’t looked at it in a while, even though I see it every day. It came to mind today, and I pulled it off the board to read again.
I was surprised to find that the ink had faded from a deep black to a weak, watercolor grey. Along with my desk, the bulletin board it hangs on faces the window. Sunlight over the years has bleached the ink pale.
Considering the quote’s subject, it seems very appropriate, almost if time has, in its way, highlighted and underlined it for me.
These days of uncertainty are an excellent time to review what we are spending our time, effort, and energy to hold onto.
Through Christ we have eternal hope, life, forgiveness, and inheritance. We have the gifts of the Spirit and the bible to teach and sustain. We have the love and promises of God that will never fail. The eternal blessings of God are here for today as well as every tomorrow.
If we fill our hands, hearts, and minds, with the temporary they get too full for us to even think of taking hold of the eternal.
What are we hanging onto? We most often pick up the things we surround ourselves with. If we focus on the temporary things, the hurts, fears, worries, material desires, and getting our own way, we will clutter our lives, weigh ourselves down, and in the end, find we carried nothing we can keep.
If we keep seeking the eternal and hold loosely everything else Jesus will help us to set aside the things that hold us back. As we hold tighter to Jesus, we will find we hold everything.
“I Pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of he glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.” Ephesians 1:18-19
With love and blessings,
Pastor David
Thank you for your article, David! This is something that every one of us should keep in our sights. I appreciate your creative thoughts and the way you helped me to see that note across from your desk. Blessings, Bob
Thank you, Bob. We all need this.