Pastor David Cameron has written this week’s letter. We hope you are blessed by his thoughts this week.

I’ve been thinking about boxes. Not surprising, as I’m surrounded by them at the house since our recent move.

But my desire and goal of getting our stuff OUT of the moving boxes and organized onto shelves, cabinets, and closets (let’s be honest, into DIFFERENT boxes) has me pondering boxes in all forms and the time I’ve spent moving things box to box, organizing what’s in which box, and trying to be sure things stay in the boxes where I put them.

A leadership mantra from a while back insisted: “You must learn to think outside the box!” Its goal was to encourage creativity, new perspectives and innovative solutions. The phrase was overused, and the world has moved on to new buzzwords.

There was wisdom in the idea, however. We are organizing people, and to a greater or lesser extent, we all organize our world. We look around us and try to place everything in a category that maps it in our thoughts. We want a shorthand way to process the world, and we think if we can just get our boxes situated, we’ll have it mostly sorted.

We end up even finding boxes for other people: family, loved ones, friends, co-workers, sketchy people, people to avoid… if we aren’t careful, we end up sticking people in inboxes with very little information. And once something is in a box and put away, it tends to stay there.

We can even do this with God. God is always at work in creation, always making it new. (Rev. 21:5) Sometimes we lean on our own understanding and think God will (and can)only work in the ways we expect and approve.

In Isaiah 43, God reminds us: God is God, and we are not. God saves, calls, delivers, and creates as God desires.

“You are My witnesses,’ declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He. Before me, no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I, even I, Am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior.” Isaiah 43:10-11

As we organize our thoughts and the way the world works around us, we do well to remember that God is at work in wondrous ways much bigger than the boxes we try to contain Him in. God calls who God calls and renews all of creation constantly. May we recognize Him at work outside our boxes.

With love and blessings,

Pastor David