It’s going to be a very busy week.  Tonight begins a new adventure in the Pembroke area as a number of churches begin a once a month adventure called “Fusion.”  

Fusion will be a gathering of teenagers from many churches for the purpose of worship, encouragement in their faith and reaching out to their communities.  I imagine it will be a little louder than most of our worship services in our church, and we are planning a late night.  I might look a little old for that, but I’m all in on this adventure.

Then on Sunday, our church starts its annual vacation Bible school. That means that every night through Thursday, we will be at the church much later than normal, and that preschoolers, children and youth will be everywhere.  My first question is, “Who planned this?” Then I remember that I was on both groups responsible for scheduling.  

I’m not the first or only person around who has a full schedule. In fact, some of you wonder if and when the rollercoaster of life will ever slow down or stop long enough for you to get off for some much needed rest. For many of you, life has been going at a dizzying rate for as long as you can remember.  If you could just quit, you would.

And then we read what one preacher said about his life many years ago. As he thought about the task before him for that day he wrote in his journal, “I have so much to do today, I must spend two additional hours in prayer.”  My first response to that is, “What?”  When I am so busy, and have so much to do, my first tendency is to shirk prayer.  My first thought is to do a quick two-minute prayer for the Lord to bless my work and my thoughts and my ideas, and then to get busy doing what I do.

There is one major problem with my approach. When I do what I do, I get just what I can do — no more, no less. But when I take the time to spend time with God and I learn to depend on, trust and wait for him, the results are always different.  Then I get what he can do, and that is so much more than what I can do.

But it’s a hard lesson to learn. It seems I have to relearn it from time to time. I’m hoping I can do that again this week.  I cannot do anything of any real consequence, either in Fusion or vacation Bible school. But God can.  I’m praying for that.

Would you join me in that prayer? Let’s ask God to do something in our communities, our churches, and our lives, that only he can do.  He’s willing to do it. Will we trust him?