Caught on tape

 This morning, I was kind of wondering to myself about the church I attend, in that I was not sure that it was the right place for me to be.  Any doubts I experienced were completely erased after this morning's service.  

God moves very providentially in my life.  Some people I know don't see it that way, but I think the fact that I'm where I'm at right now speaks truth to that statement.  I did not pick the house, nor did I choose the circumstances of how I arrived at where I am today.  I'm very mindful of that.  I'm also mindful of the first Sunday I spent at Shoreline Community Church.  I'd been camping out, in a spiritual sense, in Philippians 4 for the previous few months, so much so that I annotated my Bible to that fact and put a date on it.  The first time I heard the Pastor speak, I could envision the same sermon he gave would to a very large extent, have been the substance of a private conversation between he ad I if we had been speaking alone that Sunday.

I talked about fitting in in a previous post.  I moved down a few feet on the lawn last Sunday as the pastor suggested and that didn't work out so great.  I sat back in my regular spot today, but noticed more of the people had moved back my direction than usual.  I got there kind of late so I sat in the back. Shortly after I arrived, a couple showed up and sat in front of me.  The church was having communion and they pass out lyric sheets for the songs and a man who was passing out communion kits and said song sheets walked right past me and to the couple.  I sat there with some hurt feelings for a few minutes and then got up and found someone else who was passing out communion kits.  But I was sitting there, wondering how I can be so big and so invisible at the same time and questioning whether or not I belonged there.  

This is the part of the story where I need to stop and tell you another story.  I figure it's easier to explain the rabbit trail up front because if I don't tell you this, then the rest of my church story won't make sense.  

I have the YouVersion Bible app on my phone and my laptop.  Each day, they have a story that goes with the verse of the day and I like to start my day off with that story.  Today's verse was about Spiritual gifts and the devotional in the story, along with the theme, talked about figuring where we fit in to the body of Christ and our local church to best use our spiritual gifts.  

That got me to thinking and I asked God to show me where I fit, or even if I fit, into the new church I go to.  God is always good about answering prayers.  I didn't have long to wait.  Over the course of today's sermon the Pastor touched on a couple of important things for me:  one,  that when the Bible tells you something twice, it's pretty important.  I have found that when I see a verse twice in the course of a few days, or a theme, and usually in different places, that it's pretty important to what's gonna happen next.  Thing two was taking about where we fit in at Shoreline and not only that, but to hang in there while we figure out where we fit in.  That's right where I was!

I spoke for a minute with the pastor after church and told him about the YouVersion thing today and hearing things twice.  He'd thanked me for coming again and after our talk, I told him I think he was stuck with me.  He seemed to be pleased to hear that, for whatever reason.  I don't know where I fit in.  I just know that I'm right where I'm supposed to be. I spoke too with a couple of people I've met.  The lady I met gave me a big hug.  It helped.  A lot.

The really cool thing about all this is that you can check out most of my story for yourselves.  The app has today's story and the sermon was caught on tape.  The part about my little feelers, well, you'll have to take my word on that.  God is amazing.  He also frightens me.  But that's a reverential fear that's a good thing.