God’s Blessing

My Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Blessed Day

/ pastorpete51 / 16 Comments

Yesterday was a day that will live on in infamy, or at least in the top ten of my not favorite days of 2026. It all began as my wife, the family bookkeeper, started up the laptop to check our checking account yesterday, when lo and behold she discovered that we were overdrawn by $600! Now we run a pretty tight ship around here (my kids call me cheap). So this came as a shock. No, we had not spoken to anyone on the phone, clicked any bad links or been hacked by the CIA. Instead, three unexplained checks showed in the account, made out to folks we had never heard of. Immediately I fired up the Di lithium crystals and put the car into warp drive and headed for the bank. There we discovered that a forger had written three checks for several thousand dollars, totally wiping us out. The remainder of the day we spent filling out reports at the bank for their fraud division and then again at the sheriff’s office to report the crime. By dinner time, I had no ambition to cook anything complicated, and my wife’s diet calls for no evening meal at all. To simplify things, I simply broke out the skillet, and determined to have eggs, sausage and an English muffin. Yes, I still remembered that God works all things together for good, but at the moment, I needed something more than hearing that truth quoted to me. Imagine my surprise when I opened the egg carton and saw a Bible verse on the inside lid. 

This is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it! Psalm 118:24 NKJV

Though He doesn’t do it all the time, I have been amazed and blessed to discover the many occasions when God drops a line of Holy Scripture on my path, just when I need it most. Though someone could have given me a well-deserved a lecture on thankfulness or sermonized on the reality that in this world we will have tribulation. But God chose a gentler approach to soften my heart and attitude and turned my terrible, horrible, no-good day, into a wonderfully blessed one and a time I will remember His gentle correction and care for years to come. Isn’t God amazing? I hope that whatever your circumstances, that He may come alongside of you today with His word and bring light in the darkness, calm in the storm and rejoicing in this day that He has made!

God’s Good Plans

/ pastorpete51 / 2 Comments 
For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord. Plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11 ESV

Whether I turn on the news or just crawl out of bed and pour my first cup of coffee, my life usually doesn’t feel perfect or planned by anyone; let alone by God. Instead, things look chaotic, unexpected, and sometimes even dangerous. But through facing my wife’s cancer, suffering through the pain of our son’s divorce, and the death of a close friend’s small child, I have learned, that God has still been in charge. Even in our most chaotic circumstances, He brought things into order and shone His light on our darkest days. Of course, God is in charge of everyone and everything in the universe, but for those of us who are Christians, God has given us a special assurance because of the cross. God showed us His love and mercy on a hill called Calvary, while Jesus went through His darkest, and most chaotic time, during six hours nailed to that terrible Cross. Now in spite of any situation, God promises us that in every circumstance, that He has good plans for our future and a wonderful hope for us today!

Counting Blessings

/ pastorpete51 / 10 Comments 
Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. 
Hebrews 12:2

Some days it is hard to sing because as I look out on our audience at Life Care Center, I see people in wheelchairs, some with limbs missing, some no longer verbal, and I wonder what these words mean to them. How can they count their blessings when their life isn’t what anyone ever hoped for? And yet they sing, and they smile and some tap their feet or clap their hands because we are counting blessings together again by faith and Jesus draws near! And the Bible reminds me that Jesus counted the cross as worth it, in exchange for our salvation and for the glory that waited His return to Heaven. He didn’t count blessings with a song but with suffering and yet by faith He endured, as today’s verse tells us, by looking forward to the joys that lay ahead. I pray that no matter what you are going through this morning, that the presence of Jesus will fill your heart with grace and strength. Counting blessings is not always easy. Life is not always a song, and we do not skip down an easy road singing “Lalalala!” every day. Often the way ahead is filled with challenges, hardships and heart ache. But whatever we are experiencing this morning; Jesus has promised to never leave us. He is with us and takes our hand in His, and reminds us of the nails that pierced His, while He was counting blessings.