I wonder what you see when you look outside of your office right now? It’s that time of seasonal change when each day can bring something different – sun one day and relentless grey and rain the next. If you’re anything like me, the view I see when I look out can influence me – days of continual thick grey cloud and drizzle can sap my energy levels no end! The view we choose to focus on as we serve as administrators in our churches can also affect our perspective. No doubt, as I’m writing this, some of you are struggling with building projects that are behind timeline, or church events that have been placed on your desk to organise far too late, or financial concerns surfacing as you monitor the monthly giving, or a team member you find it increasingly difficult to work with, or too many emails in your in-box....the list goes on and you know exactly what you are looking at right now that is sapping your energy or motivation.
All of us in the UCAN network are aware of the challenges roles like ours have and we understand and sympathise if we sometimes find ourselves looking at the difficulties around and lose heart. If we focus on the difficult ‘view’ around us we can even lose hope that we’ll be able to get through what lies ahead. That’s when we need to be reminded that God knows what we face, that He is there present during it with us, and that He has vast resources available to us if we ask for His help.
In 2 Kings Ch6 we read that the prophet Elisha’s servant looked out day and saw enemy armies surrounding them. He realised that there was no human way they could win the battle ahead. “Oh no, what shall we do” he asked Elisha. “Don’t be afraid” the prophet answered because he saw what lay ahead differently. Elisha prayed “open his eyes Lord, so that he may see” and God enabled the servant to see, just like Elisha could, that God had already sent an angelic army to surround the advancing enemy. The view ahead of them was now taken from God’s perspective and they knew that “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them”.
Whatever you are ‘humanly’ looking out at currently, please be encouraged that you are not alone, God is with you in it. UCAN’s Directors are praying for you and all the UCAN network at this time, that God will open your eyes. We pray that He will remind you that He has called you to be where you are, that He loves you, is with you, is for you, and has heavenly resources at His disposal to send you to help you today. All you need to do is to be still in the middle of what you are looking at, to remember that He is the all-powerful God and He is right there with you, and to ask Him for his help and his perspective.