Today we begin the fifth week of Footprints of Faith. This is a forty day period of prayer and fasting that was started on March 7. It is a period where we have been focusing on God’s Vision for Glenwood. A part of that Vision involves the preparation for the search of a new preaching minister as well as a children and women’s minister. Each week there has been a topic, a scripture and a prayer guide for our daily meditation. We have asked you to pray for God to give us wisdom as we focus on God’s will and vision for Glenwood. We encourage your response to the questions DeWayne Manning proposed several weeks ago regarding vision casting. Many of you have joined us in periods of fasting over the last four weeks. The forty days will officially end on Thursday April 15. Your Shepherds will meet for prayer and begin the process that will be used for the selection of new ministers. During this time, we ask that you continue to be in prayer for us and for unity here at Glenwood.
This week, if you are physically able, please join us in a fast beginning next Friday night, April 9. As a community, we will join together in a fast and will then break that fast with the Lord’s Supper next Sunday April 11.
This week our thoughts are centered on the Leadership of God. Listen to Proverbs 3:5-6:
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will direct your paths.
Each day after reading this scripture:
- Pray that God will reign in our hearts as we seek his will.
- Pray that God continues to redeem us as we join Him in the ministry of redemption.
- Pray that God will lead us to renew our commitment and expand our vision.
In Exodus 14, the Israelites had left Egypt going toward the Red Sea. Then they turned back at God’s instruction. Pharaoh changed his mind about freeing Israel. He assumed that Moses and the Israelites were lost. He started out in pursuit of them. Then beginning in Ex.14:10:
10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. 11 They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”
13 Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
15 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. 16 Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.
You know the rest of this familiar story. The Egyptians were destroyed. Israel was saved.
31 And when the Israelites saw the great power the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him …..
As we enter the final eleven days of prayer and fasting in this time of transition and vision casting, the story in Exodus 14 speaks to us…especially the words of Moses in verse 13:
Stand firm.
Trust God.
Be still.
God will provide.
Be at Peace.
For the Elders,
Wayne Propst
