The Bethany Sun

The Blue Jays lost to the Red Sox, Spain’s playing the Netherlands in World Cup soccer, Carl and Charlie are napping and in respite from the constant rain, it’s sunny and hot outside.  This, the third day of warmth in a row, and I finally have to water my flowering plants outside. Coughing up phlegm, I come inside to write this Blog post that is already four days late.  Having allergies, something that inhibited my late teens and early twenties, hardly concerns me now except for the blooming canola that gets me every year.  It started two weeks ago, full sinuses and a tickly cough, that’s when I knew that despite the horridly wet and cold weather, God had intervened and the canola crop, that did not look like it would make it was growing. The perseverance of nature to grow and emerge in its time, reminds me of God’s perseverance in his love for us and his desire for us to be mentored to his will.  Even in the rain and the cold cloudy weather, God was at work in the seed to push it to germination and sprout to flower.  What shall the Lord do in us through this summer depends on our willingness to endure the wet and cloudy seemingly unhelpful days of our summer, to discover that through it all we really have learned to flower in his presence.

I have been pondering the process of education lately.  Surely stimulated by my recent studies at the U of S.  But, what keeps us learning?  Why do I forget things I once knew, promises, truths, ways of doing things?  I was told that, while in voice training, I shouldn’t take any time off but continue to train, listen to music and learn repertoire until the degree is finished or I will be behind as the knowledge compounds and accelerates to culminate in what I will need to know at the close of the degree.  Biblical training is the same.  Why can’t we get all the knowledge that Bethany classes offer in our own churches and Sunday school teaching?  Perhaps because nowhere else is the persistent and concentrated study of the Word so encouraged, admired, pushed and deemed the ‘cool’ thing to do.  It is the daily work in the Word to understand, and pursue truth that ingrains it in our hearts and changes how we act.  We can’t leave important learning for six days (or in my case years) to sit and slowly degrade unused and un-stimulated.  Like the perseverance of nature we must persevere in our study of God and scripture memorization past the school session and into summer and beyond so that all we would grow to be all that God has for us in this life.  It has to continue on, even if the intensity is lessened or we will forget.  (cough! cough! COUOUGH!!) Just scared Carl and Charlie so bad I jumped too. No one has scored in the soccer game though the orange guys, no the navy guys have the ball.  Anyway, even in our wet and dry seasons of life let’s not let up in our perseverance for God. “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” PS. 119:11.  And see you all in September.  Oh! I have some incredible costumes-sets-props to show you, but that’s another story.

Bye for now,

Susan J Schmidt Goerz

Instructor