Hello, and welcome to Enfolding, Living a Bold Christian Light. I'm Chris Shutter, an ordinary Christian living with and learning about an extraordinary God. In this episode, we'll be exploring how to hold the line through the 25 promises found in the Book of Isaiah. Today's hold the line promise comes from Isaiah 55, 2 through 3.
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. In climb your ear, and come to me. I also want to share John 635 with you today. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. I know it's summertime, but I've been thinking a lot about Jesus lately in his character. I've been studying the Book of Revelations, which I discovered was actually all about Jesus, and it made me think about Christmas. And when we prepare for Christmas, we have all these wonderful Christmas meals and beautifully wrapped gifts.
It's easy to overlook that what most of us call Christmas isn't necessary. Strip down Christmas is about one thing. Jesus, God's promise to deliver us his greatest gift, his son. In the year 2020, our Christmas was a little bit different.
We were missing friends and family, but the promise I wanted to share with you is this. He is always providing for us. Even in times that seem bare, he provides. In fact, the opportunity to truly appreciate what we do have is when situations seem the most difficult.
It's lessons like that which Jesus passed along to us through his bloodline. He will provide in the most God-like ways. A stranger lends a hand. A paycheck bonus comes at the right time, or an offer of food from a neighbor when you need it most.
And the covenant agreement we need to uphold and hold on to is to trust in that promise. I pray every day that when I write my blog or I do this podcast is that someone, even just one person hears this and they need it. They need to hear from God. The other day I was thinking about which Isaiah verse to use and that day my friend Betsy shared a story written by her sister for her local church.
As she read it, all I kept hearing was, he provides. So I asked my friend Betsy if I could share her beautiful family story here. Betsy's family's bloodline has passed down some amazing lessons and I hope you enjoy it. It starts out in the story of a picture that was in a newspaper and it shows her whole family, her mom and her dad and his priestly garb and her five brothers and sisters.
And it's titled A Privileged Life Growing Up by Rachel Moller. I am the oldest daughter of an Episcopal priest. I found growing up totally immersed in the culture of Episcopal Church something very special. This photo was taken July 2, 1953 for the Glendale, California news press announcing that my father was to be the new rector of St.
Luke's of the mountains of La Crescent, California and it introduced our family to the community. One of five in the oldest, you will see me picture to the right of my father and holding my favorite, Madam Alexander Doll. My younger two brothers and two sisters completed our family. Yes, five children in six years, something my mother said raised eyebrows at our new church.
We lived in the large rector, which was next door to the church and suited our big family perfectly. Apparently, while constructing this new house, there was some opposition to the vestry on its size. And supposedly the previous rector said, well, who knows, the next rector might have five children. Perhaps the search committee went looking for a priest with five children to justify their new building.
Living next door to the church, we are very much aware of all the church activities on a daily basis. There was always something special, be it their regular church services, a wedding, funeral, or special events. My father believed his family was an extension of him, so we were taught to answer the telephone properly. In my case, St.
Luke's rector, Rachel speaking, and to take messages in detail and often answer questions such as the times of church services or dates of meetings. In a way, our parents used us as extra employees. We gave out keys, opened doors, passed the cookies at vestry meetings, set up the tables and chairs for parish events, washed the coffee cups after church on Sunday, went with our father to visit people in the hospital, took foods to orphanages, and helped relocate refugees, first the Dutch Indonesians and Cubans and later Vietnamese. And we helped unload real sheep into our station wagon for the live nativity outside the front of the church at Christmas.
Anything going on at the church was dinner table conversation, including who was sick and in the hospital or just died or had a baby. The doorbell rang morning, noon and night was someone wanting something or wondering, where's Father Sadler? It was a constant in our life. The parish got to know us and we clicked quickly, learned the names of all the parishioners.
In contrast to many clergy today, our father always wore a black shirt, not gray or blue or some other color and his clerical color. I don't remember ever seeing him not wearing his uniform until years after he retired. Even on his day off, he dressed in the collar. He was very active in our community, which made him well known, which in turn brought great benefits to our family.
He was usually the clergyman on stage at our school graduations there to give the invocation or benediction, which made me very proud. Everywhere we went, folks would stop to him to say hello and show us special kindness. We were often invited to parishioners' homes to swim on hot afternoons. We were even treated to Disneyland when it first opened.
There were always special gifts of food and goodies at the holidays, items that weren't part of our regular family fare. The most important lesson I learned from my father was, God will provide. So many wonderful things happened to us. I thought we were very wealthy.
It wasn't until I went away to college that I learned what salary my father actually made. I couldn't believe it. On paper, we were poor, but our lives were rich and much more interesting than those of my friends. For example, we might suddenly have some homeless folks at the dinner table, and my mother would just say, Rachel, please set the table for three more.
We often would never see those people again, but the memory and lesson of hospitality remain. I could fill a book with stories of the wonderful things that happened to us as a result of living in a family grounded in love, trusting that God will provide, and accepting life as it comes. But enough for now. I hope you enjoyed that story by my friend's sister, and I want to leave you with the verse from Luke 12, 22 to 24.
I'd love to hear from you and find out more about how you are living out your old Christian life. Consider the ravens. They neither speak so nor reap. They have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them.
Of how much more value are you than the birds? And if you're wondering and heard my dog in the background, yes, say hello to Tucker. Have a great day. I'd love to hear from you and find out more about how you are living out your old Christian life.
You can find me on Instagram at embolden-the-o, or at my blog at embolden.net.