There are times when ministries and organizations must adapt or adjust to circumstances or conditions around them. Several Adventist ministries and conferences have needed to reduce staff in the last 2 years. Greater New York is currently reducing 43 employees. ADRA has recently announced a significant reduction of employees. Here in our Conference we have needed to carefully work by faith and at the same time structure within good stewardship. And this has necessitated some reductions in staff during the present times.
So how is your morale?
If that is all we focused on, we could start to look down and start to feel that things are getting pretty bad. And as we look around to other Conferences in the NAD and the recent moves by ADRA, we could again be concerned that God has not been at work. Or that somehow things aren’t going right.
Yet as we look forward, we remember that God’s work is going to be triumphant, and that God has promised exceedingly great and precious promises. These promises have not failed. They have not been withdrawn. God has not been taken off guard by the challenges or adjustments that have come. His work, while having to be structured differently as conditions change in our Conference or on earth, is still being carried forward.
Our current call is to be looking up. No matter what the conditions are, no matter what the challenges are, no matter how things may change from time to time, we are called to lift up our hearts and voices in prayer and petition. As we do that, we will find that,
“…prayer is the key in the hand of faith to unlock heaven's storehouse, where are treasured the boundless resources of Omnipotence?” Steps to Christ page 95.
Those resources have not fallen short. Prayer is our avenue to practice dependence upon God and that is where our dependence is to be placed.
I believe God is at work in a mighty way across Pennsylvania. Yes we have some challenges and adjustments right now, but at the same time, there are countless blessings also taking place right now. As we look around, we see many members seeking a genuine revival in Jesus and seeking Christ’s transformation of life. We see in some churches people walking in off the street, convicted of keeping the Sabbath holy. We are seeing youth and young adults taking up the mission of Jesus and reaching out to those around them—one young lady in the Reading Spanish church has been reaching out to her high school classmates and several of them have been baptized and some of their family members are starting to attend. We see more lay persons willing to become spiritual leaders.
Where are you and I looking during these times? Are we looking down? Are we looking around? Or are we looking forward and looking upward?
God will lead us through these challenging times. He is at work right now. Let us continue to put our faith and trust in His leading.
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