Back around a decade ago, my wife Kim was the very first moderator of the planning team for the brand new Great Plains Wee Kirk Conference.
The Wee Kirk or Small Church conference is an education and refreshments event held annually for pastors and elders. Since the conference was just starting, they had to meet somewhere. Kim needed to call all the possible convention centers and hotels in the target area to see if they could and would host the conference.
She put off making those calls for close to a month. She had never done anything like that before. You know, call a hotel, say, Lets make a deal, and enter into negotiations. She didnt know what to expect, so she put it off.
She thought her conference may be too small for most hotels to bother with them, and her budget was too limited, and 50 other worries also passed through her head at night.
Finally, she had to start making the calls. She ended up calling five hotels and each hotel was more accommodating, inviting and gracious than the next. They were wonderful!
They responded in such unexpected and grace-filled ways. They took her set budget and made up menus, gave her complimentary meeting space, offered to put the planning team up for free if anyone wanted to come and check things out personally. They also sent her door prizes for the meeting, and even offered those really cool suites for the conference chaplains.
I cant help but think that Kims experience with hotels is a lot like our relationship with God and prayer. Sometime I am so worried about taking my concerns to the Father. I fear that my prayer concern is too rotten, or too selfish or, on the other hand, too small for God to worry about.
Sometimes I even put off praying and doing my devotions for any of the above reasons, or 50 others that run through my head at night. Of course, God is incredibly gracious, kind, merciful, inviting, loving and every other positive adjective I can ever think of.
Nothing is too small to take to God. Nothing is too big or too rotten to take to God. God loves you! God loves you! God loves you!
You can go to God with anything, day or night, even if youve put off talking with Him for a long time, or you just talked to Him a minute ago. And Gods response will always be surprising, loving and wonderful.
Great God, you have been generous and marvelously kind. Give us such wonder, love and gratitude that we may sing praises to You and joyfully honor your name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Rev. Steve Nofel is co-pastor of Montezuma Valley Presbyterian Church.
