I will not panic! I will not panic! I will not panic! Obviously, it’s a temptation. With David and Toni Page both having left, there is a big void in the staff. They both brought wonderful talents, great personalities, and deep faith that will be sorely missed. We may even wonder how can Orangewood be Orangewood without them?
Of course, we’ve been there before. I’m sure the founding members wondered how Orangewood could be Orangewood without its founding pastor, Pat Patterson. In latter years, it was “how can we get along without Sam Lindamood?” “How can we go on without Bob and Joyce Page?” “What will we do without Brian Paulson?” In each of those occasions, Orangewood found that there were some challenges ahead, but God had wonderful blessings planned through those challenges.
One of the great gifts of the psalms is that they recall the history of God at work with his people. God has called them to be a covenant people. He has saved them from famine. He has delivered them from slavery in Egypt. He has given the law. He has fed them in the wilderness. He has raised up judges to cast out their oppressors, etc. But the psalms don’t usually stop there.
Many of the psalms use that history as a basis for faith and trust in God in the present. They cry out to God for the present crisis, and that cry is partially answered by remembering God’s faithfulness in the past. If God has always seen his people through in the past, God can be trusted to do it again in the near future.
In our personal lives, we have seen that God is at work through the hard times, giving us strength, courage, and faith and helping us to come through stronger and more faithful than we began. In our corporate life as a church we have seen how God has always raised up new leaders, blessing the gifts of ordinary people with the power of the Holy Spirit to guide the church in each new age. Now is the time to trust that God is at work in the present and will bless us through this difficult time in the near future.
I won’t panic. It’s all in God’s good hands!
Psalms 3:3 But you, O Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, and the one who lifts up my head.
