Don attends your church every week. He is faithful and friendly.
Yet when he leaves on Sunday, he faces 166 hours before he comes back.
Lately, his family has been facing health issues. He doesn’t feel 100% most of the time. The stress on his job is increasing, and his wife has been sick quite a bit. His body is aging, the world is going faster, and he feels the daily stress of trying to keep it all together.
The kids are out of the house…for the moment. Last month they had to help the oldest with his rent, and their second child just had a baby. She is married, but her husband was laid off due to downsizing. There is a good chance that one or both of the kids will be moving home soon. Don is worried about the stress this will bring – not just emotionally and socially, but financially.
Don comes to church to get away from stress. To him, it is like a few moments in the clubhouse at the golf course. He believes that God helps those who help themselves (please tell him that Ben Franklin said that, not God), and it is important to him to look like he has it all together.
He really has no idea how to bring his requests to God. He prays for others, but when it comes to his own needs, he feels like he should be able to handle it. Don is very aware of the benefits that living in America bring, and feels like he should be grateful for what he has. He never really learned to lay his stress at God’s feet.
Life isn’t getting easier, and his grandchild is going to have to know how to lean on God in order to survive. Can you help Don learn to lean on God while still maintaining his dignity? Can you show him that God gets his real-life-mess and isn’t disappointed?
Pastor, Don is coming to your church this Sunday. Will you help him connect with God?
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The people in this “Coming to Your Church This Sunday” series aren’t real. They are a compilation of people I have known, read about, heard of and heard from throughout the years. If you see yourself in them, I wasn’t writing about you – you just have a lot in common with the rest of the human race.
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