How ARE you doing?

How are you doing? No really … how ARE you doing?

Our disappointment regarding cancelling our plans to serve you and God’s church have paled in significance in these most recent days as we absorb the immensity of global events. Clearly God has much bigger plans for His church in these days than our little conference. At the same time, we want you to know, we are sorry not to be sharing fellowship with you this week. There really is deep disappointment in this loss and it is good for us to acknowledge it.

When we made the decision to cancel, we were exercising ‘choice’ … or so we thought. Today we know that there was no choice in it at all. With world leaders working to discern how to protect their people and their economies, it has become necessary that decisions like the one we made, be made for us. With those overwhelming measures of leadership comes an increasing awareness of the gravity of the situation. So … how ARE you really doing?

Are you finding ways to keep your heart rooted in the One who sees it all and holds it all in the palm of His hand? There is something utterly breathtaking about recognizing that God can use something microscopic – unseen to the naked eye – to capture the attention of virtually every human on the planet. As God’s children, we will serve Him best if we can push that microscopic organism aside in order to see our good Father with greater clarity. Rather than looking to God through the lens of coronavirus, we want to look at the coronavirus through the lens of God. What is He doing in His world? The worst thing we could do at this time is miss the answer to that question.

Will you pray with us that God’s people – His church scattered – will lift their hearts and eyes to heaven and let Him guide us in responding to a global pandemic? There are no books for this, except The Book and we’ve never searched its pages for THIS. It’s time to be searching. We are asking the Lord to guide us all as we seek to proclaim and display His great glory to a world that has been knocked completely off all artificial foundations. Oh that the lost would see His glory in His church and long for the one sure foundation that cannot be shaken.

Though we can’t share time together this week, you are on our hearts. We are praying for you in these ways:

• That your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Phil 1:9-10)
• That you will experience the reality of being sheltered as under God’s pinions and choose to find refuge under His wings; that you will know beyond the shadow of a doubt His faithfulness as your refuge and buckler (shield/protection).
• That you will be receiving from God abiding comfort in all your afflictions so that you may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort that you have received from Him.

If there are other ways we could be praying for you at this time, please let us know. It would be our privilege to share in God’s ministry to you in these days.

Some of you made the sacrificial choice to relinquish your registration fee to support the ongoing ministry of CBCC. We are deeply humbled and grateful for your gift. Will you pray for wisdom for us to use it in new and meaningful ways, while the normal ways we serve the Canadian church are unavailable to us.

With heartfelt gratitude for you,
Betty-Anne Van Rees on behalf of the CBCC board