A home to come back to

Food and fairs seem to go hand in hand. I went to the Woodstock Fair today and I ate sweet buttered corn, a blooming onion, and a hot fudge Sundae. The food smelled so good I could have eaten even more. The smells were so intoxicating and you couldn't get away from it. The folks I was with today ate even more. Barbecued chicken, smoked sausage dogs, funnel cakes and corn dogs were on tap for them.

It's funny how people who are usually pretty good about diets and capable of avoiding junk food just lose control at the fair. I guess it just goes to show that we all have our weaknesses. We like to pretend that we have it all together, especially at church. When we get together with others of faith we try to hide the fact that we struggle with this or that. We put up a wall of defense and hide behind it.

Yet God gave us the church, the fellowship of believers, to build up and encourage one another. In the early days the church shared everything in common. They took care of each other. When someone stumbled, someone was there to pick them up again. The church still does that. We don't always get it right but we keep trying. The church has been called a hospital for the sinner or the sick and I think that is how God set it up.

I pray that my congregation, and churches across the world, will try harder to live up to this calling so that the lost, the sick, the troubled, the weary will have a place to come home to and find the love of God.

Cal