From the April-June 2008 Issue
Just standing
Dawid and Agnieska Koziol
ZywiecIn the life of each individual the flow of time is marked by different occasional celebrations. Not so long ago some celebrated Christmas, others New Year. We looked forward to Easter, to mark another period of time. When we are at a certain age we gladly invite friends and family to our birthday party; later we hesitate to say that it is our special day, and we forget to tell that another year has passed away. Of course I am not saying that all of us do the same, this is rather a general view.
What is true in the life of so many individuals is also true in the life of many churches. Some will celebrate their anniversaries with great splendour and with a flourish; other churches won’t attach importance to that kind of thing. Probably we could create more groups and each one will hold fast to their specific approach to the subject of celebration. Our church will be in the group of those who remember about those special occasions, but maybe not celebrating them with great splendour.
In November 2007 our church remembered five years of its existence. This is also the seventh year of my work with this congregation of people. One wonders at how quickly those years have passed by! Of course the work of the Gospel in my town started long before that, but it was five years ago when a very small group of Christians, who were assembled in a mission station, started to grow and were able to change the mission station into a church. It is only five years, but maybe using that time frame it is good to look at what the Lord has done in our congregation. When we do that we have two kinds of feelings. First, a sense of gratitude, and second, a sense of dissatisfaction. Let me refer to those feelings in the context of our church.
Gratitude
The first is gratitude. Although we have existed only five years as a church, these have been years of the grace and faithfulness of God. It is a very humbling experience when one realises that without God we couldn’t survive even a single year. As the life and death of every individual person living on this planet depends solely on God, so does the church. Surrounded by many enemies, people who are in opposition to the work of the Gospel, traditional churches (in our case a strong Roman Catholic Church) and above all, the powers of darkness, make it difficult for the church to stand, not saying anything about its growth. And yet in such a hostile world, the church is standing, strengthening and preparing for battles.
Like so many churches, our church was also affected by the illnesses of its members, deaths (even very young people), backslidings and disappointments. But at the same time we have seen conversions, baptismal services, the repentance of those who struggled with sin, growth in understanding the things of God, and His answers to so many problems in the life of many individuals and in the life of the congregation too. Indeed God was good to us, and one has to be blind not to see it. We have to repeat after the psalmist: ‘O give thanks unto the LORD; for [he is] good: for his mercy [endureth] for ever’ (Psalm 136:1). And I too have to repeat those words. He gave me strength to stand in bad and good seasons, teaching me very painful lessons, but all for my good and His glory.
Dissatisfaction
The second feeling is of dissatisfaction. I would say that it is rather a positive feeling in our context. As we look back on the life of the church we see that the influence of the Gospel upon the people in our town of Zywiec has been so limited. We would love to see more people coming to saving faith in Christ, and we would love to see new converts coming to our church too.
Although we have seen many people come to the church, they were only visiting. They came maybe once, some of them twice, very few more than that, and they never came back. Most of them were unconverted; some were looking for immediate solutions to their life’s problems and were disappointed when we could offer only the message of the Gospel. Yet, they all heard that message and today we pray for them, committing them into the hands of one who can change what from our perspective is unchangeable.
We see the need of the light of the Gospel in our town, and yet we see how little we are able to do to make this light shine stronger. This causes the feeling of dissatisfaction, when, after five years, we see very little fruit from our work. Sometimes we think how wonderful it would be if all who came could stay with us. In that situation we would need a new church building, as the one we have would be much too small. Sometimes we ask ourselves if we as a church could do more. And certainly we can always say that yes we could. But sometimes too we have to trust that even this situation is in God’s hands, under His control. The prophet Habakkuk has put it better than I can: ‘Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither [shall] fruit [be] in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and [there shall be] no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD God [is] my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ [feet], and he will make me to walk upon mine high places’ (Hab. 3:17-19).
Then we ask the question, is there a time in the life of the church when we actually can say we are satisfied? I do not think so, and that gives us relief. There is no time in the life of the church when we can say: ‘It is enough. We have done it all.’ Only God may say that, only He decides. Why? Because it is His Church. That reality helps us to work and trust, despite all our feelings, for as long as He wishes.