The first lines of the three stanzas of Clara H. Scott’s hymn “Open My Eyes, That I May See” go like this:
Open my eyes, that I may see glimpses of truth Thou hast for me.
Open my ears, that I may hear voices of truth Thou sendest clear.
Open my mouth, and let me bear gladly the warm truth everywhere.
The hymn echoes passages of scripture like Proverbs 20:12 “Ears that hear and eyes that see – the Lord made both of them.” And Matthew 13:16, “Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.” And Acts 4:20, “We cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
We experience God by being alert, watching and observing what he is doing. As we witness what he is doing around us and within us, we are to praise him and join Him in the work that He is doing. Then, with our voices we are to gladly and enthusiastically tell others the good news.
Hopefully you have seen and heard about the good things that God is doing at Crabtree Valley Baptist Church. We are partners with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in sponsoring a Welcome House for refugees that is successfully helping people experience the Love of God when they arrive in our country seeking a place where they can make a new life for themselves. Weekly through our “Hope Pantry”, people in need of food can find and experience God’s love from a church that cares.
God is also blessing us with an increased number of guests who worship with us on Sunday. Some of them are looking for a loving, carrying church family. We can help them experience God’s love as we take time to give them a warm Christian welcome. God blesses us each Wednesday evening with over 20 present in Bible Study.
God has also blessed us with the generosity of those who are not members of the church contributing to our financial needs, removing debris, fallen limbs and trees from our lower parking lot, cleaning our church gutters and other tasks that make a difference in the safety of our campus.
Sunday, we voted to call Ashley Walker as our Youth Director giving a long prayed for answer to our youth ministry. Ashley’s call to this ministry coming out of her positive experience as a summer counselor at PASSPORT and our affirmation of that call is a “God Thing”. Several weeks ago, we had no clue of how we could provide ministry to our youth. We prayed. God was already at work and today we have the answer to our prayers. “Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.”
Now! With your voice – TELL OTHERS AND GIVE GOD THE GLORY!
In His Love, Charles
