Joe & Becky Cruse

I trust you are having a great week. You know what is exciting? God is up to something at CWC. There is a lifting, a stirring—something is happening and it is good and it is God! Can you sense it? I want to encourage you to join us this weekend for our special Mother’s Day celebration along with baby dedication. It’s going to be a wonderful day!

One of our new members shared story this with me. I’m sending it your way—it blessed me!

“Yesterday, Pastor Joe gave a great illustration about crabs in a bucket. Being from the Chesapeake Bay area, I had no problem seeing exactly what he was talking about.

Crabs in a bucket always try to escape. The more crabs you put in the bucket, the closer they get to the top, the more likely one might get away. EXCEPT the crabs that are closest to the top have a serious problem. The ones underneath will grab ahold of them and pull them back into the bucket! Now I don’t know if the crabs are thinking, “Hey, buddy, you’re not going without me” or “Hey, buddy, you’re staying right here for the crab boil with the rest of us.” Either way, the pulling down by the ones below tend to keep the bucket full and escapees a rare occurrence.

When I was youth pastor, I used to have my teens try this experiment. One would stand on a table and another on the floor. Then they would play tug-of-war. Who do you think won, every single time? The one on the floor, of course! Because it is easier to pull someone down than pull them up. The fallen human nature tends to be negative, tends to focus on the worst case scenario. This is the effect of fear that entered with sin.There are plenty of crabby people out there trying to pull us back into the bucket! And not just unbelievers, either. There are plenty of crabby Christians out there, too. Some of them are actually wanting us to pull them up with us and other simply want to pull us down to them.

Faith, the absence of fear and perfect confidence of the good things we expect, is supernatural and powerful, but it requires a lot of practice before it is strong enough to mitigate the effects of that downward pull. So, today, I’m going to be careful how I hear, careful who I listen to, careful with my thoughts and careful to protect the joy of the Lord in me, which is my strength, so that I not only will not be pulled down, but also by God’s grace may be able to pull someone already down out of the bucket with me!”

Can I encourage you to be salt and light this week? There are so many hurting people that need a warm hug, a friendly smile, someone who cares. Invite them to church, or better yet, bring them with you to the house of the Lord. We can see their lives changed forever by the presence and power of the Lord.

Why don’t you join us this Wed night @ 6:30 for Recharge? It’s a great time of prayer, praise and worship. You will really be blessed!

If you aren’t able to join us Wednesday, link your faith with us. We are going to be praying for:

Our newest members—The Ogle Family and Becka Treadaway
Our Centre g’s – especially, Fraternity and 3:11 (Men’s and Women’s groups)
Our Kids @ CWC and Debbie McMillen and helpers
Our Four12 Youth @ CWC and Aaron Folz and team
The visitors who have been visiting the last few weeks
Our neighbors in our local communities surrounding the church
Our students as they finish this year
Our Pastors, teachers, and administrative team
Our businessmen/women

We love you all,
Pastor Joe and Becky and the team

This entry was posted on Monday, May 3rd, 2010 at 10:25 pm and is filed under Becky's Blog, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.