Mission Statement:

Kingdom Builders ministry exists to serve homeowners in the greater Oneonta area by providing quality labor to address construction needs that they are unable to accomplish by their own means. Although the practical focus is on construction, the spiritual focus is on building relationships with those served, with the end goal of demonstrating the love of Christ through ministry.

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Hills and Valleys

NOVEMBER 2023

There are times in ministry, as well as with my personal relationship with God, where His presence and power seem to flow easily and others where I couldn’t feel him at all or there seemed to be no power or authority. Times where God’s presence is strong and amazing and I think to myself, “I will never forget this” or “I will carry this with me always”. And then there’s those times where I can’t see or feel God in anything, like I am stumbling around in the dark wondering “what is happening?” and “what I am missing?” or worse “where are you God?”. These totally different experience in my walk with God sometimes make me feel like I might not be a true follower of Christ. How can I experience such highs and lows? This past week God helped me to see this more clearly in Mark 9.

Jesus had taken a couple of the disciples to the mountain top where “…he was transfigured before them”. The disciples must have been on a spiritual high! His presence is strong and overwhelming. The mountain top experience where all seems right in the world, and everything just makes sense. Batteries are charged and spiritual nourishment is overflowing. Peter wants to stay on the mountain (Mark 9:5) and I can relate. When God fills all my senses I too just want to stay there forever.

However, God never intended for the disciples to stay there. He never intended me or any of us to stay there. He leads the disciples down the mountain straight into an argument between other disciples and the religious teachers over the authority of Christ and his disciple’s inability to heal a man’s son. From the hill to the valley. From encountering a perfect and holy God to encountering a broken and hurting world. What a contrast! The spiritual high is over and the service among the sinners takes over.

And again, I can relate, having a wonderful encounter with God then the doldrums of daily life happen right afterward – arguing children, a difficult coworker, my spouse is complaining about something, that friend struggling with addiction or in their marriage, a family members cancer diagnosis or that problem I have been praying about remaining unresolved. I never have to look too hard to see the fallen broken world in front of me. These all too familiar experiences seem to fill all my senses in the same way God had but unlike with God I don’t want to stay here. My mind shifts to myself and how I am going to handle or get through this situation. In those moments I wonder if God is saying to me “you unbelieving generation” (v19).  

In the valley is where Jesus meets the poor, sick, broken, prideful, disobedient, afflicted. It’s where he calls us to go as well. And it’s often in the valley, where God does his best work! But if my confidence shifts to myself and I begin to rely on my own past successes for current spiritual battles I forget that I am a tool in God’s hands. I become self-reliant and unbelieving and apart from God I can’t do anything.  So, I am quite literally stumbling around in the dark, without him, which is why it totally feels that way (a light bulb moment). These lows are part of life’s journey and part of the spiritual walk with God.

It also struck me that several times in scripture Jesus went to mountains, hills, and hillsides to pray. Moses did too. So, what is so important about leaving the valley? I see this in the ministry work where God has placed me and I realize that I can’t find God by doing for him, I can only find him by being with him. I love how Ruth Meyers says, “Praise and worship is the on-ramp that puts you back on God’s freeway”. God wants my life lived every day only for him and anything else takes me out of his presence. Jesus opened the door to the Most Holy Place giving me access to the very presence of God, I just have to make the choice to go there.  

If I am being honest some days are easier than others to go to God. I am very independent and often feel it’s just easier to do it myself. But God didn’t create me for that. My life here on earth is to prepare me for an eternal relationship with God. This is accomplished by growing my faith, knowledge of truth and dependency on God.

God is still working to remove inaccurate or false views of him, redefine who I am and my relationship with him, so that it does become easier to go to him. Like Paul I have confidence “that he who began a good work [in me] will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). That view from the mountain top is truly the only thing of value in this life! So, for now, I will take the lows with the highs just as the disciples did with Jesus.  

Jennifer Smallin

Praises:

God that he deeply desires a relationship with us and has been pursing us since the beginning.

Holy Spirit is inside every child of God, guiding, empowering, and making things known.

God that he allows us to see him work, meeting the physical and spiritual needs of his people, through our contact with them.

Prayers:

KBNCY continues to walk through doors God opens for us.

2 Thessalonians 1:11-12: “…that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ”.

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