James W. Moore speaks of a “Fool’s Aptitude Test” in his book Noah Built His Ark in the Sunshine and poses these questions:
1. If you take two apples from three apples, what do you have?
Answer: You have two! If you take two, you have two.
2. A farmer has seventeen sheep. All but nine die. How many does he have left?
Answer: Nine! They all died but nine.
3. How many different kinds of animals did Moses take on the ark?
Answer: None! Moses didn’t take any; it was Noah!
The trick to this “Aptitude test” is in the reading! The success one will have in answering the questions rests in how carefully one reads the questions. This “Fool’s Aptitude Test” indicates how easily people can give wrong answers and take incorrect paths. It is because of the hurry with which things are discerned.
Worship calls us to depart from the “hurry” and the “worry” that surrounds us and to “come in from routines of life…leave cares behind…and rejoice in the day that the Lord has given to us. In our service we will be good stewards of the hour, but we will not rush. Slowly and intentionally we will ask everyone to pause from “lists” and “tasks” and “issues” and to focus on prayer, singing, praising and listening.
Join with your church family each Sunday in October. Let’s try to put God first in all things for this month. Let’s see what we can be by finding our place in worship and Sunday School in October. Let’s have a “come home to faith” month. Worship calls and asks for busy people to pause from routines and find their pew and say, “Speak, Lord. I need to hear what you have to say.” We are working to build the church! You are the key! The best way to build is to be inviting to people who have been captured by being busy and having calendars that are way too full.
Take some time to invite people to come with you to church and to experience a departure from “hurry” so we can “rest in the Lord’s care.” Put the church in the top three of your list of things to do weekly. It is the place where lives are changed and covered by God’s grace.
Ken