Text Box: A LOT of people have tried to keep up with my health situation and have gotten confused and wonder what’s really happening with their pastor. At times, I’ve wondered the same thing! CT scans, ultrasounds, and even a biopsy have revealed that there IS a tumor of some sort on my left kidney. The biopsy wasn’t conclusive, so we don’t yet know if it’s cancer or not. Frankly, we don’t care right now.

504 Jackson Street, Reynoldsville, PA 15851

First United Methodist Church

The Sound of the Trumpet

Date: April 2007

The Monthly Newsletter of First United Methodist Church, Reynoldsville

Highlights from...

Church Phone: 814-653-8593

FAX: 814-653-8283

My pastor’s letter this month is two-fold… a personal note here & then the normal devotional challenge I’ve tried to share each month below.

 

    You see, they tell me that most kidney cancers (renal cell carcinomas) seem to start with a benign tumor that looks safe and OK. But something happens down the road and it apparently turns into a breeding ground for kidney cancer. So whether my tumor is benign or cancerous is somewhat irrelevant… we need to get it out of there!

 

    Therefore, on April 23rd I am scheduled to have my kidney removed at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. I’ll be in the hospital for about five days and then be on sick leave for a total of some six to eight weeks I’m told.

 

    The doctors tell me that they seldom get to go after a tumor like this so early… In

Text Box: “Fed up, God decided to get rid of them— and except for Moses, his chosen, he would have. But Moses stood in the gap and deflected God’s anger, prevented it from destroying them utterly.” — Psalm 106:23 (The Message) “I looked for someone to stand up for me against all this, to repair the defenses of the city, to take a stand for me and stand in the gap to protect this land so I wouldn’t have to destroy it. I couldn’t find anyone. Not one.” —Ezekiel 22:30 (The Message) Oh God, how many times are we, your chosen people in this day and age, the very ones you’re waiting for so that we can “stand in the gap” to turn away your anger like Moses did? Like you kept wanting someone to do in Ezekiel’s day, and you never did find someone who would do that? Is this the explanation of how it is that you could “change your mind” in the Old Testament stories? I wonder if in every situation where people faced Your judgment, that it was always your intention to grant mercy to them IF someone would simply “stand in the gap” in order to “turn away your anger.” The judgment is deserved, but you’d rather offer grace and mercy and forgiveness… if someone would just intervene and intercede. You judged the people in the desert and they deserved to die...but Moses intervened, he stepped in and pleaded desperately for them… and for his sake, you showed them mercy. You didn’t give them what they really deserved…. You judged the people in Ezekiel’s day and sent Ezekiel with your message and kept waiting for someone on the receiving end of that message to step in and plead for mercy for your people… and no one did… and so the judgment was carried out. Today, the world around us clearly has walked away from your ways. If you’re truly a righteous and just God, then You have to judge us… our people, our land, our nation… You’ve sent your warnings. Is the seeming pause we sense just a God-given chance for us, your chosen people, to “stand in the gap” and plead for our friends and neighbors and relatives? To plead for mercy? To pray for forgiveness? O God… we modern American Christians are more likely to condemn those around us than we are to be an advocate for them. We see their sin and think “God’ll get you for that!” We are SO wrong! Forgive us O God and change our wicked hearts! Give us the compassion and love of Moses that he felt for his friends and neighbors and relatives. Teach us to stand in the gap! —from Pastor Dayton’s devotions for the Men of Promise breakfast, March 21, 2007

fact, if I hadn’t had a kidney stone after Thanksgiving, we still wouldn’t even know that there was anything wrong… You see, as of this writing, I still have no symptoms and no pain. God worked overtime to make sure we caught this early and we did. (Who would ever have thought that ‘Thank God’ and ‘kidney stones’ could be in the same sentence???!!!!!)

 

    Please be praying for me and for my family as we walk through a new chapter in the story of our lives, with some plot twists we hadn’t been expecting!

 

    THANKS!!!

 

Pastor Dayton