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God made a covenant with Abraham.  If Abraham would follow the Lord, Abraham would be the father of a great nation, a nation through which all the nations of the world would be blest.  If Abraham would follow God in faith, his descendants would be as numerous as the stars and would inherit the land of Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey.

It took a long time for those promises to come to pass.  Abraham’s great grandson Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt, but God remembered the promise made to Abraham and Joseph became a great man in Egypt, second in power only to Pharaoh himself.  The Hebrew people prospered, but when a Pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph, he enslaved the Israelites, and God’s promise to Abraham was put in jeopardy.  So God called Moses to lead the Hebrew people out of the bondage of slavery.  God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, where they would learn the ways of the Lord and be brought to inherit the land promised to Abraham’s descendants all those long years ago.

To save this group of slaves, God parted the Red Sea to rescue them from Pharaoh’s armies, fed them with manna from heaven, and gave them quail to eat when they complained that bread was not enough.  God performed miracle after miracle on Israel’s behalf, yet when it came time to take inheritance of the land of Canaan, their fledgling faith faltered.  Yes, the land promised them was truly a land flowing with milk and honey, but they were too few.  The inhabitants of the land were too great.  They could not do it.

Because of their lack of faith, God commanded that the Hebrews continue to wander in the wilderness until all those who doubted God’s promises had passed away.  Only Joshua and Caleb, who believed that God would give them the land if they would simply enter it, lived to enter the land of Canaan.

As we consider our future together and our relevance in Laguna Beach and beyond, I hear the murmurings:  “We are too few.”  “The problems are too large.” “If we grow, we will change, and I’m not sure I want to change.”  Those who have a long tenure in this congregation have heard these murmurings ever since we first starting meeting above the Sandpiper bar.

There is no question that we are called to be a powerful spiritual force, a place of healing, prayer and worship in our community.  There is no question that Neighborhood Congregational Church will fulfill the promise made to those pioneers who started a church above a bar and later built Bridge Hall and our current sanctuary.  It is time to grow into the source of blessing we are called to be.  Will we be the inheritors of God’s continuing promise, or do we prefer wandering in the wilderness?

Yours on the journey,

Pastor B. J.