When Life Doesn’t Follow Your Plan…

ALOHA! This week on our Summer Sermon Road Trip: Following God in Real Life, we continue with the story of Jacob, whose life (like ours) rarely moves in a straight line. This Sunday’s lesson, Genesis 29:15–28, brings us to one of the more surprising and complicated moments in Jacob’s journey. After years of scheming and striving, Jacob finally thinks he knows exactly how his life is supposed to unfold. He loves Rachel, he works seven years to marry her, and the plan seems clear. But life doesn’t follow his plan. In a twist both painful and comic, Jacob the deceiver finds himself deceived. This Sunday’s sermon, “When Life Doesn’t Follow Your Plan,” invites us to reflect on what
happens when the life we imagined and the life we actually receive are not the same. Where is God when our expectations unravel? And how might grace still be at work in the life right in front of us? Please join us this Sunday at 9 a.m. in the Chapel, or on Facebook Live as we continue this journey of faith together! 

Last Sunday, in Genesis 28:10-19a, Jacob stopped in an ordinary place for the night and has one of the most surprising dreams in Scripture. He sees a stairway between heaven and earth, with angels ascending and descending, and wakes to realize that God was present with him in that ordinary place all along. His words become the heart of the message: “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it.” And we considered where God may already be at work in the ordinary, unexpected, or overlooked places of our lives. Have you found a place like that this past week?

THIS SUNDAY, the Confirming Faith Adult Sunday School class meets again. Our topics will be The Sacraments. Join us in the Vicar’s Office after worship.

DEAR SIBLINGS IN CHRIST, I am grateful for the many ways you share in the life and ministry of St. Timothy’s. Please continue to pray for our leaders and ministers, for me as your vicar, and for every member of our St. Timothy’s ʻohana. May God grant us faith for the journey, hope for the road ahead, and the assurance that God’s presence is always with us.

Aloha Ke Akua!
Rev. Pete+