Why "troth?"

Psalms 105: 1 – "O give thanks unto the Lord; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people." It's precisely what I'll be sharing with you today, making known his deeds in my life these past several months.

Three months ago, I would never have thought I'd be standing here before you, sharing the next journey that has brought us here today. This past summer, I struggled with motivation. Why am I serving the Lord? Is that where I'm helping him make a difference? Where am I going with my service? During my doubts, all I could do was pray, "Dear God, please help me stay close to you and continue making an effort to read my Bible and go to church."

Then during one of the Pastor's sermons, I heard him say, "whatever you're struggling with today, it's eventually going to come out" sure enough, days later, my struggles finally came out. Out of nowhere, someone didn't respond how I thought they should have, and I went off the deep end, totally lost it, and in one calamitous afternoon, I gave up serving the Lord. I felt lost and disoriented the following days, and I cried out to the Lord, "What have I done?" Please remove the scales of deception from my eyes. I fasted and prayed for his guidance; all I wanted to do was be an observer at church. Serving the Lord was no longer an option.

As I continued to trudge along as an "observer" at church, Pastor summoned my husband and me to his office one Thursday evening after service. I was surprised because he and his family had just gotten in from a long day's drive from Texas, encountering a flat tire and heavy traffic between Raton and Trinidad due to construction, yet he made the time to visit with us. The Pastor had sensed schism between our church family and us; we honestly discussed our struggles, and he shared scripture and principal applications we could use to move forward from our calamitous day. Then something happened that I had never witnessed or encountered. The Pastor asked us to forgive him for not disciplining us while serving the church. I had never had a pastor ask for our forgiveness. As I sought God's forgiveness, I could see the errors of my ways. I was praying for God to forgive me for passing judgment on my Pastor. As I prayed, I could see the scales of deception slowly falling off and seeing God's healing and leading us in the right direction.

Reflecting on the past events and praying for our church family, I thought, what if I'm not the only one struggling and didn't know how to reach out? How many ladies in our church are working alone? Then I thought, what if we have a "buddy system," a one-on-one contact, and contact each other once a week for about six weeks? The idea kept churning until I approached the Pastor's wife about it. She said to put it in writing and discuss it later. However, before going forward, I knew I had to get things right with those I had offended; God gave me the courage to do so; I thank God for their understanding and forgiveness.

After much prayer asking God's guidance on this idea because I didn't even have a name for it, much less if it was going to be a ministry, I knew that it had to have a biblical foundation for its application. Upon researching, the biblical application would be Hebrews 10: 23-25. Ok…..now what do we call it? Accountability? No, that word is overused. It's lost its meaning along the way. The thesaurus for "accountability" saw the word "troth." Wow, a little word with more meaning than "accountability," then I started playing with acronyms, and it all came together, fitting for Hebrews 10:23-25. Presented it to Pastor and left it to the Lord. Days later, the Pastor visited us, counseled us on the ministry, provided additional ideas, and asked us to proceed. As I approached each lady at church, they gave me their thoughts, encouragement, and prayers; thank you. As we go along this journey together, we apply Hebrews 10:23-24, looking forward to God's answering our prayers. As always, God has a way of making a bad situation into something good. I may have said I'm no longer serving the Lord, but I thank God he said, "I'm not finished with you."

One last note: if you're struggling, please continue to pray, read your bible, and go to church, because you don't know how God will answer your prayers. Now, what does "troth" have to do with Hebrews 10:23-25? That's what we're here to find out.