Trust and Obey

A couple of weekends ago was a special time for the Willow Avenue church family. It was time for our annual Family Retreat. If your congregation doesn’t already have a family retreat weekend or something like it, I highly recommend adding it to your busy schedule.

Family Retreat is a time of fun, connection, study, praise, competition, and rest. On this weekend, it is not uncommon to see elders playing with babies of the congregation while parents take a break to play. You may see normally loving church members slapping a card down and saying “beat you!” as the card games get quite intense. The teens (and many adults) often sleep very little during the night hours, choosing instead to spend time playing games or sitting around talking.

One of my favorite times at family retreat is when a pod of people who like to sing gather up and just start “going through the songbook.” Everyone feels free to call out a favorite number and one of the men starts it for all of us. Often these songs are newer ones that we don’t know well enough to sing in the whole assembly, but those of us who love to sing have heard enough to try them out in a smaller group.

I noticed something this year that was slightly different. One of the people who had joined our “love to sing” group was a new Christian. She came to us by way of the youth group, I think she had originally come to Willow Avenue with a boyfriend. She has studied and been baptized for the remission of her sins and, even though the boyfriend relationship has ended, her relationship with her heavenly Father and her spiritual family has not.

What I noticed, in particular, was her song choice. As those of us who have been singing for quite some time now were digging for newer songs to “try out,” she was requesting beautiful old songs like the title of this article. How wonderful is that! To her, a “golden oldie” to some of us was a new song with great meaning.

And, honestly, you don’t get much better than:

“When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word,
what a glory He sheds on our way.

While we do His good will, He abides with us still,
and with all who will trust and obey.

Trust and obey – for there’s no better way to be happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey.”

~ John H. Sammis

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AUTHOR: Amber Tatum