Hello all and welcome to my little corner of this earth. This is my first post and so before I begin I wanted to introduce myself just a little bit. My name is Justin Ford but everyone and their uncle calls me Judd. I have been fortunate to receive the title of Pastor Judd about a year ago. I am the pastor at the Dille Parish, a congregational church in the heart of the beautiful little town of Le Raysville, PA. My wife and myself have been married for 15 years and are the parents to 4 incredible if not crazy children. The purpose of this blog is to be able to get all of my thoughts out of me head and written down. This is beneficial to me because there are things that rattle around in there, that I am not really able to put them into order until I am able to write them down. Don’t believe me? Ask my wife! I will start a conversation with her that I have been having in my heard for about 30 minutes and then I get frustrated that she doesn’t understand what I am saying. Trust me when I say she is even more frustrated with me for bringing her into the conversation 30 minutes in. See I have done it again… I trace these rabbits down a hole and then get side tracked.
Purpose… many things in this world serve a purpose in life. Some are beneficial and some are not so much. I recently put on Facebook about “…what is the one object you look at in life and think, “this has the greatest purpose?” I received many replies back but they were all great ideas. They ranged from water to antibiotics to our homes and garbage bags and each object served a great purpose. So many of those objects were not things that I would have ever thought of. As I was thinking of what object had the greatest impact I was thinking something like simple machines. Things like the wedge and the lever that we take for granted but without them our life would fall apart around us. As I considered the other things that were brought to my attention I was struck with a thought about the body. Our hands serve a purpose just as our feet and our lungs and our hearts. Each thing serves a unique purpose and without them our lives would be impacted. 1 Corinthians 12:15-20 puts it in an incredible way, “Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.”
Just as our body parts serve a unique function it doesn’t make them any less special. The same can be said for those of you who are reading this. You are important to the world. Ephesians 2:10 tells us, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” You are created specially by God and he has plans for you. Which brings me to this final thought. Why do this blog now? I am pursuing this blog because it allows me, as stated above, to put my thoughts out in a linear way. However the greater purpose of this is that my hope is someone would read this blog, realize that they matter to the God of the universe and pursue him. Stay with me because things are about to get fun. Please know I am praying for you daily!
In Christ,
Pastor Judd