I Wonder

Our church recently upgraded from old-timey bench style pews to more comfortable chairs with cushions and gave the old pews away. 

My wife and I were fortune it enough to get one of the pews and we placed it on our back deck.  We occasionally sit in it and marvel at God’s beautiful creation. 

I sometimes wonder how many people gave their life to Jesus sitting in that very same pew that we use to gaze upon God’s creation, with a command of His voice, that I am in awe of.  I wonder how many people sat there and cried during a sermon that pricked their hearts.  I wonder how many couples, male and female, sat there holding hands being preached to about God’s design in marriage covenant between man and wife.  Or how many young men and women sat in the very same pew and marveled at how God, Himself, took on flesh and died on the Cross for our sins, defeating sin and death through His descension into hell and resurrection and ascension into heaven for you and me.  

Paul writes in Ephesians 4:6 “One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”[a] 9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?[b] 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)

I wonder how many sermons have been preached in that church with that old church pew.  And how many people sat on that old-fashioned church pew. And now my wife and I and children get to sit on the same pew that saw people give their lives to Jesus, the most important decision you will ever make, to spend eternity with Jesus. 

But there is still something about sitting in an old uncomfortable traditional pew that can’t be replaced.  I wouldn’t trade that memory for anything.