OUR FATHER, MY BROTHER, OUR PASTOR

It's amazing how God can make all things grow--even men.


I remember him when I was 9. Three decades have allowed me to see his growing pains including mine under his tutelage, under his ministry. 


In those years, somewhere there, I thought I snapped; I thought our friendship and "sibling bond" have snapped. I thought one more shove, and things will graduate from brittle to broken. But the great Omnipotence, the healer of all sores is good and perfect in using time to blur what used to be excruciating.


Now I see him preaching tonight in our midweek service. He stands there like no one has ever stood before preaching about Jonah and the guy's lack of humility in the forefront of God's order to go to a place of people whom Jonah thought are abominable, now considered forgiven, loved again by his own God, by his own commander.


But in his sermon, I'm seeing a lot of things so differently. Now I see the man preaching clearly without even trying. I hear the sermon because finally the man I'm seeing now is my brother again. The minister I'm seeing now has become a real father to me, a real pastor of an often-time confused sheep like I am. 


For the first time, my eyes are welling up--too overwhelmed of so much respect--respect for this man who could equally say with me, "God is not finished with me yet." He might be under construction before and he might still be now. But I am amazed at how much wisdom and God's blessing have made him grow to be a man whom I can call father.

Boy, am I so glad Pastor Nats came to Banawa Church in 1995 when we needed a father. Most of all I am so glad he never gave up on the church! Not on me, not on us!