The Thursday Update

AUGUST 14, 2025

Lakeshore Friends,

With every year that passes, we’ve become more of what I call an “instant” world. It seems like everything we desire must be delivered right away.

Think about all the things you use each day that are instant. You wake up to instant coffee, heat your breakfast in the microwave in an instant, and get instant news on anything using your laptop or phone. You can talk to anyone for free—instantly—on that very same phone. You can order almost anything and have it delivered in a day, and sometimes it can be stolen off your front porch just as instantly. You can pay your bills online in an instant. You can also rack up really large credit card charges, too—in an instant. So much of our lives are conditioned to focus on finding “the instant” solution to whatever we can, even when it’s not the best or right solution.

In many ways, instant can be a good thing. It creates convenience and helps ease the demands that can wear us out. But in other ways, it can erode our patience for the good things in life that require time. Things like dating, friendships, family life, and our walk with God are never instant. They take time because “time” does what “instant” cannot do—build perseverance, character, and strength. That’s why we need to develop the virtue that runs counter to instant gratification.

It’s called delayed gratification.

The Bible talks about this over and over again. If we can delay our gratification in life, we’ll often find the results more satisfying. That’s what we’ll be looking at in our current series on Proverbs this Sunday.

Are you ok when God delays His blessings in your life? Are you ok when you have to wait on Him while He builds your character during seasons of delay? Do you believe that in many areas of life “good things do come to those who wait”? The more you can answer yes, the more you’ve discovered the power of delayed gratification.

Warmly,
Vince

AUGUST 7, 2025

Lakeshore Friends,

I’m excited to be back to work this week after my four-week break. Contrary to what some people may think, I actually spend two of those four weeks working from home and thinking about the “big-picture” things related to our church corporately and my life personally. I really did a lot of thinking about both this July, even more than usual. As I celebrate 64 years of life on earth this week, I realize how limited my time at Lakeshore is and how important the rest of my days on earth are. I want to make my life count for God, for you, and for others.

With that said, I realize that one of the biggest enemies of a meaningful life is procrastination.

Procrastination is, “the act of voluntarily delaying or postponing tasks or decisions, despite knowing that doing so may have negative consequences.”

It’s so tempting to put off those tasks that we don’t like and the decisions that we really dread. And even when we know that putting these things off will only cause us even more problems in the days ahead, we still choose to procrastinate. We all know people who are procrastinators. Sometimes procrastinators are just plain lazy, other times they are unsure what is involved in taking action so they refrain from doing anything, and still other times they like to wait until the last minute to get certain things done. The reasons may vary, but the results are very predictable: an unfulfilled life that falls short of all that God intended.

As I prepared for teaching on this subject on Sunday, I constantly thought of others who struggle with procrastination. Yet, I didn’t realize that most people struggle with it at some level (yes, even me to a certain degree in certain areas). While one survey showed that 75% of people are self-described procrastinators, I think all of us are procrastinators given the right (or is it “the wrong”?) set of circumstances.

That’s why I think this Sunday’s message will be a big help as we look into what the Old Testament book of Proverbs has to say about procrastination in our series, “Uncommon Sense”.

So don’t procrastinate, be at church on Sunday, and learn how to put off procrastination in your life.

I’ll look forward to seeing you all!

Warmly,
Vince

JULY 31, 2025

Lakeshore Friends,

This week, we were able to take 18 of our students to Kingdom Bound at Six Flags Darien Lake to enjoy the thrill of rides, cool off in the water park, and the highlight of enjoying engaging, life-giving music from several Christian bands. Of all the blessings I get to experience in my role, one of my favorites is watching students engage in times of worship and participating in worship alongside them. One of the bands that led us in worship was We Are Messengers, a band you may know for songs like "Come What May" or "Maybe It's Ok."

During worship, the lead singer, Darren Mulligan, took a moment to talk about joy before singing one of their other popular songs, "Where The Joy Is," to talk about his own faith journey and his heart behind the song. He talked about struggles with depression and mental health, and how God had been so faithful to bring "joy in the morning." Having experienced similar things in my own life, I related to what he had to say and thought, "Wow, what a great thing for me to talk about in this week's Thursday email!"

All joking aside, I did find what he had to say touching, so I spent some time in my personal devotions this morning walking through the passage that this comes from, Psalm 30. In this beautiful Psalm, David praises God for rescuing him from trouble and calls others to praise God because, "his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime! Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning" (v.5).

God never promises that we will never have trouble in this life, and our everyday experience confirms this. Although we can take hope in the fact that our troubles are temporary, and joy comes in the morning. As believers, we can have hope that in this life, God has good plans and has good purpose even during our pain. Furthermore, we can look to eternity, knowing that while we experience hardship here, we will one day experience joy to the fullest in the presence of our Savior Jesus.

So whatever pain or trial you may be experiencing through this "night" of your life, be encouraged, because joy comes in the morning.

Pastor Nate