Team Set Ablaze of Y squad spoke in a prison in Makhotlong, Lesotho. Today was a beautiful day where God’s plan for salvation, as well as the plan he had for each of our lives all came together for the good work that is the salvation of three men in a prison.
God be praised.
One can look at the event as something simple. These three men merely heard a good word from some foreigners and opted into the good news message that they delivered. I know that it is far from being that simple though.
We started off by singing a song to the prisoners. Each of the members of Set Ablaze have experience and have the desire to praise God through song. Kristen and Matt both have experience in choir and have used their singing talents many times for God. Caitlin has been given a beautiful voice that she has used to lead worship in Lesotho, and God gave me the stubbornness to never give up on singing and has brought me to a place where I have some measure of pitch control and am not gratuitously sharp all the time. Mark and Molly both have passion and joy in their singing as well. All of this was prepared.
Molly came forward and gave a word of encouragement from three scriptures that have been impacting her life in this time. I trust that God put those scriptures on her heart not only for her benefit, but for the benefit of the prisoners (one of them also happened to coincide with the message I would give later. We didn’t plan that). Not only that, but we all have struggles that allows us to better teach each other and unbelievers, and I trust that Molly’s troubles and the teachings she has from that are part of God’s plan.
Next, Mark came forward and gave his testimony. In short, Mark was falsely accused of sexually assaulting a girl and he was arrested and put under investigation for some time. Because of this, he lost his job and had to seek another. His next job was one of the stepping stones to Mark becoming a youth pastor and giving himself to foreign missions. Not only did this terrible event put Mark in a place to minister to people halfway across the world, but he also had a testimony of bondage that the prisoners could relate to. He confidently told them that the struggles that they are experiencing are part of God’s plan for them, and to trust him.
Then I came forward and delivered a message. When I was preparing this message I prayed to the Holy Spirit to help me find a message that would affect the hearts of the men I knew would hear me later. I flipped through the epistles and found myself in Romans where it discusses freedom from sin as a result of Jesus’s death on the cross. I tied that in with the story of Joseph and his imprisonment in Egypt. Joseph was thrown into prison based on a wrongful accusation and then placed in Pharaoh’s court because of the favor that God had given him. He then was able to manage food well enough to save Egypt from a famine. Ultimately, the points I made were that no matter what sin you have committed, and no matter how bad your place in life seems, the hope of God’s salvation for yourself can get you through this.
Thank God for putting particular troubles and worries in my life that led me to research the story of Joseph, and also the conviction in my heart to further study the epistles and gain a greater wisdom on living a proper Christian life. He helped me prepare this message.
The final act of today was the salvation of three men. After hearing several messages from these American missionaries they came forward and prayed with us to receive Jesus Christ as their savior. The thing is, we deserve no credit for what happened. Every piece of the puzzle that was today was planned by God decades in advance. He allowed the missionaries to suffer and learn in ways that would have us join the World Race and have a passion for foreign missionaries, but we also have years of life experience that equipped to do exactly what was required for this moment in time. Not only that, but the hearts of the three men who were saved were prepared for today by God. God knew that they would be in this prison, and it’s a possibility that they would not have received the gospel had they never been arrested, and for all I know one of them could go on to witness to many more people.
All of the events that happen in ministry are part of a great and intricate plan prepared by God since the beginning of time. That is amazing and scary, but it also blows me away to know that things like my lack of confidence in myself or my less than desirable degree or a difficult 2 year job would put me on a mission trip where I could be used by God to help him bring men to salvation. I can only praise him and thank him after seeing the pieces of the puzzle fit together, and I look forward to seeing the completed piece.
Praise God, and thank you all for your time.
