“ ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
His ways are higher than our ways and His thought are not our thoughts. For He has a plan for our life, a purpose that far exceeds any design we can imagine.
I come before the Lord today, humbled and seeking. The ministry He has brought us to here in Palenque, Mexico is proving to be more challenging than we had anticipated. These past weeks teams ZEO and Agapetos have been working alongside Noe, an incredible man of God filled with the contagious joy of the Holy Spirit.
Noe has a vision of starting a home church, forming a community of believers in his part of town; including Bible studies, small group nights and Sunday services. We have been combing the streets of the city inviting people to join us in these services and taking turns preaching, teaching and interpreting. Noe is gifted in music and God is using him and his family to draw people in from the street as they pass.
God is continually breaking our concepts of how we think things should be done or the “right” way for a ministry to work and be successful. Last night we had three people show up at the beginning of the Bible study (during the music), when the message started they left. James continued to share what God had placed on his heart and some others of us started praying for people to come and to be drawn to this area.
At the end we began singing and worshiping together, and slowly people started stopping to see what was going on. I turned around a couple times and a small family had sat down in the back and there were a handful of people standing on the street watching and obviously curious about what was going on.
Apart from our initial disappointment in attendance and attempts to invite people, we are learning that God is the one who truly does the inviting and brings the people He wants to be there. A man that showed up towards the end wanted a better life than the one he felt stuck in and gave his life over to Christ. He wasn’t there for any of the Bible study, but God had called him in personally and for exactly for what he needed to hear. Praise God, He is the one who saves!
“So will My word which goes forth from my mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11
