Well we are on our last day of ministry for the month. We have had some great times here. Going door to door and being able to encourage people and at the same time being encouraged. Our first stop yesterday was at this house with a couple ladies who have no parents, have a couple kids and are of course struggling. So most of us take time to talk to them and build them up. Then they talk about worrying and all that so, after most of them talk, I have something and I talk about Philippians 4:4-5 and in the Message it says “Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle down. IT’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” And it so easy for us to worry about things try to solve things. I told them for so long and even still now, I/WE try to solve our own problems. WE try to find the way out and forget to simply ask God for help. We get stuck in our own little world of self-correction and we stray away from God and even those he has surrounded us with that can help us. Even as I am typing this, I can say that I am still in this place. It is a daily choice to make as are so many things we struggle with. But the more we choose into that place of thinking and being, it will come easier. We should be WANTING to reveal our struggles to our family and friends. We should be ABLE to share things with family and friends without being judged or thought of different. I understand why we don’t. It is all too common that when you open up to some, they take those things and don’t respect what you have told them or the vulnerability you came from. But what you can do, is surround yourself with ones that WANT to help and would love for you to become vulnerable with them for the sole reason of lifting you higher and closer to God. So what I challenge you to do is find some fellow Christians that you can become so close to that you are able to share all those things you are afraid to. Only then can you have some people to hold you accountable in those things. And also share those things with God. HE ALREADY KNOWS THESE THINGS….but he wants you to bring them to him.
Then as others were talking, I was asking God to give me something to leave them with. So he gave me a vision of lungs that turn into wings that turn into a shield. I instantly knew it was for them. Colby had talked to them about when Jesus was talking to the disciples about the Jesus breathing the Holy Spirit onto them and then they will take that and take it to the nations. So I told them that it was God ready to breathe the Holy Spirit into them and then they should take that to others around. Turn their worries into prayers and God will send angels to protect them. Then the shield is God WANTING to protect them in all things if they are willing and able to turn it over to him. So then I also remembered and passage that brought me into the Message. It has its place and it is very useful with putting the Bible into today’s terms and ways that some may understand it better. Youth from Lane Avenue better remember this from camp this summer.
1 Peter 4:12-13 “Friends, when life gets really difficult, don’t jump to the conclusion that God isn’t on the job. Instead, be glad you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process with glory just around the corner.”
And just to lift them up and let them know that by turning everything over to God, doesn’t mean that you won’t have struggles or have hard times, but to look at it with a different take. To take it that God is doing it all for a reason and it is to refine us and to strip things of the world off us and to bring us closer to him and the place he set for us from the beginning.
Then the next house, come across another lady with a boy that is just over a year old. We get to talking and find out that she is a Christian and is living in God. Her son has Malaria and just got back from the hospital just the day before. She was all smiles and was saying he was better. I mean the faith that this woman has was unreal. It was a true encouragement for us all! So we talked with her a bit and then we prayed over her. Her name was Martha and wait for it……the boys name was….Emmanuel. Which means “God with us.” P.s—he was wearing a superman onezie. Well played God. Well played.
God is EVERYWHERE and is ready to unload things onto you if you are simply willing to receive it. I know I am getting there. I say I am ready, but I know I have a long ways to go until I can grasp what that truly means AND then learn what it means to use it. So we all have work to do in our own lives. Why not start right now………? What is holding you back……..? Well…..?
