I am astonished at the new way the Lord uses me. Every morning I pray that I will be used to grow the kingdom. Yesterday for my quiet time I wrote in my journal, prayed, and read Luke 10. One in particular that stood out to me was the story of Martha and Mary. I was so fascinated by the counter cultural manner of the story. The passage talks about how Jesus came to their home and Mary sat at His feet listening to His teaching while Martha was concerned about serving Jesus. Martha became frustrated and went to Jesus and wondered why He was ok with the fact that Mary was just sitting there and not helping her. Verse 41 and 42 goes “ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
Jesus does not care about the works you do, all that matters is following Him. It is so hard to understand this concept, our whole lives we are told that we have to earn everything and if you don’t do good you don’t deserve anything. The truth is that we all have fallen short to the glory of God, but He sent His son to die to wash all these sins away. Nothing by our works has earned us the love of Jesus.
Ministry this week is doing ATL, ask the Lord, and see where and who He leads us to. That morning God told me to bring my bible to ATL, which is something we don’t always do. especially being in Thailand where we get to rarely get to preach the gospel because it is such a heavily populated Buddhist area. I brought my bible in my backpack anyways and Abby, Sydney and I started walking and seeing where God was prompting us to.
We immediately walked towards the market area where people at night have stands where they sell popular tourist items. Most are all taken down during the day and then put back up by the morning. When we were walking we saw one woman with her stand up all alone. As we passed her, God told me that she is the one we should talk to. We turned around and I simply said “hello” and we began talking. She told us about what she was selling and how business is slow. I asked her if that was really hard and she told me how she had to leave all of her family to come to Thailand to try and support herself and it is a daily struggle. I started to say how I couldn’t imagine how difficult that was, and how sorry that I was that she hasn’t seen her own family for years. Sydney told her how we are missionaries and how we are here to share the love of Jesus. She explained how she was a buddhist and how she believes in karma. She told us how she is constantly is doing good and she feels like nothing good ever comes back to her. She mentioned how once she used to “not do good” and thats probably why life is so hard, and my heart immediately broke for her. She is living life thinking that because of one time in her life she wasn’t perfect, now her life is sentenced to bad luck constantly.
God suddenly placed the story of Martha and Mary on my heart. I realized that this was the reason that God told me to bring my bible. I asked her if I could read to her and surprisingly she agreed. I told her the story and how Jesus loves us and how we can mess up a thousands times and He will still love us. That there is nothing that we can do to earn His love, Jesus has already paid the price for us. She intently listened, she seemed interested, but when I finished she said “ yes, we all believe different things, your things are good, but different.”
Thailand is a place that is hard to bring people to know Jesus. For people to follow Him here means that their families would completely deny them, never speak to them again. Buddhism is not just a religion here, it is their culture, their way of life. It makes you think about what you’re really giving up to follow Jesus. The people who choose Jesus really give up their whole lives. Am I giving up my whole life for the sake to know our Lord?
Planting seeds is such a huge thing here. I truly believe God is working on her heart, it was not by accident that God told me to speak to her. It might take 10 people sharing the gospel with her to take the step to follow Him, thank you God that I get to be one of those people. That’s the whole point really, just to bring people from around the world to know Him. Thank you Lord that you are using me to build your kingdom. I am so thankful to be here, and I can’t wait to see the people that I was able to share the gospel with one day in Heaven. Thank you God for always being good, never failing us, and always chasing us.
This is the woman, her name is So. One day I will look for her when I am with the Father, and together we will get to worship our Creator.
I am $515 away from being fully funded! I am so close, thank you to everyone for the support.
