Psalm 107:18
And they drew near to the gates of death....
Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble and He saved them out of their distresses.
I pulled up in front of the building...
Unfinished....no windows....no door....
Lovingly the place is referred to by some as Saint Elmo's Cathedral.
My car was surrounded by men wanting to know if they could help with anything, so I loaded them up with all the dishes and pans that held supper for the group. Taking it inside the building and putting out for all to partake of, we blessed the food and the rush was on.
Plates were filled....well, maybe filled is not a good word. How about plates were piled high with spaghetti....
Glasses were filled with ice cold sweet tea...
chairs were filled and forks begin to fly...
To the food....
to the mouth...
chew...
repeat process.
Amid all the chewing, there was a lot of "Man! This is great". SO I knew that my wife's efforts had not gone in vain.
As stomachs were being filled, it was time to feed some souls.
Moses and the burning bush....
A murderer had gone on the run. Landed in a place call Midian helping out some damsels in distress, this Moses gained great favor with the father (Jethro) of the women. Moses eventually wound up marrying one of his daughters, became part of the family business and settled down to put his past behind him.
Years passed and Moses found himself on the back side of the wilderness when he ran across a bush that had caught fire. But this wasn't just any shrub...and that fire wasn't just your garden variety flame. It was created by God. He had come down to inhabit that bush. Moses had no idea that when he had gotten up that morning that he would have an encounter with the Living God, but here he was...and yonder in that bush was the real deal God.
God gave him a mission....and one that Moses was not all the keen about. "Go back to Egypt....yeah, I know you killed a man there, but this is all part of the making amends thing. I want you to go back because I have a small task I need you to take care of." Moses asked God.."What is the job?" "Oh, I want you to free a gazillion of my people from the tyranny and slavery Egypt has put on them."
As we wound through the Scripture and the story, I shared God's plan to give all of us an opportunity for life....real life...abundant life. I asked that everyone bow their heads and listen...really listen to what I was about to pray. I would like to say that there is a knowing that takes place whenever you are offering to show someone the way to God, but there isn't. It's more about obedience than anything. As I prayed and surveyed the room, there were sniffles...the wiping of tears from eyes...and some heads just hung lower and lower. The Holy Spirit was at work.
I closed the prayer and asked for those who had prayed to give up their old life for a new one to raise their hands. All around the room, hands went up. Thank you Jesus. We spent the next few moments talking about "what now?"
Start talking to God...some folks call it praying.
Get your Bible and begin to read the book of John.
Read it like it's a story. Don't try and overthink it.
If you find that you have questions, write them down and we'll get together and talk about them.
The final instruction was to warn them that when they got up the next day, there would probably be a voice in their thoughts that would try to tell them that "nothing had happened...they weren't saved". I told them to rebuke that voice and tell it to shut up. That was the enemy trying to draw them back into old ways and old thoughts.
After we finished, there were a lot of hugs and "thank you" from the guys. Once again they offered assistance with getting all the dishes and such back to the car. We said our good-bye's and I pulled out from the compound. Heading home I thanked God for His work that had taken place in "Saint Elmo's Cathedral". To say it had been a good night would be an understatement. It had been an incredible night.
God is good...
Every day...
All the time...
God on you...
mbb
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