Last night was our first speaking opportunity to share about our vision and plan to move to the Dominican Republic. Many times we overlook the divine hand of God in our lives and I believe that is because we rarely look for it. But when we are on a specific mission or are relying totally on the Lord, we see him move in "mysterious ways." God's sovereign hand guided us to meet our friend Paula in the parking lot after our coed softball game, paving the way for the opportunity to speak last night. It was a night that one of our friends had some baseball equipment to give for us to take down to La Romana...that opened up the conversation with Paula. Paula and Mandi worked out the details for us to go share but we had to move the original date to last night.
It was such a pleasure to share with our new, kind, and gracious friends who were rotary club members in the town of Ayden, NC. I'd never been to a rotary meeting before but apparently they always sing one song out of their songbook and the song "ironically" happened to be "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"...tell me God doesn't have a sense of humor or order our steps!
The more that we lay aside our plans and seek the Lord, the more he reveals himself in the minute details. There are many stories that we can share and would love to begin keeping track of those in our journey to go. I leave you with this imagery from Mark 4:35-41 of Jesus and his disciples in the boat with the storm. In this passage, the disciples begin to freak out about the storm as their lives were in danger (so they thought) and Jesus was asleep. The disciples wake him up saying, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" It's very important that we look at who they believe Jesus, it's very important who we believe Jesus is. If Jesus is just a good moral teacher then there's really nothing he can do to stop the storm. If he's a prophet, there's not much he can do. But if he is the Son of God then he can surely save them. Jesus then rebukes the wind and sea and it calmed. Jesus then questions the disciples "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" Was Jesus questioning their faith in his abilities or was he questioning their faith in who he was? The disciples then ask themselves "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" That is the question today...who is this Jesus? If he is simply a good teacher then we have no need to do anything more than take his teachings as advice BUT if he is the Son of God then we must be changed by his loving commands. In fact, if we believe he is the Son of God then we will be changed and we will love him and obey him.
Your passion certainly shows through your actions and words. We certainly enjoyed your presentation and look forward to a great future of working together to make this mission happen for you both.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Paula! We are thankful for how God has put us in contact with you. We look forward to what God is doing and will do. Thank you again for giving us the opportunity to share.
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