Freedom and the Gospel Message

Wow, great day.  A year has gone by of us being here in this town; a year in Sept. being at these apartments – we hang with our neighbors, but do not 'push' Jesus down their throat.  The get to know us, see that we are ‘normal’ people, living with little, but giving everything, including our time and they have come to respect us.  They come to us now with life issues, they talk to us about God/Jesus on their terms, but eventually come to see what we say is true – they seek us out because they know we really care and have the answers to point them to.  Then we can win them over.

That is what happened this morning, or rather this week.  At first I was thinking that, too bad we didn’t have more time with some friends who moved on, but they saw that we spoke the truth with what time we did spend with them.   This morning, he came by and we had just decided not to go to church – we were talking about going to this one down the street – the same one that came out to our apartment’s park last week to hand out backpacks to the kids.  We even told the pastor, whom we met the week before at that outdoor service with TORT, that we would be there last Sunday.  Last week William’s back was still too much problem for us to go and so this morning we decided not to go again - we were just (what I thought) being lazy this morning.   So we decided to stay home.

No sooner than we did that, our friend came by and we sat down to chat.  We spoke of many things, but after a couple hours, it came back to God.  He was saying how he was at the stage of hopelessness, loneliness, and finally, came out to say he needed to work on his anger and bitterness issues.  He finally admitted he was desperate.  I shared how I was angry and bitter in the 90’s and by the 2000’s had given up to the point of death.  I had no hope left (in fact, I was thinking that because of hopelessness, I lost faith and really, prior to that, I realized I was a ‘religious’ person, trying to earn my way, rather than a person of faith).   So anyway, I’m telling him all this and that when in 2007, I went back to Oregon, I started working with William, God totally changed my life when I finally forgave everyone and the bondages came off one by one.  I have been living in freedom ever since.   I told him, “your soul is looking for that very same freedom!”  I could see that really affected him.

I got to that point of my story and he asks, “so what can I do?” – “TURN TO GOD!”  He asked, and I told him!  That really impacted him … I even ‘felt’ it – it was like the Holy Spirit came in and big-time got the point into his heart – I could see it in his eyes!  I started tingling all over, then started shaking.  He left right after that.  I went to the other room and started discussing what just happened with William and I was really effected.

lots of storms lately

 This morning was better than a church service – what was said to him (a very stubborn person, by his own words) really got to his heart and soul.  I know he will not forget this.  I could sit through a year’s worth of church services and never even see that happen.  Instead of going to the ‘box’ church – it comes here – living the gospel, “walking out our salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12).  Loss of hope, lose faith, get in despair & hopelessness, loneliness kicks in to most people, but when you have a friend to “lift your eyes up to the hills” (Psa. 121:1), what a difference that makes – and I was blessed to be a part of that – even if it was the first step for him to be saved, we got to be a part of it.  Awesome!

Another thing, God preserved William’s job for these past 2 weeks – amazing!  William worked with him 1 day, went in the next, pulled his back out and now tomorrow, he goes back to work  – new boss still wants him!  God is awesome!  It is obvious God allowed this to happen (William’s back out) to do several things:  spend more time with Ron before he left, be available for friends (store his stuff, talk, etc), be available for me to talk – wow, and still have his job.  

Wow, God has taught me a valuable lesson again!  Am I sooooo slow to have to learn these lessons over and over?  What gets me is that I went through this lesson 6 months ago – then God sent the people in to encourage me.  We must walk with the Holy Spirit to get wisdom (and the secrets of God – He shares them with His friends); we cannot walk in our own ways – we don’t know much!

Yes!   We had run out of coffee the day before yesterday (serious issue with me!) and yesterday had no coffee; however, yesterday afternoon some other friends, who had just gotten an awesome deal with $4 a pound coffee, gave us 2!  Then this morning the above happened and just now, I just got back from William’s brother’s to get $9 for gas so William could get to work tomorrow and I get blessed with 5 bags of groceries!  We were out of all the basics – milk, eggs, butter, bread, hadn’t had meat but once this week and got some of that, etc and etc.  Wow, even though I probably disappointed God with my complaining this week, He blesses us in abundance anyway!

So many lessons learned (re-learned) in this last week.  Life is a road, not a destination.  Like William was reminding me:  be a walking sermon – like Simon who helped carry the cross of Jesus – walking that road with Jesus, stumbling beside him, but keep going (Matt. 27:32).  We have a long, hard, steep road to climb – right beside Jesus.  This walk to be his disciple was never meant to be easy, but it is doable.  Jesus was totally self-less, we are called to be the same.

We hang between 2 worlds – let heaven touch us (though us, with Kingdom living), AND have dominion over the world;  bring light to darkness.  People are drawn by the disciple living – live the truth.  Just believe – God does the rest even while we wrestle – there is no transformation without living it out.  The Word comes alive during this time.  Lose salvation/walk away when you don’t.