This Sunday we had especially hoped for good attendance, as we were hoping to try a new tactic in the war for souls. We have several regular visitors who haven't committed to following Christ, so we decided to start a 5-week prospective members class in the Sunday School hour just to target these folks and present salvation, baptism, and our church covenant in a clear manner. We had about ten people lined up for the first class, but our spirits were dampened by their apparent drowned attendance.
Ita vita African. This truly could be an apt description of normal life in Africa. Some discouraging setbacks just when you were hoping to make a good impression; poor attendance for weeks at a time in the rainy season. But God was working all of those seemingly bad events to ordain a private evangelism meeting between me and one of the children in my Sunday School class.
When Mr. N__ got stuck in the mud and all the men and boys went to help, I (with my kids) was left alone with one sweet neighbor girl who has attended my S.S. class and Seth's neighborhood Bible club all year. As I fiddled around setting up church stuff, she came to me and asked shyly, "How does a person go to Hell or to God?"
For he hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.Praise the Lamb slain for sinners! Praise the Creator of the rain and mud who kept distractions away from a child He was busy pulling from the filth of a life lived for sin, at the same time as Seth was pulling a truck out of the mud. She seemed to respond to the Word in faith.
Obviously the mud didn't save her. But in one sense, it did. God used it as a means to give this shy child one-on-one time with her teacher so that she could ask a very important question! Last Sunday, a child was saved by the blood, by the mud.
Seth and I also were saved by the mud in a sense. We were saved from discouragement and ingratitude over the lack of optimal conditions that day. We were reminded that God doesn't need dry roads to do His work and that His plans are wiser than ours.
Once I heard a sermon by R.C. Sproul on 2 Samuel 6 when God struck Uzzah dead for touching the Ark of the Covenant so that it wouldn't fall from the oxcart. I've never forgotten how Sproul mentioned that Uzzah's error was in thinking that his hands were cleaner than the dirt. He thought it would be better for him to touch the ark--he, a sinful creature--than for the ark to fall in the dirt. But the dirt was doing what God made it to do. I thought of that Sunday--the mud was doing what God made it to do. I couldn't be mad at the mud or at God for letting it rain on Sunday. He had a plan even for the mud; and it did what He made it to do, even being an instrument in God's plan of redemption for a child.
When Mr. N__ finally arrived at church, embarrassed and a bit careworn, I greeted him happily. "You may think this was a bad day," I said, "but I am glad you got stuck in the mud!"
Wonderful! It's another Romans 8:28 testimony. Praise the Lord that this little girl knew she needed Him!
ReplyDeleteI've really appreciated your last two posts, Amy! My hubby laughed when I told him about your last post, because I've always said that I wanted to visit South Africa and see the beautiful part of the continent ;) And isn't it amazing how God takes the ugly and makes it into a beautiful gift? Praying for you all!
ReplyDeleteHaha, Patty! Come visit me and we'll go look for it together! I'm sure it's around here somewhere... ;)
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