Jul 02 2012

You Never Know

By Ivan

You never know how God will get His work done. He loves to keep us trusting in Him every step of the way.

So we have this Missionary Summit we’re holding. My fellow team-members have worked laboriously to have a top-notch experience for our home assignment and newly appointed Converge Worldwide missionaries. We want to encourage them, love them up, clarify our partnership, and communicate some essentials. On the night just before we started (last Friday), a monster storm moved through the Washington DC area and created infrastructure havoc. A huge percentage of the city will be without electricity for a week. On our particular site, we’ve had power outages, people stuck in elevators, fire alarms blaring for hours, sprinkler systems destroying our conference rooms, and scarce resources to find food for a group of fifty.

So here’s the result of all of this chaos:

  • Not one complaint has been heard by our missionaries or their children. In fact, I think this has made them feel right at home!
  • The experience has bonded us together–sweating in the 100-degree heat, adapting our schedules, figuring our how to find food, etc.
  • We’ve been powerfully reminded of how little we can control our lives and circumstances — a great reminder for all of us in ministry.
  • We made a connection (because of the events) with a local pastor who has a passion and call to  inner city evangelism and needs a “covering.” I think it may be a divine appointment.

On Sunday morning, after major chaos the night before, our Converge president, Dr. Jerry Sheveland, awoke with a fresh message from the Lord for us. From James 4:13-16:

13 Come now, you who say, “ Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” 14Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.  You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 15Instead, you ought to say, “ If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance;  all such boasting is evil.

His points:

  1. When we grasp a false sense of control through our planning, it is evil.
  2. We must plan, but with a dependence and trust upon God’s intervention with a better plan…especially when we simply cannot see the value of it at present.
  3. To plan with an eagerness for God to step in and do what He wants with it.

You just never know what God will do next. It keeps life really exciting…and a whole lot better with Him in charge.

 

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