Praise the Lord for another brilliant
day. The Lord has blessed us with another stunning spectacular
sunrise. I drove to the Triple Cities yesterday. The breathtaking
landscape along the I-81 corridor that connects South to North was
spectacular. The wild flowers all along the were way beautiful and, in
fact, sometimes we wish some the beauty and blessing could continue for
ever. We are getting ready for planting our garden. We bought 72
tomato plants and tens of other vegetable plants plus lots of seeds. We
are a bit late this year in planting but the Lord of the harvest will
compensate. Our strawberry plants are luxurious, with leaves as
large as my palm, we have strawberries ripening on the vines. and the
garlic is prolific. This is our brief garden report for the day. Our
weather report today is "He reigns."
We are getting
ready for our gathering this Saturday at 6:00 PM. We will be celebrating dads
moms, and grads. There is a special banquet planned, and the menu
includes prime rib. Our friends, Denny and Lynda Randall, are orchestrating
this sweet event. We are so blessed.
When I was just a
little boy I heard the amazing story of prophet Elisha, and the poor widow and
her son. I heard this story from my uncle and I was fascinated and
enthralled with the story. It was summer time in Israel, and a time of
drought and famine. Even today the Lord is at work in seasons all over
the world. He transcends all trials and turbulence inn our lives, even
the seasons of drought and famine and scarcities. He prevails. He
rules and takes over.
In her story,
"A Little Pot of Oil", Jill
Briscoe writes, "Sometimes it takes a crisis in our lives to test our
faith, to show us the limits of our own strength and the sufficiency of our own
strength and the sufficiency of God's provision. But we don't learn that
lesson if we just sit around and wait for God to take care of us. We have
to step out and pour out, trusting that the Holy Spirit will fill us and give
us what we need to continue."
It's generally
easier to trust God when the weather is fair than when the rain is falling and
the storm is raging. It's easier to trust God when everything in life is
moving in the right direction— But will you trust him when the bottom drops
out, when the sky is falling in on you, when sorrow buffets you like a storm?
Mother Teresa was
sold out Jesus and for His cause. She loved Him and served Him with full
abandon and ministered among the poor in Calcutta, India. One day,
someone asked her why the "untouchable" class—the poorest of the
poor—was so drawn to Jesus. She said, "When Jesus is all you've got,
you discover that Jesus is all you need."
God does
extraordinary things in the lives of ordinary people who are simply willing to
trust him with what they have. He does extraordinary things in people who
have little or nothing, just like this widow has, and who decide anyway,
"I'm going to trust him. I'm going to ask him. I'm going to
listen for his voice."
God does
extraordinary things in the lives of ordinary people, people who are willing to
trust him and give back to him what they have. Moses returned from the
desert after 40 years in exile in the deserts of Midian, with only a family and
a staff. God turned the staff into a snake before Pharaoh in his
palace. God used the staff to strike the Nile River and turn it into
blood. God uses an ordinary staff to divide the Red Sea and open up the
way for the people of God.
All David had was
a slingshot, but with a slingshot, David slew the mighty Goliath. David
sent the entire Philistine army running for the hills, a little boy along the
Sea of Galilee who had only a slingshot and a sack of stones.
In 1990, a
26-year-old man robbed a bank at gunpoint in Ottawa, Canada. The young man was
named Danny Simpson, and he was desperate for money. He made it away with
close to $6,000, but he was apprehended shortly thereafter by the police.
Upon his arrest, the gun he had used was confiscated by the police, and he was
sent to jail for six years. Later, the Ottawa police discovered that the
pistol Simpson had used was not a typical handgun, but an antique. Simpson
owned a .45 caliber Colt semi-automatic pistol, one of only 100 made by the
Ross Rifle Company in Quebec City in 1918. The pistol was worth upwards
of $100,000, close to 20 times the amount he had stolen from the bank. If he
had only known what he held in his hand, he wouldn't have gotten into this
mess.
What's in your
hand? Maybe all you have in your hand is a little pot of oil. Maybe
all you're holding onto is a handful of hope. If God is who he says he
is, and God can do what he says he'll do, then a little pot of oil, a handful
of hope may be more than enough.above all His grace is sufficient in all
seasons.
In Him,
Brown
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