Nothing really pleasant comes without work and pain!

The title is from words said to me last night as I visited and shared with a woman.  We were talking about the creation story and man and woman and their disobedience.  She said she liked the whole story.  Often people will say that as what we would call a "sunday school" answer, because it is God's Word.  However generally they will begin to agree that there are parts of the story that are difficult to like such as the woman having pain in childbirth or man having to work hard to have just a little to eat.  This woman though did not change her opinion.  She agreed that childbirth is painful, but having the baby is wonderful.  Having a child with good character is a good thing, but raising them to have good character is not pleasant sometimes.  "Nothing pleasant and worth having," she said, "comes without work and pain."  How true that is but oddly enough painful. So often we want things and think they should come easily, but the best things just do not happen that way.  I experienced that just yesterday on the way to visit this woman.  I was tired from a busy week of home school and really just wanted to relax.  However I knew that this is the reason why I am here and that there were women expecting me to show up with a Word to study.  Fortunately, I was reminded on the way that when we are weak, then He is strong.  When we are at our end, He is most able to work and show Himself true to His Word.  What is it that you most want and desire?  Are you willing to work for it?  Are you willing to put in the blood, sweat, and tears to get to it?  Really?  Am I? This visit was a gut check I needed.

By the way, lift up this woman.  She has lots of "good" answers but it also seems like she just wants to put the good I teach in her basket of beliefs.  She needs to realize that she must throw out the rest of the basket and start afresh and anew.  Ask the Father to give me the words to say to prick this woman's heart.

A New Brother!

Well, unfortunately I had some computer issues the last time I wrote, so now I must retell this story from my memory, weak though it is.  The story is alive with the Spirit, so I trust It to help me remember.

As I was visiting with a local sister, she was sharing with me some wonderful things that the Almighty is doing in her village.  She, along with a local brother who was in town working, was hosting gatherings on an evening during the week to allow those who had questions about our beliefs to come forward to ask them and hear stories of the Good News.  The gathering just previous to my visit with her involved three young men choosing to follow the Way.  Wow, what rejoicing there is over just one!

It would have been a happy story if it had ended there, but the teaching was no where near done.  The challenge then becomes teaching them how to live out their new faith in the face of all their traditions.  One in particular had some major questions, which I am sure will impact his friends as well.  This one is actually of another people group.  He had a particularly pressing question.

In this new brother's tradition, a young man will go through a ritual where blood is drained from his hips.  This blood is then combined with finger nail cuttings and hair trimmings to be sacrificed to a spirit.  This spirit then is supposed to be bound to protect the young man the rest of his days.  The spirit world is very real here, and people live and die in fear of it. 

This young man needed to know how to respond to his family about this tradition and whether he would even travel there the following week to undergo this.  It does not end there though.  He needs to know that our God is greater than any spirit.  He needs to know how to answer his mother who will surely beg him otherwise because she fears for her child's safety.  He needs to know how to answer his father when he can no longer follow in his father's steps.  He will have to know how to answer the father of any girl that he might wish to marry and risk the stigma of not being fully one of them.

The gathering after my visit with my sister would be followed by the young man's travel to his people to follow in their traditions or his refusal and pronouncing his new faith.  Intercede with me for wisdom for my
sister and for this young man and his friends.  May they have the confidence that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had as they went into the fiery furnace!