Right now we are at Fall conference in Malenovice, Czech Republic. Yesterday was our first day here and already we have had two sessions, and three classes and have had a ton of useful information given to us for our hearts to absorb. Information such as; those who are lost already belong to someone, those who are thirsty are asking for water: Do you listen, our testimonies in 5 mins or less, how to step over the barriers(excuses) we put up to strangers around us, and knowing that we aren't "on the court" alone. So often I don't see the lost and the thirsty as truly needing help. I don't see them as belonging to someone.
Dave Patty compared the lost to those lost in a corn field, more specifically to a child lost in a corn field. Parents hearts panic, neighborhoods help start a search, and community comes together to find this child who has wandered into a corn field close to 180 acres. Imagine being no more than five feet from the person next to you and calling out the name of the child and you hear nothing. The wind rustled the corn stalks so bad that night that their was no hope in hearing the person next to them, or for that matter screaming out the name of the missing child. As an hour goes by, then two and three with no luck of finding the child people start talking about horror stories of when this or that kid wasn't found or was but had died, and hearts start loosing hope. When it starts to get dark often the search parties stop until morning, in the meantime parents worry themselves all night, pacing their front porch, waiting for their little girl to skip out of the corn field. In the specific story he told, there was a 22 yr. old single mother and her 5 yr old daughter who had had a few friends and their kids over for a get together. Well the little girl wandered into the corn fields in Iowa at 5pm and after hours of searching they still hadn't found her. When it started getting dark they were going to hold off on the search and start again the next day, but the weather to follow that day was suppose to hit a wave of heat up to 115 F. One paramedic decided to start one last sweep by a fence that hadn't yet been searched. As they slowly walked down endless rows of corn, the little girl called out "Daddy" to the paramedic and stood up from sitting next to the fence and ran towards the paramedic. She had never met him before and he stood there clinging to the little girl and she was reunited with her family soon after. We are or have been that lost child. Sometimes we wander other times we sit and wait, in the long haul we are searching for that person to save us. Sometimes we don't realize that that's what we are looking for until our hearts are open and we cry out "Daddy, your here, please save me!"
Dave Patty compared the lost to those lost in a corn field, more specifically to a child lost in a corn field. Parents hearts panic, neighborhoods help start a search, and community comes together to find this child who has wandered into a corn field close to 180 acres. Imagine being no more than five feet from the person next to you and calling out the name of the child and you hear nothing. The wind rustled the corn stalks so bad that night that their was no hope in hearing the person next to them, or for that matter screaming out the name of the missing child. As an hour goes by, then two and three with no luck of finding the child people start talking about horror stories of when this or that kid wasn't found or was but had died, and hearts start loosing hope. When it starts to get dark often the search parties stop until morning, in the meantime parents worry themselves all night, pacing their front porch, waiting for their little girl to skip out of the corn field. In the specific story he told, there was a 22 yr. old single mother and her 5 yr old daughter who had had a few friends and their kids over for a get together. Well the little girl wandered into the corn fields in Iowa at 5pm and after hours of searching they still hadn't found her. When it started getting dark they were going to hold off on the search and start again the next day, but the weather to follow that day was suppose to hit a wave of heat up to 115 F. One paramedic decided to start one last sweep by a fence that hadn't yet been searched. As they slowly walked down endless rows of corn, the little girl called out "Daddy" to the paramedic and stood up from sitting next to the fence and ran towards the paramedic. She had never met him before and he stood there clinging to the little girl and she was reunited with her family soon after. We are or have been that lost child. Sometimes we wander other times we sit and wait, in the long haul we are searching for that person to save us. Sometimes we don't realize that that's what we are looking for until our hearts are open and we cry out "Daddy, your here, please save me!"
I think more often than not we wait for the right time to bring up Christ, we wait until they ask us what we believe or we say we will tell them our story at a more convenient time. There is never going to be the "perfect time" to share the love of Christ, not when there is an enemy wanting us to turn down situations. There have been so many opportunities where I have turned down situations because I was "to busy" or I say "there's always tomorrow." What if there is no tomorrow for that person? What would be your excuse for not telling them then?
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