March 4 2008- some encouraging scripture in times where it’s hard to trust and have faith
Psalm 139:7-10
“where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I ride on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”
Daniel 2:21-22
” He controls the course of world events; he removes kings and sets up other kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the scholars. He reveals deep and mysterious things and knows what lies hidden in the darkness, though he is surrounded by light.”
Both of these scriptures have shown me that God never leaves me, or stops thinking about me. He has planned what I am going to do, and will guide me and show me where to go. He controls world events, why is it so hard for us to believe that he controls each of our lives? God controls all things, big and small. We can try to hide, and take control. But as it says, If I ride on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me.” No matter how far I try to run, or where I go to hide. God will be there and He will be in control.
It’s only girls at the house right now, the boys on my team are on a 2 week walk across Swaziland. They joined with a group from the Peace core who are doing an AIDS awareness walk. They left on Saturday, and for 14 days they will be walking across the country speaking and spreading awareness. I am not sure if the people he is with from the Peace core are Christians, but pray that they are in a good atmosphere, and are able to share the word of God and encourage the people they are with by bringing life and light.
Anyways, since the boys have been gone, us girls have been having some fun 😉 Tonight we had a worship service and prayer time. I was flipping through my Bible and came across a verse that I had never read before, that is something I have heard before but never knew it was actually scripture. It is Hebrews 13:1-2-
” Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.”
I had heard of this idea before but never knew it was scripture. I think it is really a good thing to think about, anytime a stranger is put in front of us, we have the choice to love them or ignore them, or even shun them. If we think of these people as possible angels, or even just think of the fact that they are a child of God we should treat strangers a lot differently than we do sometimes.
I can think of a personal examples of how I have treated a stranger, :
On Sunday, Teresa and I went into town and were searching for a church we had heard about. But after searching for over 45 minutes, we decided to just go somewhere else. We ended up on a street we recognized, we had walked by this church called ” Word of Hope Ministries.” before. So we just decided to go. As we were walking up to the door to go in, a woman in her early 20’s ran up to us, grabbed my arm and said ” Sisi, I don’t want to live like this anymore.” ” I am addicted to alcohol, I am sick and I want to stop.” She just kept mumbling these things over and over, and put her head into her shirt and kind of started to cry. We didn’t know what to say at first, because we could tell she had been drinking. She smelt of alcohol badly. So our initial thought was to leave her alone, because this time of year there are drunk people everywhere.
But I just got this bad feeling, we couldn’t just go into church knowing she is out there and not do anything. We invited her to come in with us, but she said they would not accept her in her condition, and there was no talking her out of that. She had mentioned that she hadn’t eaten or slept all night. So we ended up just going and getting her something to eat, and then just sat with her and listened to her story. We were actually able to learn a lot about her. We wrote down some scriptures for her, and prayed over her. She kept saying she wanted to go into the church for deliverance. But in the end she sent us in the building ahead of her, saying she would meet us in there. She never did come in, and when church was over, she was gone.
So then in our minds at first we were like ” Did she just use us for food.” ” Did something happen to her?” blah blah blah.
But when I read this verse tonight it made me realize, we did all that we could do. We entertained a stranger who seemed to be in need. She may not have ” needed” the help, or may not take anything we said with her. But we treated her with love, and accepted her when no one else around would.
Angel or not, I see the importance of entertaining strangers.
