Faith
I got a lesson in Faith and the power of Prayer on my second mission trip to Guatemala. On this particular trip, we attended a church service in one of the local churches. While the adults were in the main service, some of our youth took the children to do a childrens church. As I was the designated photographer on this trip, I was taking some pictures of the service, and then during some music, I went to take pictures of the children and our youth. While I was taking pictures of the kids, the camera ran out of film. (I know, 35mm film...how quaint) As my camera bag was still in the van, I went out to the van, climbed in, and proceeded to change film. Now the van was set up with window film, so that people could not see in, even during the day. It was early evening, and starting to get dark. As I was loading the film, I saw a man walk up to the front of the church. He stopped, turned and looked inside through the open doors, and just stood there for a couple minutes, staring inside. Then he walked away. I thought little of it, and continued at my task of taking pictures. A little while later, (these are 2 - 3 hour services we go to down there), I was surprised when the same man I had seen earlier walked into the service. With him was a women, who we learn later was his wife. She was carrying a baby in her arms. The image of that child will be with me forever. It was limp in her arms, it's eyes were rolled back so all you saw was white, and there was almost no color in it. Guatemalans have that very dark complexion, even the children and babies. But not this one, it was a sickly gray color. For all intensive purposes, this baby looked dead.The man went up to the Pastor and began to talk to him. After a couple minutes, David, one of the couple we serve there, came to us and explained what was happening. It seemed that this couple's child had become very ill a couple weeks before. They had brought him to some "traditional" healers (witch doctors) without any success. They had brought him to a couple of doctors, but had no money for the visits, much less any medications, and were turned away. They had all but given up hope, when, as he was walking, he was drawn to the open front door of that small church. The man and his wife were not Christians, but he went and got his wife, and brought her and the baby back to the church. We began to pray for that baby. For over a forty minutes we prayed, with the Pastor leading up front. Most in our team could not understand what he was saying, but we didn't need to. We just kept praying ourselves as hard as we could. After about 45 minutes the Pastor stopped, than he said something the congregation and everyone started clapping. We strained to see, and what we saw, and heard, was nothing short of the most miraculous thing I have ever seen, or probably will see on this earth. The baby, who looked inches from death when he was brought in, now had all his color back, his eyes were bright, and he was crying, the cry of a healthy baby. It is what happened next that really opened my eyes. The Pastor again spoke to the congregation, and without any hesitation they opened their billfolds and purses, and proceeded to empty them of any money they had. Now they had already taken the offering before this, so this was over and above. The money was given to the family to make sure the baby was taken care of. Later, I considered what had happened and asked myself why you rarely see healings such as this in the states. It was then that it hit me. These people, who were poor farmers, had handed over everything to someone they didn't even know, someone who wasn't even a Christian....Why? Because they had faith in God to provide for them. And it was this simple, but total faith that had healed this child. They were able to take that seemingly so simple step of handing over complete control to God. How many of us could do that? Could you hand over everything you have to a stranger, and just trust in God to provide for you? I myself am still far away from being able to do this. The materialistic life we lead keeps us from trusting God. Instead we trust in our cellphones, our ATM's, Our PDA's, our computers, and everything else we have that makes our lives easier. We trust in our jobs to provide money to obtain all these wants, thereby becoming a slave to both our jobs, and the money we get from them. We are warned repeatedly in the Bible of the dangers of money, and yet we still let it control our lives. My prayer for all of us is that we will start to see what is important during this Lenten season, when we stop to consider the ultimate sacrifice Jesus made for us. How much can we sacrifice to become the Hands and Feet of Jesus? How can we put aside our pride and become the Light in the darkness? Let's become that light, let's become that City on the Hill, shining in the dark, a refuge for all the lost. Amen
posted by the voice @ 11:05 AM
2 Comments:
I agree with you. We have a tendency to leave no room for God to work. We make sure we have the right things, the right job (at least one that provides enough money), the right people... in our lives so that we can live right.
I'm not saying that we should not do our due diligence but since we have things planned out so well, we do not leave room for God to provide for our needs along the way. He has the ultimate plan, yet we seem to seldom go to Him when we are "planning" our lives. We miss out on so much and don't even know what.
Thank you for sharing your experience. God still does miraculous acts, we simply need to open our eyes, hearts and lives to see them. Lets leave some God room.
I say briefly: Best! Useful information. Good job guys.
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