What is your passion?
Our friends the Stanley’s, a family of five, left today (1-18-2015) at 5 PM from Dallas on a one way trip to Uganda. To support themselves and their work, they took about 46 luggage bags with them. They have prepared a good while for this adventure, including prayer for praying and financial partners to get behind them, and for in country preparations. They plan to be bringing educational opportunities through school as well as brand-new spiritual life to others when they place their trust in Jesus and his promises.
Last night a large gathering worshiped Jesus, as led by the Stanley’s. We prayed for them, hugged them, wrote encouraging notes for their rainy day reading, and said our goodbyes. The whole family is very excited about this new venture of going around the world as ambassadors for Christ. One of the motivators for the husband was the enthusiastic feedback of a man who walked miles and miles in Uganda on a previous trip to express his appreciation that Floyd shared the good news of salvation and heaven through Christ’s work on the cross.
We each have 24 hours to invest every day. Independent of geography, God can take what we do have, and which we are willing to turn over for His management, and multiply it in the mental, spiritual, physical, and eternal domains. Martyr Jim Elliott said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.” Jesus agreed with that statement by telling us that a man must lose his life in order to find it in Him. We tend to hold onto things tightly in order to try to feel more secure, but the secret is just the opposite; we gain freedom, effectiveness, joy, and eternal success by entrusting all that we have to the Lord. As an example, Isaiah 55 says that God’s ways and thoughts are not ours, just as heaven is much higher than the earth.
So this is a good time for each of us to consider, what is our passion? And also, what is the source of our passion? David was a man after God’s own heart and he was clearly very passionate as we see from his writings in the Psalms. God loves a passionate person to such an extent that he prefers that we be hot or cold, compared to lukewarm. We see Jesus’ rare public display of passion, when his anger and action overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple. He explained that the zeal of His Father’s house had eaten him up, or consumed him. He also explained that the correct use of the temple, intended by His Father, was a house of prayer. He had a passionate feeling and expression of this zeal.
We may not have the passion of a Stanley family, a Jim Elliott, or Jesus Himself, but we can rest assured that as we seek God, he will lead us to discover the plans he has for us, and he will enhance it with a passion to see that carried out. Please consider praying about this and listening for His promise to answer. His eyes are searching the entire Earth for people who are dedicated to Him and will take Him seriously and do what He says. May we each be one of those kinds of people.
On the eve of 3-1-15 I am requesting prayer for 2 Stanley children who just came down with malaria, Reagan (teen girl) and Tyler (teen boy with 103 degree fever) in hospital in Uganda. Thanks!
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Great prayer answer update: 3-2-15: After praying several times last night, I couldn't wait to get to the computer to see if there was an update. Read the first info; then we prayed again. Then saw the info below with the way God has graciously answered. We join in rejoicing with the Stan Clan and the state-side prayer supporters!