“But Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile
himself with the king’s choice food or with the wine which he drank; so he
sought permission from the commander of the officials, that he might not defile
himself. Now God granted Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the
commander of the officials.” (Dan. 1:8-9).
Hey gang: Notice the last line of this passage of
Scripture: “Now God granted Daniel
favor”. Wow, you mean if we are obedient God will give us
favor?” In the past two months our lives have been lives of
contrast. We spent five weeks in Bartlesville, Oklahoma working in the
mail room of Voice of Martyrs and presently we are at the African Missionary
Retirement Home in Clermont, Florida.
Our main purpose for being at VOM was pure sweat and toil as we
prepared hundreds of thousands of pieces of mail to go across this world
telling all who are interested in learning, more about the persecuted
church. Now get the picture, I am eighty years of age and my bride
is seventy six. Manuel labor is not the unusual forte of folks of that
maturity level. But, how many know that God will supply for all of our
needs, if we put our faith and trust in Him and are obedient to His call.
My prayer, prior to arrive at VOM was, ‘Lord you have called me
to this ministry to help, I pray now you will fill my body with the energy and
stamina to stay the course and complete the race.’ That has been my
prayer in each of the past six years as we prepared to leave for Bartlesville,
from our rocking chairs in Michigan. And He has honored that prayer
magnificently. We always return with more strength and stamina than we had
when we left home.
As I mentioned above, our lives have been one of contrast.
As you know we have had a horrendous winter in most for the country. Have
you noticed that the weather has been horrendous across the nation for the
past several years? Do you think God may be giving His children a wakeup
call?
So, we did as Daniel did and “Made up our mind” that we would retreat to the sunny south for
a time of rest and recuperation from Bartlesville, a place that was not all
white but still very frigid.
We returned to an oasis from our past, the Christian Retreat
Center at Bradenton, Florida, a place that was filled with many wonderful
memories of the past. It is a place we crawled into when we were
exhausted during our years at Eagle Village. Our Board president
recognized the need for us to have an opportunity to just rest and be
fed! It was my privilege on one of those trips to baptize my Board President,
his wife, Marjorie and David; one of the very high points of my life.
It was here sitting under the teachings of many wonderful and
powerful teachers of God that I gained an understanding of Daniel’s
commitment to not defile himself with the things of the world. If I
could make a challenge to every daddy that reads this message, it would be to
set aside a week when they would take their family out of the business of the
world and spend a week renewing their commitment to Christ as a family.
(Grace Adventures and other Christian Camps offer such an opportunity).
Soooo my friends, when was the last time you got alone with
God for more than two or three minutes between appointments? I mean
really get alone with Him. A lesson that was very hard for me to learn, and
I am still struggling with is, prayer is a two-way conversation; unless we give
God an opportunity to speak to our hearts, we will never come to know the Lord
in a personal way. Once again I would challenge you to get up fifteen
minutes early and spend that time alone with the Lord. Your day will go
much better, I promise.
Blessings,
Gramps
.
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