Friday, April 25, 2014
“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 arrival 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. (Haha) 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 of 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, Judge Holbrook, recognized
the need for us to have an opportunity to just rest and be fed! It was our
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 busyness 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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