Sunday, April 28, 2024

Dare To Be A Daniel

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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