Our God has power to bless. But sometimes, it appears his blessings get delayed or even repurposed. For example, as Jesus was on his way to heal the daughter of Jairus, he got detoured with the healing of the woman with the flow of blood.
While living in Cameroon, we saw God work powerfully. There was the time when there was a contagious cattle blight, with whole herds wiped out. One nomadic herdsman came to a Christian church asking for prayer for his cattle because his brother’s cattle, with which his had mingled, had begun to show disease symptoms. The Christians obliged, fervently praying for protection. Two weeks later, the Fulani herdsman returned rejoicing that he had discovered the true God. Even though his brother’s cattle continued to diminish in numbers, his were not affected at all.
A short time later, my visiting father collapsed with an apparent heart attack. We did CPR and prayed. The response of our loving Father was not to heal him miraculously as with the Muslim’s herd. What we discovered in our grief was that God used my dad’s death to speak to the Cameroonians in ways that we had not anticipated and could not have orchestrated otherwise.
The lesson? Because we are confident that our God is powerful and loving, we pray fervently for his blessing. His response may be different from what we hope for, but it will always be for our good and his glory.
Pastor David Mann
No comments:
Post a Comment