I hope you have had a great start to 2021! This whole month saw me doing a lot of reflecting, praying, and listening to what God is trying to reveal to me for this year. It started with my church's annual 21 Days of Prayer event. Each morning at 6am, there would be worship time, a devotional, followed by 30 minutes of personal quiet time in prayer, and a wrap up by our senior pastor. Near the end of the 21 days, I shared what the Lord had revealed to me through His word that helped me understand some of what I had been struggling with. Here's the video. (Note: My devotional doesn't begin for a full minute after it starts.)
As you heard in the video, the Lord had used me for His purpose, two different times while I was in the hospital. There had been other times as well including a recent occurrence in a group to which I belong. This is an online support group for people of like condition where the 5,000+ members are of different ages and reside in different countries all over the world. We exchange information, struggles, and encouragement.
As I continued to seek His direction for me this year, the Lord gave me a nudge one day to post my video in the support group. I just sat on that prompting for a few days because I had all kinds of thoughts running through my mind. Thoughts like, 'What if Admin of that page takes it down because of "religious" content?' What if before they take it down they chastise me? That would be embarrassing! Even if Admin doesn't take it down, what if others say negative things to me because they are offended by the "religious" content? On and on my thoughts went. So I didn't do anything but continued to pray about whether I should post it or not, even though I thought the Holy Spirit gave me that idea.
One day I got back online to my support group. Post after post after post was about people suffering with various aspects of the condition. Right there I decided that people really needed hope, encouragement, and God. That was the springboard and confirmation for me to post my video. I provided a disclaimer that the video content included faith and God. I figured anyone who didn't care for that would not watch it. I was wrong.
While I had a lot of great positive comments, one lady said she was an atheist, and that "if an invisible being through myths from long ago" could help me so be it, but she didn't believe in a god that doesn't heal everyone. I proceeded to have a respectful discussion with her. After a few exchanges, I provided her book suggestions to read such as Case for Christ, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, and I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. The discussion between us ended when she sidetracked into other things, and I felt it best to leave it rather than continue on.
I don't know about you but sometimes I second-guess my decisions. I wondered if I should have posted that, if I had heard from the Holy Spirit correctly. I wondered if I should have done this and should have said that. But I continued to pray for her and all who have seen it or will see it and not comment. God is so amazing and knows me so well. He knew all these thoughts I had because today, my church had a guest speaker who talked about the same Bible story that I shared in my video and at one point said this:
"Sometimes God will allow something to happen to us because He knows that there's somebody in close proximity to us that He needs them to see Him work in our lives so He can encourage them... Don't ever negate the fact that God not only is moving in your life, but there's somebody connected to you that God is wanting to minister to. God is never going to waste something."
I started this post saying that I had been searching to see what God is trying to show me moving forward in this year. What this pastor said felt like a direct message from the Lord to me, that He is using me in my current health situation because He wants me to minister to people through and in my situation. Have you ever struggled while waiting for something to pass and wondering where God is? Feel free to send me a PM as I would love to chat with you.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
