God, I know you called me here to share the gospel of your kingdom. You did not bring me here to lie around and feel sorry for myself. Please God give me strength! Then, I remembered the promise, “I can do this through him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:13 NLT)
As I stated yesterday, personally, I’m intrigued by how Wendel honesty captures the essence of our daily struggles of obedience to our Master, amid the assaulting distractions launched by our avowed soul’s enemy, within our spirit, soul, & body, heart, mind, & will, and especially in our imaginations working overtime, as Wendell shares in this two post account. Wendell was sick several days prior this event and the bug literally followed him several weeks during the trip home to FL. Currently, Loretta & I are reading the book thru out loud to each other most mornings, ready to begin ch 17 today, titled “When God Leads.”
Part II
Over the next thirty minutes, as the house filled with songs of worship, I found myself in a raging battle for my heart. On the one hand, logic screamed that what had been said was the truth. I was simply a novelty, “the world’s youngest evangelist.” To me, though, that implied I was unqualified and unworthy, immature, an oddity. The strength of this logic seemed to demand that I come into agreement with it. Like that fearful and wounded inner child, everything in me wanted to run into some dark corner and hide as I had done so often in the past.
Satan is the original bully. He waits until you are at your weakest, most vulnerable moment. So many areas had been healed in me. I had been confident, sure of who I was: God’s child full of His Holy Spirit. I believed I could indeed do all things through Christ who is my strength, just as He promised. Faith in that promise was in the process of being proven in this far away and dangerous place. I thought I was spiritually prepared to protect myself from the kind of attacks I had associated with the challenges of missionary life. But the enemy of my soul knew right where and when to hit. While God had brought a lot of healing in my life over the past few years, it sure did not take much to rip open those tender wounds.
At that moment, I felt beaten and completely powerless to offer anything to God or these people. I stood there in that little crowded house surrounded by strangers singing their hearts out in worship and praise and I felt completely numb.
God, help me, I prayed in anguish desperate for a way to escape. I just wanted to be back home where it was safe, washing dishes at that boring job at the restaurant anywhere but here. The singing, like a mist, swirled around me. There was a comfort to be found in that worship, but to enter it enter in and access God’s presence seem like more effort than I was able to muster.
Finally with the smallest speck of faith, I willed my heart to be quiet and myself to deliberately surrender to God’s purposes. God, I can’t fight this alone. I won’t fight it; it’s not my battle. I didn’t ask for it. I surrender! If You want me, if You value me, please come and rescue me. With that I resigned myself to accepting the suffocating pain that now overwhelmed me. Like a loyal servant, I realized this battle was not mine to fight. This attack against me was an attack against my Master and I knew I could trust Him. I had to trust Him – to protect and restore what was being stolen from both of us.
With surrender came peace, a peace that passes understanding! I felt Jesus quietly standing at my side challenging me to raise my head, look in his eyes, and search out the truth of my real identity, the person he sees from His perspective.
Thankfully, the crowd was having a great time worshiping and did not want to stop. It gave me time to consider what had just happened. Jesus, help me,” I whispered. “I don’t think I have anything to give these people right now. I’m feeling so bad and so worthless! Packed in that hot sweaty house full of people, out in that dark jungle, Jesus stood beside me. I knew it! I felt Him! He was there, just as He promised, like the big brother He really is. In all His superhuman power and authority, He stood there with me. Then came words of encouragement and comfort.
“Wendell, let me remind you again,” words rose within me. “Your weakness and inabilities are your greatest assets in My kingdom. Trust me, will you?” I know you are physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained right now. But I am not. I am strong! Trust in My strength. Go forward in spite of how you feel. Do it by faith, in the fact of My promise, and let Me glorify My name through you.
The singing finally came to an end, and the world’s youngest evangelist was invited to speak.
So, I did. What started out as a rambling message took on shape and form in ways I never intended. People were weeping, repenting, and finding salvation. A woman’s agonizing screams were followed by joyful laughter as demons left her body. Joy hit every one as the Holy Spirit suddenly but gently flowed through the crowd.
It was the same joy that had overwhelmed me the night I had surrendered my life to Jesus years’ earlier. His wonderful presence was overwhelming all of us at once. How quickly the spiritual attack and wounding I had experienced earlier dwarfed in comparison to the celebration of God’s presence.
Another hour passed until, one by one, exuberant and exhausted, people slipped away into the night. As the dust settled in the little house, we could faintly hear distant joyful singing echoing off the surrounding hills as different groups made their way homeward.
After a meeting like that, I was certain God would heal me of the feverish aches, the burning chest pain and the coughing. But that was not in God’s plan – at least not yet.
Next Up:
Unknown!