I really need to blog about some thanksgiving items to give thanks to God.
Firstly, God does indeed hear and answer prayers made in faith. The fact that God even hears prayers from an unworthy worm like me is GREAT enough, it is immense grace! Praise the LORD. God answered two of my prayers today:
1) He caused the misty skies (when I woke up at 7.45am) to clear and gave us great weather for doing tracting.
2) He answered my prayers before tracting and during tracting to provide me with someone whom I could share with about Christ.
God is faithful.
We can claim on His promises for truly and surely:
" “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"
I would like to go more in depth on the second answered prayer. I was teamed up with shengwei and yirong for tracting today and I told them to keep praying for every single household whether or not we get to interact with the house owner. Out of the 6 floors we were allocated to, we finished 4 floors without having any opportunity to engage in a proper conversation and lead into the gospel. It was at the 5th floor that we were close to clearing it that I felt the utter incompetence and disappointment within me that I was unable to share of my Almighty God, of the name printed in bold and the biggest text on the front of every tract I gave out - Jesus Christ. Indeed, Christ's Name was the most precious to me and I felt a great loss being unable to proclaim Him...I continued to pray in my heart and finally I met S, he had heard of the gospel before and thank God that he was ready and thus I shared with Him about Christ and the whole of the gospel. By God's grace, we sustained a close to half an hour conversation which was really fufilling for me, to speak of Christ and recount His salvation accomplished for us, my heart was warmed and touched by the Holy Spirit. It was filled with thanksgiving and praise for God's wisdom in all His works and also especially for His grace and love showed toward Man. To me, that was the greatest satisfaction of our whole conversation.
S was not ready to receive Christ, he probably had some hidden reason or excuse which he was not comfortable with sharing with me. He has a high regard for christianity as a liberal though. I thank God for this chance to be able to share with Him and hope that He will be able to come to believe in Christ someday in God's timing!
It was only after i returned to church to pray that I realised what God was trying to teach me.
Every year's witnessing day was similar whenever I went out to do tracting, a prospect will always 'appear' close to the end. It was then that I realised that it was a test of faith, of whether I trusted that God is Almighty and if I would continue to persevere in prayer, knowing that there was none other whom I could rely on.
I also learnt that, it was God's wisdom is providing us a prospect late so that I would have received enough rejections to be utterly hopeless of myself and feel desperate for the LORD. Indeed, blessed are the poor in spirit and blessed are the meek. It is in such circumstances that the Holy Spirit's divine work began in me to turn my desperate heart to fully depend on Him and go forth to proclaim Christ in faith. It was sweet to enjoy the fellowship of the Holy Spirit in this manner, to co labour and slave for Christ. What an honour it is to serve my Saviour!
Closed doors does not mean restrict the work of God, nor is the arm of the LORD is too short to reach beyond those closed doors, but the open doors.. they testify of God's special preparation and arrangement in His sovereign will for His glory.
What irreplaceable joy and solace I find in the presence of my LORD.
"And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” "
