A saturday afternoon....

There’s a passage that says:
8b. give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
9. lest I be full and deny you
and say, "Who is the LORD?"
or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God.

Proverbs 30:8b-9


I thank God for the time when he keeps me in the middle ground. Comparatively, I know that I am wealthy by the world’s standards, but I pray continually that neither extreme becomes a driving desire in my life. Through the delay of the arrival of my belongings, and the shift in culture, I am learning what I really “need”. And truth be told, I still have more than enough. More than enough food, clothing, space (I’m sleeping in a king sized bed by myself), etc. What I do need is more of Him. I need a stronger thirst for righteousness, I need more opportunities to share life and life more abundantly, I need a stronger fire inside me energizing me to press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling which is in Christ… whether I have familiar faces around or not, whether I have my creature comforts or not, whether I see the fruit of my efforts or not…help me be faithful.

Today after our men’s bible study this morning, I was invited by a friend to go on a three-hour tour on a boat. This wonderful gift included a little snorkeling, light snacks but also a chance to interact with some tourists from the U.S.A. The funny thing is that I realized the stark contrast between our perspectives on island life (mine vs. theirs) even after only being here for two weeks. I don’t feel like a full-fledged visitor, and I am slowly settling into making this more my home each day.
While interacting with the group, I told them of the call that God placed on me to come to TCI to plant a church. Now a quick piece of info, a few of the staff members on this boat are regular attendees to the core group Sunday morning services. One in particular is a young lady whom I am going to have the privilege of baptizing tomorrow morning – LaMeisha (I may have spelled it incorrectly but phonetically it works). This was an ideal time to invite the other crew members to church (which I did) leveraging LaMeisha’s baptism as a catalyst for their attendance. Hopefully, they’ll turn out.

When we were out in the water just swimming around one of the tour members called me over and said, “you need to talk to this guy. He’s ready to accept Christ, but just not today. He said that if he makes a decision today but tomorrow morning wakes up and wants to sin he’ll regret having made the decision”. That was an honest answer and I responded, “If you don’t want to accept him today, that is your choice. But tomorrow is not promised and you could die tonight. Your decision to trust in Jesus for your salvation is based on what HE DID, not on what you do”. I don’t know whether he truly was ready to receive the Lord Jesus as his Savior, but I did embrace that opportunity to speak truth to this young man.

Oh, my prayer is that the Lord would do a great work in the lives of the men on island here. Similar to the African-American community back in the States, TCI is a society plagued by absentee-fatherism, promiscuity, and misguided men. As I wrote earlier about having a chance to speak into the lives of the youth, I pray that God would do a mighty work even in the young men (18 – 35 and more) and older men to stop striving with vain effort but to trust in Him to make them be the men they need to be.

Keep my focus on you Lord, so I can direct others to you.