So, yesterday, in the first part of this blog series, I talked about the selfishness and sin that clouded my perceptions of what I as doing on beach mission, making me feel completely useless.
Another factor that a friend of mine suggested was at play that week is related to my blindness to my contributions. To put it bluntly, I believe there was an element of Satan attack me, trying to blind me to what I could do and what I was doing. The purpose being to discourage me and limit, in a very real sense, the work I was doing to advance God's Kingdom.
I'm sure I wasn't the only team member under attack that week. I am, in fact, 100% certain we were all attacked through our weak points.
It is, after all, what Satan does.
He knows he's lost the war, now he's just trying to minimize his loses (and by that, I mean he's trying not to lose too many of his follower's to God). He is trying to prevent people from accepting God's grace.
And what was the team on beach mission for?
To reveal God's grace to the hurting, to extend it to the broken, and to invite the thirsty to drink from it. To drink from it deeply and be eternally content as a child of God.
Natural, Satan, our mortal enemy, was not impressed, and was doing everything he could to minimize our effectiveness.
I don't know how he chose to attack the other members of the team. Each person's pain is there own. But I know he was attacking me through my deep seated sense of worthlessness and fear that I have nothing to offer.
The discouraging thing for me is that, on a personal level, I know the Enemy definitely succeeded in the work I did. I look back on the week of beach mission and am frustrated by those conversations I could have had but didn't, whether it was with a camper or a team member.
But, the encouragement, the mind-boggling, grace-filled encouragement, is this: ultimately, on that beach mission, Satan failed.
In fact, I would say that he failed miserably.
Because each and every single day we saw God's power and grace take the campsite by storm.
I don't know that we saw anyone be saved, but I do know we saw fires being relit for God (both in team members and campers), we saw a child who had never really connected with other people bond with some of our team. We saw people encounter the truth of God's grace for the very first time.
I also know, because people have told me this, and because I know how God works, that my pathetic attempts at living by grace were used by God to His Glory.
I know, though I don't know how or it what way, exactly, that something I did and something I said, was used by God to touch a broken and hurting person, and reach into a life.
And that is enormous encouragement. Because it shows me something very clearly: I cannot. But neither can the Devil. Only God can.
But anyway, that's enough from me for today. Tune it tomorrow for the third part!
Heavenly Father, I Cannot, but You Can (part 1 of 4)
Heavenly Father, I Cannot, but You Can (part 3 of 4)
Heavenly Father, I Cannot, but You Can (part 4 of 4)
No comments:
Post a Comment