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Apr 05, 2005
How Shall They Hear?
As you slow to a stop inches
behind the car in front of you, you squint your eyes and peer through your
car’s windshield. You strain to catch a glimpse of the cause for the backed up
traffic ahead. But there are just too many cars on the freeway to see the
reason for the delay.
“Fine time for a traffic jam.
Now I’m really going to be late!” You mutter out loud to yourself.
As you move forward a few
feet, stop, move forward a few feet more and stop again, you try to control
your frustration.
Your thoughts run back over
the last few hours. The reports you had to finish at the office caused you to
leave later than you intended. Why did your department head decide he wanted
them today? It was already going to be a close call getting to your daughter’s
piano recital on time. Now with this delay you are going to be late for sure.
“Come on, come on!” you
mumble through clenched teeth as you hit your palm against the steering wheel.
You begin trying to think of
an alternative route you might take if you can just make it to the next exit.
But there is no better way to go.
You let out a long sigh and
remember as a Christian you should not get so uptight at unavoidable problems.
You pause and pray silently asking for the Lord’s help in getting to the piano
recital.
With that done, you try to
think about something else. A thought in the back of you mind leaps forward. It
is a memory of the missionary that spoke at your church last month. He only had
fifteen minutes in the Sunday morning service, but he shared about his work
with unreached tribal people in Papua New Guinea with an urgent fervor.
There was something in the
verses that missionary shared about going into ALL the world that touched your
heart like never before. Could it be that the Lord was calling you to be a
missionary in a foreign land? No, that could not be! Could it?
The blaring of car horns
snapped you back into reality. You blinked a few times and realized that the
cars ahead of you were moving. The drivers behind you were rather upset that
you were still just inching along. So you stomped the gas pedal and got going.
As you accelerate and match
the pace of the cars ahead, you think to yourself, “I am so busy here with work
& the School Board. What I do is so important and needed. How could I give
up our house and my career and go to some backward country? Surely somebody
else is in a better position to go!”
Quickly your mind returns to
the cares of the moment and how you might still get to your daughter’s recital
on time.
You put any thoughts about
being called as a missionary out of your mind…even further out than before.
Thousands of miles away, the
missionary that you recalled is arriving back in Papua New Guinea. As he and
his family wait in line to clear Immigration, he reflects back on their just
completed furlough.
He thinks about how he poured
out his heart concerning the need for more people to be willing to carry the
Gospel to those places in the world where the Truth still has not been heard.
Most people were cordial; some even showed concern about their personal
responsibility to obey the Great Commission.
But overall, it seemed that
the busyness of their lives and the cares of this world had changed the
Christians in his homeland. Most were not willing to give up what they had in
order to go and serve their Lord in His harvest fields, wherever that might be.
Suddenly the missionary’s
vision blurred. Tears welled up in his eyes and tears began rolling down his
checks. His wife noticed and knowingly put her arm on his trying to comfort
him. He bowed his head and prayed, once again, that the Lord of the Harvest
would send laborers into the fields.
“How then shall they
call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him
of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And
how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are
the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of
good things!” – Romans
10:14-15
Posted by David Pryor in Devotions | Permalink
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