So my good friend Tim is the youth pastor at the church I am now attending. This morning in our High School youth service he spoke about tapping into the power of the Holy Spirit. It was great. Jotted some good notes down in my handy little pocket-sized notebook.. anyways.
He said one of the biggest things we need to do is act in faith. Listen to and for the Holy Spirit. Its as simple just to act on your faith and take that step. The Holy Spirit could be promting you to do something or say something to someone. How will you know the outcome unless you try. I really battle with my flesh on this one. For some reason I try and talk myself out of acting on my faith in what I know the Holy Spirit is trying to say to me.
By the way.. I'm thinking all of this while Tim is speaking on it and realizing how "not with it" I actually am. I am the furthest from being perfect. I'm one of the High School youth leaders for goodness sake. Shouldn't I be an expert? not at all. And thats where I thank God for His grace. Man God is incredible..
anyways back to the story. I'm sure there's a point in here somewhere.
Tim also posed the question "how do we get used by God?"
I think it all comes down to acting on our faith in God and trusting He knows best and won't let us down.
simple right?
All I know is that I'm human. I'm selfish. I am a sinner. And those things get in my way so much it's annoying ridiculous. haha.
So that brings me to tonight. The whole reason I decided to write this blog in the first place.
I went to a Young Adults/College Group meeting at my church. Afterward, I went out to eat with a bunch of people from the group including Tim, his wife Shannon, and His older brother Todd. (don't know why I just threw those names in there, but hang with me the story is going somewhere I hope)
We had heaps fun laughing and talking with good friends. We were walking out in the parking lot, after dinner, all of us in great moods laughing and joking and having a good time. As all of that was happening a man walks up to us. A bit disheveled, skinny, with a lazy eye, and a plastic bag full of something. He was walking towards the restaurant while we were walking away, and he slightly turned and walked towards us and started to speak. He told us that him and his wife were very sick and living out of a hotel because they had nowhere else to go. He had bandages all over his legs and on one of his arms. He was asking us if we could spare any money or anything that could help him and his wife. The whole group just stood there, a bit quiet looking around at one another.
First thing that pops into my head was what Tim spoke about. "How do we get used by God?"
Next thing that came into my head was my stupid selfish side saying "wait.. this guy better not be wanting drugs!" Here I was, knowing that the Holy Spirit was prompting me to do something about the situation, but at the same time not wanting to for some ridiculous reason of an idea I had built up in my head that every homeless person wants drugs or alcohol. how dumb is that?!
A million thoughts running through my head at this point. I looked around at everyone else as if they had an answer for me. I was wanting someone else to act first. Tim's older brother Todd looks at me and jokingly says "this guys in charge." That's when it hit me. How could I stand there thinking about how bad I would look if I gave this guy money and all he did was buy drugs with it, when I had no clue! All I could think was "act" "ACT!" right then I reached into my pocket and gave the guy the little money I had, and so did everyone else right after me.
In all reality, I have no clue what the guy did with the money. I hope he was able to feed his wife and himself with it. I think the main thing though was not what he did with it, it was about planting a seed and acting out in faith in what the Holy Spirit was prompting me to do.
We as Christians need to keep a keen ear out for the Holy Spirit. He is always trying to say things, but are we listening? We can't wait for someone else to do it. We need to act and take charge. God wants to use us. Just have faith that He knows what He's doing.
I knew I left cash in my pocket tonight for a reason. : )
I hope this story was if anything encouraging for you. Glad you stuck till the end. I just realized how much I actually wrote. Geez.
Well I hope all is well wherever you are in the world.
Later Days,
Berto
Posts
