The old adage is so true. Sometimes we aren’t able to see the forest because of the trees. In other words, the things (obstacles, challenges, etc.) immediately in front of us can prevent us from seeing the bigger picture (the complete work of God). It is all too easy to look at those “angels” who seemingly aren’t being moved by the Holy Spirit and begin to lose hope. Week after week, you pray and prepare, pray and prepare, and then pray and prepare some more and yet what you’ve prayed for just isn’t manifesting. The trees (the unmoved boys and girls) are preventing you from seeing the forest (the underlying work of God).
So, when those times come (and those times can come all too frequently), I find it important to pull back and begin to remind myself of the things that I know to be true. I begin to remind myself about who God is. I meditate upon the integrity of His Word and promises. I encourage myself by remembering that what God has done in the past, He can and will do again … for those who believe! Soon, the confusion and disillusionment dissipates and disappears.
Allow me in this third and final segment of the Lord, Do It Again One More Time blog series to encourage you. Know that the same Holy Spirit that worked in and through the child mentioned in John G. Lake’s Adventures in God is at work in your children and children’s ministry. Remember that if the Holy Spirit did it once, He can do it again!
John G. Lake. “I was sitting one day in the home of the DeValeras in Krugersdorp, South Africa, when a man arrived who had … been following me from place to place, trying to catch up with me. He … had developed a large cancer. He came into the house and … in a little while a 6-year-old child who had been sitting near me went across the room, climbed on the man’s knees, put her hands on his face, and prayed. I saw the cancer wither. In half an hour, the thing had disappeared.” John G. Lake, Adventures in God (Tulsa: Harrison House, Inc., 1981), 15,16.
Join me one more time in crying out, “Lord, do it one more time” in my children and children’s ministry!
