SS Thoughts #20: #Small
Moments=BIG Difference!
(Adapted from the Cornerstone Sabbath
School Teacher’s Edition Q1 2015)
Motivational
speaker/author Eric Fellman talks of meeting a Chinese couple in Hong Kong. “I
was taken to meet a man in his 60’s who was recently released from prison. His
smile was radiant, but his back was bent. A woman of about the same age came in
to serve tea. I couldn’t help noticing how they touched and lovingly looked at
each other. My staring did not go unnoticed, for soon they were giggling”.
“What
is it?” I asked my friend. “Oh nothing,” he said with a smile. “They just
wanted you to know they’re newlyweds”.
They
had been engaged when he was studying at a Seminary, but before their wedding
Chinese Communists arrested the students. For 30 years his fiancée was allowed
to visit him just once per year. Each time, following their brief minutes
together, the warden told the man, “You may go home with your bride, if you
will renounce Christianity.” Year after year the man replied: “No. With all that Jesus has done for
me, how could I betray Him?”
For
Fellman this was a crucial defining moment—one that made a BIG difference! He had felt impressed to carry Bibles and
religious literature into China, but was afraid to distribute them. In his own
words: “The next day I crammed my suitcases with Bibles and training literature
for Chinese Christians. And as God had planned, my suitcases were never inspected”.
The
lives of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 21,22), give at least 2 more examples of
crucial defining moments:
1. They decide to “help” God with His
promise to make of Abraham a great nation—by having Abraham bear a child with
Hagar. This was a lack of faith for which the world is still paying—in the
conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
2. God extends grace in giving them Isaac, but calls Abraham to sacrifice this only child. This time Abraham passes the test. His faith is unwavering, and only God stops him from killing the boy, instead providing a ram as a substitute.
2. God extends grace in giving them Isaac, but calls Abraham to sacrifice this only child. This time Abraham passes the test. His faith is unwavering, and only God stops him from killing the boy, instead providing a ram as a substitute.
What
about our own crucial defining moments? Can we say with certainty that we can
pass the test/s? With God’s help we can. The Lord will provide. Jehovah Jireh……
And interestingly, this often-used term is the name of the place where the ram
was caught in the thicket!
E.
G. White, in The Desire of Ages,
reminds us, “Our heavenly Father has a thousand ways to provide for us, of
which we know nothing”........
[Comments welcomed]
[Comments welcomed]
4 comments:
Could this also be a lesson in patience? This example of patience is such a wonderful testimony! The average person's faith would have faltered and may have even given way to Despair but his patience was rewarded 30 years later! So we also wait patiently on our love Jesus Christ's return!
Hmmmmm............. Interesting slant. Showing that kind of patience is HARD..... The kind that says "though He slay me (or deny me my loved one/s), yet will I serve Him". How do we get there????
Today a friend said that he has always wondered whether Abraham would have really killed the boy Isaac.....My answer was YES - based on the belief that Abraham had now established absolute trust in God. If the nation was not to be established through Isaac, then God would direct the way. Moreover, God - who had given him Isaac - had every right to demand him back. How could Abraham withhold the boy? I wonder what others think..........
I also want to make the point that we too have a substitute.... Jesus is the ram caught in the thicket as a substitute for us. In fact he has already been sacrificed on the cross so that we do not have to die for our sins.
On top of that, the ram caught in the thicket - as a substitute for Isaac - was not suddenly there. IT HAD BEEN THERE ALL ALONG!! In the same way that a substitute for us was provided FROM THE VERY BEGINNING! The Creator knew we would sin even before we were created and had already put in place a plan for our salvation - the death of His one and only son. What great love has the Father demonstrated for us - His children.
How then could I deny Him when He has done soooooo much for me.......
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