i'm not yet very old, but my memory has been rather slow these past few years... i guess, it's just like my cpu - needs an upgrade!
well, today the Lord did just that using Haggai 1.
seven years ago, He impressed upon my heart the vision of putting up a student center in E. Samar which would serve as a venue for students and youths to have access to Christian literature and trainings. It would be something like a "tambayan" where they can learn more about God and how to make Him known.
Looking back, I saw how God has blessed me so much in the past 7 yrs. - by giving me a permanent teaching job, allowing me to travel and study abroad twice and having my own house.
Yet, the student center - which was the real reason and purpose of my going to E. Samar is still renting a small place. I repent of this mistake and ask God to help me make it a priority to establish a permanent spacious place for the student center.
I have almost forgotten that God brought me there in the first place not to live in comfort and luxury for my own enjoyment but to do what He has called me to do. What I enjoy now are just the blessings that He gives in response to obedience to Him.
May I keep on obeying Him, that His blessings may keep flowing on and on... not only for me, but to all youth & students of E. Samar and other parts of the world...
Lord, keep reminding me and bringing back to my memory the reason and purpose for being here and there!
Haggai 1:3-11
Then the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai: "Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?" Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it." This is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored," says the LORD. "You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?" declares the LORD Almighty. "Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands."
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3 comments:
daugan, I did notice that among the Thai people when my wife and I lived there for three and a half years. Family is important to Americans, but family line seems to be more important to asians and some other cultures. Maybe asians would understand this point of importance of Matthew sharing the lineage a little bit better.
Hi Daugan,
I really want to encourage you in the vision God has given you. If He is reminding you, it is not to condemn you but because He wants you to devote attention to it again. May His grace be with you, and bless you for the following Him in this difficult calling.
Hi Loren!
Thanks for the encouraging comment. I trust in His word in 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV): "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
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