Here's one of my former students from Grace Christian Academy, Caitlyn Gibson, during one of her more intellectual moments.Seriously, I loved having Caitlyn as a student and am thankful that the Lord spared her in a recent automobile accident. Caitlyn was riding with Bradley McDuffie while helping her folks move furniture to a new home on the other side of Knoxville. Bradley hit a small ditch while on a rural road and overcorrected the car, sending it into a spin. The car rolled off the highway, top-to-bottom more than five times. Both teens emerged sore and slightly injured but not seriously, which was a miracle, considering the amount of heavy equipment that was flying around loose in the car.
In the years that I have known this special girl I have always seen a heart that is tender and a spirit that wants to serve the lord every day. Caitlyn has not only been a great testimony for the Lord, she has encouraged me on many an occasion.
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I think one of the wondrous things about our God is that He’s a God of miracles. He does things that we cannot even begin to comprehend. One of my friends Lauren Phillips is a missionary to Eastern Asia. She’s in her twenties and is energetic in wanting to see the Lord work in and among the people of Eastern Asia. Last Sunday she read aloud a letter given to her from one of the missionaries to a place she was aiming to serve at. They are called the Dao people and the letter from her friends is enough to shock anyone. The new missionary couple came into a totally new area, the letter said, and yet when they arrived, the men of the village greeted them warmly and let them sit by the fire. While one of the men fiddled with his nose bone and smoked a cigarette, he mentioned casually that his father, now dead for almost two decades, said that the missionaries would come.
"Long ago, when I was a little boy, my father was waiting for you to come, He told me you would come," said the man.
The man, in his late thirties, said that there would be people with white skin who would come and tell them about the truth about God and the way to get to see Him.
"We had never seen a white person, so he told us all, don’t be afraid of their white skin! They look very different but they will become like our own brothers and sisters. They will be one family with us. They will bring a talk about God."
When the young couple added up the years, they realized that the father had told the message to his village the very year the missionaries were born!
As the missionary heard these amazing things, he thought about the passage in Ephesians 2:10 which said "God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our lives doing."
This is the God that we read about in the Scripture and we talk to in prayer. He’s not a far-away God. In Isa. 43: 1-4 we read of a compassionate God whom nobody could have ever imagined. A God who openly pursues us with His love and His care. Listen to this passage:
"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine!
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you...you are precious in My sight...you are honored and I love you."
