Praise...

At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised." (Job 1:20-21) "God, You are worthy of my praise even when I don't have a good day. You never change because of my circumstances, if I have a bad day, if the world is in chaos. I want to praise You just because You are You, not because of what You can give me."

How often do we praise God for the blessings that He’s given us, the opportunities that He’s given us? Probably more often than we praise Him for those that He has taken away to teach us something or the trials that He brings our way to test and strengthen us. I know that I still need to work on praising God for many things in my life every single day. I think praising God shouldn’t be like the “Sunday Christian;” it should be an everyday occurrence.

One of the guys on our brother team, Matt, had the opportunity of sharing the bridge illustration (Romans 6:23) with a granddaughter of the owners of Holiday Shores, where we work. Matt and John had been doing their Bible Study prep at Starbucks when Jaden and a friend came up and asked what they were doing. Matt told them, and then they asked if he really enjoyed reading the Bible, and he said yes. The conversation went on for a while, and then kind of dwindled, and Matt asked if he could show Jaden the main point of the Bible. She agreed, and after he was done, she didn’t have much to say about it and soon after, left. The next day however, Jaden talked with Julie, one of my teammates, about it and was really excited with the illustration, but they didn’t get a chance to talk more about it. Pray that Jaden will continue to be open to what we have to say.

We are having our Parent’s and Employer’s weekend on Tuesday and Wednesday, inviting them out to see what the program is about and what God has done so far. Pray that everyone would have safe travels and that we will be refreshed to finish the rest of the program strong. We only have four weeks left!

Please pray for Beatrice, a Romanian Christian that we met our third week here. She’s been joining us for Bible Study and enjoying it a lot, but hasn’t found a good church close to her hotel yet. Her roommates wanted to move to a new place late Friday night, and she was unsure about it because it lacked furnishings. Pray that this move will be good for them and that God will provide the furnishings or the money to buy them and that Beatrice’s roommates would be open and receptive to the gospel.

This week’s theme is the Great Commission and World Vision, so we’ve had scriptures from Matthew 28:16-20, Acts 1:6-11, and Matthew 9:35-38. One thing about the first Matthew passage that we noticed was that some of them still doubted. I thought about if I had walked with Jesus three years, if I would doubt that He was the Christ, the Messiah, or would I be one of those who believed without having to see Him. With the second Matthew passage, we noticed that Jesus Himself went out to the towns instead of just sending His disciples. It was something that He cared about, something that He wanted to do Himself, and then at the end of His time on earth, He sends out His disciples. We also thought it was really unique that we can spread the gospel to the world in one place, here in the Dells. It’s amazing how many different countries are represented out here. The one thing that I wish was different was that we’d have more time to spend with them, talking, playing games, going on trips, just getting to know them better and finding opportunities to share our faith. I feel like we’ve been out here forever and haven’t done anything because there’s still so many people that we haven’t met, haven’t talked to, haven’t had the opportunity to share the gospel with.

Our church service is going well. This week the sermon is on Holiness. We’re still trying to work out some kinks so it will run smoother, but everyone who comes seems to enjoy it. Praise God for that!