Today was another great day. We started off with scraping down the brick walls with our wire brushes. The worst thing that came out of doing that was Duncan's "kennel cough," but he is much better now.
So like everyday I'm going to tell some stories and make analogies to those stories. The first story was during the fellowship dinner with the folks from the recovery clinic. We were getting ready to sing songs. And the first song was Amazing Grace. Quinn, Peyton, and Tyler didn't know all of the verses, so some people had to call out the verses to keep the song going. They stopped the song after the second verse, and they were about to change songs, when one of the people in the crowd started singing the chorus "the earth shall soon dissolve..." and then Tyler picked up the song again, and everyone started singing that part. That was so amazing to hear. It made me feel like even when you think the fire is dwindling and about to go out, you can throw some gasoline on the fire, and it will ignite once again with a full force. It was beautiful to hear the song rise again just when we thought it was over.
The second story involves Ben. Ben has been amazing this whole week. He has gone to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and become quite the celebrity this week. But his greatest moment in my opinion came from the dinner tonight, when he stepped in of the recovery members and said "My name is Ben, and I am an alcoholic, and I'm also a Christian." It reminded me of David and Goliath, David stepped in front of a huge adversary and faced his fear to accomplish his goal and come out on top. He talked to us and the men and women and told us his story, and his recovery. He talked about getting sober and finding Christ. And to all of us, this was the best story that he could tell, because it was a story of coming out on top. It made me think of Psalm 23, the psalm is all about a shepherd guiding his sheep through everything. In the psalm it uses words like "valley." Ben had obviously been through many valleys, and it seemed to become a deeper valley, but he surrendered himself to God, and he was saved. I used a verse today from Ephesians for my devotion tonight, I had written my devotion before what Ben said, but it ended up fitting really well, so here it is:
Ephesians 2: 1-10 says 1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
In my NRSV version, the title of the passage is "Death and Life." I found it interesting that death comes first. The passage mentions desire and sin, but then talks about being saved and being God's masterpiece. What a cool title, God's masterpiece. Ben is God's masterpiece, we all are, we can walk through the valley of the shadow of death every day for our whole life but as long as we surrender ourselves to God, he will protect us and return us to the Kingdom of Heaven, and that is the best guarantee that I can think of.
Ben's testimony was amazing and the fact that he shared it with complete strangers was even better, but were they really strangers? Or were they future neighbors in the Kingdom of our Heavenly Father? Ben has been through so many trials but he never let go, and we know that as Christians, we will be persecuted in this life, we will be ridiculed, but we can't let that keep us down. We will walk through all sorts of valleys and travel through all sorts of storms, but there is an end to the valley, and God will lead us to the eye of the hurricane and into safety, so we can't stay down. If you ever feel down, then I dare you to move.
I'm making today special and having two videos, but everyday is special, because God made it.
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