Good morning Lord Jesus, I connect myself in union with You, the Father and The spirit this morning. Speak to me before I speak to others..
“He said, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Make this valley full of trenches.’ For thus says the Lord, ‘You shall not see wind nor shall you see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water, so that you shall drink, both you and your cattle and your beasts.” (2 Kings 3:16-17)
Most weekday morning for over 10 years now I have been walking into the Waffle House sitting at the bar, and talking with customers and waitresses.. There is a man in his 80’s who is a regular at the bar. I talk to him almost every morning. He was raised and holds “old south views.” In conversations he often gets angry and loud. “he says things like, “Send all those foreigners back where they belong,” “Those so and so’s are all lazy, no good, welfare bums” Those sos and so are all nothing but criminals and I wish they’d go back to were they came from” and so on. He often makes other customers at the bar uncomfortable with his racist remarks. I try to respectfully counter his racial remarks. Many times he just tells me, “ If you don’t like what I am saying, well you can just go back up to Cleveland where you came from1” This has been going on for years and I have prayed, loved, and tried to soften his heart. The other morning I was sitting at the low bar next to him and he quietly and politely told me about an inmate health struggle he and his wife are going though. He had tears in his eyes as he shared. And instead of telling me to “go back where I came from” he asked me to pray for him, his wife, and so I sat at the bar and prayed over him.
I have never saved anyone in my life. Salvation is in and through Christ alone. Only He through the Holy Spirit can flip the switch of faith in a person. Only he can make it rain with the water of life that fills a dry, parched, dead clay of a persons heart to bring forth new life,. However, we are commanded by God and required by our faith to participate in cultivating His saving grace of new life.
We are called to be ditch diggers. To love our neighbors and go out and interact, have conversations, end break into the dead soil of their hearts, share are faith, plant the seeds of the Gospel of grace to prepare those seeded hearts to receive the water of life. In the passage in 2 Kings, God told the three Kings through Elisha tohave thier men dig ditches in the valley. The valley was hard, dry, and not bearing any life. But Elisha told them to dig ditches to hold water.. He said as you dig you will not see any rain, the hot sun will be above, the ground will seem to hard, you may feel like you are waisting your time, but if you are faithful to dig, God will bring the rain. God provided the miracle of rain, but it came about because of the obedience and participation on the part of the kings. If they had not dug the ditches, God would not have brought the rain. In the story on the Public man God allowed me to enter into, if I had not kept digging ditched of love in the man over receiving, even if it look like it was a waste of my time as I was not seeing any results, an opening in the soil of his heart would not have occurred to allow the love of God to soak in.
We understand this about agriculture. If we just stare at a piece of land, do not hoe it, make rows and plant seeds, but just sit, watch and pray for plants to reproduce, it will not happen We know this is true. Why don’t we understands this about our faith? As a church, if we look at our neighbors and drive or walk by them, and don’t go intentionally interact with them and share seeds of our faith, but just sit and pray for our churches to grow and reproduce, it will not happen. Watching a piece of land is not going to produce bushel baskets of vegetables Watching our neighborhoods is not going to produce churches full of life.
My family, I pray today as you begin your work week, you resolve to go out into the field God has placed you over: your neighborhood, your work place, your school, your “waffle Houses” and start digging relational ditches of love. Even when it seems hopeless, even when it is scary, just keep digging, just keep digging, and watch how God will bring the rain, In Jesus’ name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
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