- Details
- Written by: Don Goulding
For if the many died through the transgression of the one man, how much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ multiply to the many! Romans 5:15 (NETFull)
An inventor excitedly rubbed his hands over his creation. He had discovered a way to make intelligent robots that self-replicated. He added a second unit and grinned as they began their task of building offspring.
An enemy sidled up to tinker with the prototypes. The inventor waited to see how his creations would defend themselves. They engaged with the evil one who infected them with a virus that spread through their subroutines. They were still functional but glitches made them lash out at one another.
The defunct coding was passed on to the progeny. Androids with twisted limbs and destructive habits appeared. The inventor had become attached to his robots, so he devised a plan for repair. First, he let the machines learn how broken they were.
A smile tipped the inventor’s mouth when he introduced the cure—his greatest genius ever. It was another prototype and this one had a piece of his own living tissue embedded into the microprocessor. The living DNA wired into this special unit passed on the creator’s essence. The improved coding could delete the virus.
While his DNA-enabled units multiplied, the master-creator went to work on his ultimate future project. He snatched up robots and analyzed their programming. Those without the antivirus were tossed onto a scrap pile where their circuitry snapped and fizzled. Those with the DNA fix were painstakingly given mega-processing chips and refitted with titanium bodies. Now he had perfect, unbreakable offspring to celebrate through all time.
Prayer: Father Creator, use the gift of Jesus to complete your purpose in me.
- Details
- Written by: Don Goulding
The Lord said to Jonah son of Amittai, “Go immediately to Nineveh, that large capital city, and announce judgment against its people because their wickedness has come to my attention.” Instead, Jonah immediately headed off to Tarshish to escape from the commission of the Lord. … The Lord sent a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights. Jonah 1:1-3, 17 (NETFull)
Two weeks before I left for the Middle East, I received a message from the brother arranging my mission trip.
“I am very sorry to let you know there are many problems in Pakistan. Bombing and shooting. It looks very dangerous but do as the Lord leads you.”
It was a heated election season aggravated by volatile politics with Americans.
I went to the Lord and asked if I should make the trip. He let me recall a Bible verse. But they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die. Revelation 12:11
What is safety? Jonah would tell us that hiding in anonymity offers no protection. When he tried to avoid ministry he found himself in his most perilous circumstances—tossed into a killer storm and swallowed by a fish. Only when he finally obeyed God did the umbrella of supernatural protection open above him.
I realized there are far greater dangers than the threat of death or deportation. I could loose my one chance to honor Jesus. Waisting the few earthly hours I’m given on my temporal self is the ultimate in foolish risky behavior.
Safety comes from abiding in the exact spot God calls me to. Even if my health suffers, or my bank account zeros, or my friendships sour—obeying God guarantees my soul is in the center of the safety-nest.
I did go to Pakistan. We had to take precautions such as traveling at night and posting guards, but I learned that serving Jesus makes me soar on wings of angels. For me, it was much better than hiding at home with the stench of a fish belly.
Prayer: Father, help me obey your direction and rest in your protection.
- Details
- Written by: Don Goulding
“… I tell you the truth, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20 (NETFull)
The Lord led me to fast and pray for maimed souls in Zimbabwe so I mounted a horse and headed for the highest kopje (hill). For hours I laid on my face in an abandoned foundation. As God’s holiness moved onto the kopje, I was reduced to recounting my own failures.
“How can you use my pathetic prayers against the tide of demonic evil flooding this land?”
The greatness of our God and the smallness of my faith pinned me to the ground. Linear time ceased as I watched specks dancing over the cement. I laid sideways trying to fathom what I beheld. Hundreds of gray bits waltzed within the one-meter tall brick wall.
In the vista below, natives had set the grasslands on fire to clear the fields and a dozen smoke plumes reached into the sky from three-hundred-sixty degrees around me. Ashes rained into my prayer sanctuary where the breeze swept them in circles. The spectacle redoubled my faith.
The blazes began while I prayed, and just so, God's Spirit put a match to the nonphysical landscape to burn away African ancestor worship. With inclusion I didn’t deserve, the Lord used the dancing ashes to demonstrate angelic rejoicing over repentant hearts to come. He heard my small prayers.
A wondrous time of God’s healing followed in the district. Leaders prayed in unity, churches worshiped together and witchcraft shriveled.
When the prayer of faith strikes the steel of hope, a tiny spark ignites the rocket-blast of God’s power.
Prayer: Listening God, hear my small prayers.