I spent most of the winter living at His Ranch, taking care
of the horses and doing other part-time work around the place. God also blessed me with the gift of
traveling in Indiana and Ohio for awhile.
I spent a month with some friends and horse people in South Bend,
Indiana, and was able to get home for Easter, which was an unexpected
blessing! Now everything is gearing up
for the summer season at the ranch, staff and volunteers are in place, and we
will be opening, Lord willing, on Monday.
As I write I am actually on the road again. I just spent two weeks with my family in Ohio
for a special time of seeking God with churches in our community. Today I am in Chicago for a short visit with
relatives and will be back in Missouri later this weekend. God has been so good to let me have this
travel time, especially right before we dive into the ranch ministry again. I have been desperately in need of renewal
and personal revival. This is what my
time at home was about.
For the past five years, two of my siblings have served with
Life Action Ministries on their traveling revival team. If you have never heard of Life Action, you
should look up their website and see what it’s all about. The heart of the ministry is to earnestly
seek revival in the church of Jesus Christ through fervent prayer and solid
Bible teaching that calls believers to repentance and total surrender to the
Lord we claim to follow. The team that
my brother and sister have served with travels around portions of the eastern
and south-eastern states during the school year, spending one to two weeks at each
church. They hold special services almost
every day during this time, called a Life Action Revival Summit. Two or three speakers, along with their
families, travel with the team and share messages from Scripture on things like
repentance, recognizing sin in your life, and the Biblical model for life as
individuals and families. The rest of
the team, consisting mainly of college age men and women, serve in various
capacities: leading worship music, teaching youth and children’s programs,
running sound, and covering the summit in prayer. God has chosen to use this ministry as a
channel to work transformation in the hearts and lives of many of His
people.
It has been a desire of my family for a few years to bring
the Life Action team to our church, but this was not feasible due to the small
size of the church. God, however, has
been working in our local area for a long time, stirring people to pray and
seek revival. There were things going on
that we didn’t even know about. Pastors
meeting to pray. Community meetings
called to seek God where pastors confessed to people the failure of the church
to follow God. And this year God opened
the way for the local ministerial group to come together and sponsor a Life
Action Summit for the churches of the whole community! This is something that has never been done
before in Life Action’s history. They have always gone to large single
congregations. Needless to say, our
excitement was high, and we have asked God to do great things! Months of prayer and planning went into this
event. We were able to use the county
fairgrounds for the services. For a
whole week, Sunday to Sunday, people came together from several churches around
the county, different denominations, to seek the Lord in a concentrated time
for personal revival that will spread ripples throughout our community and
beyond! The spiritual unity that God
brought among the people who attended and especially among the pastors was
amazing! A large group of pastors and
other men met every morning of the week at 6:00am to pray. The pastors also met several other times for
special meetings. The singing during the
services was charged with energy and people expressed themselves freely to the
Lord. The messages we heard were not new
truths, but things we needed to hear in a fresh way, and I believe God spoke to
each person about the specific issues He wants to deal with in our lives. He certainly spoke to me. I’ve been in a season of depression and
apathy that God used to bring me to the end of myself. He knew that is what I needed to be ready to
begin experiencing revival. In the past
two weeks, God lifted my spirits in a wonderful way, and although it is not any
easier to go back to what He has given me to do, I am going with a fresh touch
of His grace and a renewed faith in the sufficiency of His strength to meet my
emptiness. I believe that kind of faith and
utter dependence on Him is what matters to God more than the specific place I’m
in, the work I’m doing, or even how successful I am in that work. He puts us in the places where He knows we
will have to choose between unbelief and faith, between independence and
God-dependence, between rebellion and surrender. He doesn’t want half of my heart. He wants it all.
I will share more in the coming days. Today I am grateful for the unfailing love
and compassion of my Lord. He is the
reason I can walk forward in hope. He is our Fountain of Life.
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