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Thursday... Maybe there is more to what we are going through?


Thursday... Maybe there is more to what we are going through?

I love rivers. When we lived in Colorado we tried to go up or down every canyon stream on the eastern range of the Rocky Mountains. We even tried to find the beginnings of some of those streams. I love streams. I love rivers.

Now Proverbs 21:1 says, "The king's heart is like a stream of water directed by the Lord, he guides it wherever he pleases." That is a great picture to me.

Over in Acts of the Apostles, a book in the New Testament, I read this morning in chapter 16 a statement that set into motion the rest of the Apostle Paul's life. It was not just something that came to his mind but I'm sure it was a part of the stream of water of Paul's life that was being directed by God. Verse 37 (NLT) says, "But Paul replied, 'They have publicly beaten us without a trial and put us in prison - and we are Roman citizens." And that statement about his being a Roman citizen set into motion the rest of Paul's ministry.

Paul was a very effective missionary to the Gentiles. He and different partners went around starting churches and teaching them but his great desire was to go to Rome and hold a major gathering striving to win to the Lord as many in Rome as he could but God had a different plan and this statement set God's plan into motion. Paul didn't go to Rome as a free man but as a prisoner and God used that to change the world.

You see God wanted Paul to write a big portion of the New Testament and God knew he needed to be a prisoner in order to do it.

I wonder how the streams of a Pandemic in our lives is moving us to God's desired destination. Maybe the complacency of our day to day lives needed to be moved out of its rut into a new stream that God wants to use us in. And maybe it would be a good thing for us as Christ followers, His church to stop griping and start letting the stream of water directed by the Lord guide us to wherever He pleases. He wants to make a difference through us as He did with Paul. Yes, yes! #todaysbeginning 

 

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