A new ministry

What a change in my life…after being home and taking care of my family for all these years…to be going to school. In all the scenarios of my life, I would have never thought of this one. I do know that God has a plan for me. Over the last three months the Holy Spirit has been whispering continually in my ear. I have always felt like I wore an invisible pair of glasses that the Holy Spirit wanted me to look through. These “Holy Spirit” glasses, instead of “rose colored glasses”, have enabled me to see confusion, hurt, loneliness, and longing for something in the people around me. And the day I started school the Holy Spirit handed me the glasses again…"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty them that are captive” Luke 4: 18.

There is a young woman who sits behind me in one of my classes…a warm, sweet, kind young woman…married with two young children. One day we were talking and this young woman asked me if I knew she had her first child in high school before she had gotten married. I was careful with my response and asked her how that worked for her. Did the students at school give her a hard time or treat her differently? She was very open with me and told me that she was a cheerleader, popular, and that most kids thought it was kinda cool. So I asked her how her parents felt about it…they were fine with it….her mother, at age sixteen, had her out of wedlock. She then told me that it wasn’t a big deal, she married the man she had sex with.

There is another young woman, a tiny woman with an appetite like a horse. She sits next to me and a couple of times a week I bring her a sweet treat…little bags of candy, jaw breakers, mints, etc…She is 27 and has 4 children ages 9 and under. She is friendly, positive, funny, and sincere. She has been married 4 times and keeps telling me how she just has trouble finding the right man.

There is a man, forty, divorced with one child. He lives with his parents and had a stroke two years ago and has been recovering since. He is still not 100% but works hard and wants to do well in life. He seeks me out and always wants me to check his homework. He is a nice guy....who is working hard on his life to pull it all together. He has a bad habit of using foul language around me and I jokingly correct him. It has gotten now when he uses a foul word, he immediately laughs then tells me he is sorry…he forgot I was in the room…he didn’t see me….it just slipped out. We always laugh and go on with what we were doing. He is a nice, respectful man.

What does all this have to do with anything I could be writing about? Well, I was telling my daughter, the other day, that I am concerned about these people. These kind, everyday, regular people lie heavy on my heart. I think of them, and many more good people just like them, and I feel a heaviness in my heart. Why?.... because they are really nice people, going honestly about their lives, trying day in and day out to do the right things. They live by a pretty good moral standard, they are good parents, good children.... BUT….good is not enough for eternal life. You see, they are not Christians. They have no relationship with Jesus. They don’t think they need Jesus. They don’t understand that even though they are good people, they still need to ask Jesus to be their Lord and Saviour to have eternal life. They don’t see that they need Christ in their hearts and master of their lives to gain eternity.
Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty....For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son, and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." John 6:35,40

Oh, it is easy to show a drug abuser, or a postitute or a person behind locked doors and prison bars why they need to change their lives...why they need something better. But, the people that I am coming in contact with..."Me...I don't need help in my life. I'm a pretty good husband/wife, i'm a pretty good father/mother. I am good to my parents, have a life that runs smooth most of the time...and after all, you can't expect life to be perfect, can you?" How do we minister to this particular group of people and is it being done enough in our everyday lives? Do we and are we just accepting the fate of these everyday people? In our social concern for the homeless, the drug addict, the postitute have we forgotten the person who looks socially acceptable, who acts responsibly and seems to have their life together except for the fact that they are not christians? I know, in this life here on earth, that there is a joy, a peace, a sense of longing that can only come from our heavenly Father. No matter how well you think your life is going by your own power that it is no match to having the power of God with you. And then there is a life beyond, eternal life. A life either with or without the King of Kings for all eternity. "I have come that they might hve life and have it more abundantly." John 10:10. "Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. With joy you will draw water from the well of salvation." Isaiah 12:2-3

I have realized in the last three months that I have over looked this ministry. I have seen a homeless person standing on the street corner and quickly uttered a prayer for their salvation. I have seen a television special on drug addiction or postitution and that night have prayer for those in Satan's web. But, God is showing me that there are people sitting next to me in school, in line at the grocery store, in the seat next to me at the football game that need ministering to. They need to see, by our example, the peace that can only come from God being our Father. They need to see the joy in us that is only gained through Jesus living personally with and in us. And they need words of love and friendship and salvation that come from the Holy Spirit directing and leading us.

I am going to be faithful to pray for my new friends and I am also going to start praying in the morning that the Holy Spirit show me other invisible souls that need ministering to. My prayer, that God will lead me each day will have a new line to it..."Jesus, lead me to the souls that are not yet gained by you..that seem invisible to most because they blend in so much. Paint them, Lord for me to see with a big red heart. Use me, together and led by your Holy Spirit, to plant seeds of salvation in their hearts so that I can have a reunion again one day with them in your heavenly kingdom!" Amen..

Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertainted angels without knowing it. Hebrews 13:1-2