Some thoughts about our living Lord

Generally, the only time I discuss my faith is when I'm in our Sunday School class or I've been asked to fill in for the preacher. I'm a guy who believes that the best "testimony" we can give is by how we lead our lives as individuals.

But this past week, the Lord has been speaking to me and I wanted to share some thoughts.

Sarah Fredricks preaching 

First, last Sunday, I went to the Bismarck Nazarene Church to hear the message from Sarah Fredricks, a young lady from Mandan who is attending college in Kansas with the hope of becoming a Christian missionary.

Her message was a simple one, "God can use anyone to advance the good news." For Biblical text, she referred to Moses who was trying to wiggle out of God's request for his life. "Pick my brother, Aaron," Moses said. "He speaks better than me." But God picked Moses...and the rest is history.

Her message spoke to me on so many levels. She talked about how we are not the ones who provide the living water. That is Christ, but our lives are to be conduits of the living water to others. Yet, we manage to clog up our pipes with all kinds of messy things that don't allow the love that God has for us to flow through us. For me, a couple of the clogs are "busyness" and "lazyness." There is probably also self-centeredness...but who wants to talk about that...we might go from preaching to meddling.

Then last week I saw the following on Facebook, " If we don't teach our children to follow Christ, the world will teach them not to."

That statement struck me because our church was in the midst of Vacation Bible School when little children attending our church or little children in the neighborhood or community come to our church to learn about Christ's love for them.

Lots of young children participate in VBS

Today in our worship service we saw those little children sing, dance and clap their hands as they celebrated not only Vacation Bible School, but also that they are the Lord's children.

I'm only guessing, but there may have been some adults sitting in the pews today who thought, "Why are these little kids taking up our church service...where's our sermon?"

My answer would be, "those kids are your sermon." That's how we should feel in the presence of the Lord, like those uninhibited children whom the Holy Spirit has filled with love for God.

And then I was reminded that "God can use anybody." Even the little children.

On my drive home from church, I was thinking about the two wonderful young ladies that our sons have picked for their wives. Both of them are God-centered. Then I thought about my wife and my own mom and Belinda's mom. All led faith-centered lives. God can use all of us to further his kingdom.

God is good. And God is alive. Amen.