OFF ROAD SOUTH pt.2 Honestly, we were not ready for it nor should we have done it. There may have been a little resistance and/or caution from our elders in Cave Junction, I cannot remember, but they were very gracious to allow us to follow our heart. The two families hit the road traveling south. We landed in Newport Beach, California. We joined up with ministry friends and travelled for the next few months all over Southern Cal doing praise and worship for churches and fellowships. We had wonderful experiences of meeting new people and friends in ministry. The ministry, though, did not even begin to pay bills. Each team member was forced to get daytime jobs and then we travelled around ministering during the evening hours. Then the enemy came in like a flood. The team was disgruntled. Sometime certain people could not make it to a certain outreach. And then there was a peculiar thing happening with my friend that had traveled with me from Cave Junction. He started hanging around with some from his former gay lifestyle cohorts. I told him flat out, that this was shaky ground for him. He told the other team members that he was starting a ministry with gays and that we should not be trying to pick and choose his friends for him. “Uh oh,” I thought, “this doesn’t even sound like my friend Ron.” Here, after ministering for several months together, that was it. I don’t think we ministered another time after that confrontation. Then the grind set in. The grind of trying to live in what I called the cement jungle of Southern Cal. We had a vehicle but it was in ill repair. RaeAnn had a job and I had a job. But we only were able to see each other a few hours a day. We had placed our children in Christian School. It was a mad dash each day coordinating it all. And then we were back at it the following day. It wasn’t but a month or two and the word came to us that our friend Ron had left his wife and gone back to the gay lifestyle. The devil is very clever. He knows our secrets and our weaknesses. If he can only get us isolated, and get us to be alone, then we are vulnerable. When we are left to ourselves he can have a hay day. The devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking those who he can devour. 1Pet.5:8 But we also have a tremendous promise that there is no temptation that can overtake us that has not already made a way of escape from, that we may be able to endure it. 1Cor.10:13 Jesus suffered temptation in every point like we do but overcame. He is our intercessor seated in heaven at the right hand of God. The Bible says he intercedes for us day and night. He’s given us armor to protect us from the devils flaming fiery darts. Eph.6 So now my friend was down. Everything in the world around me was breaking. I wanted so badly for this trial to be over, but I knew I must endure it. But, even as we were living in an unbelievable pressure cooker certain things were good. God was still to be praised. Though our jobs were barely paying the bills, which “sucked,” we had opportunities on our jobs to shine for Jesus. God had placed me in the middle of some guys on a maintenance crew that really needed Jesus big time. I was able to witness one on one to most of them. I know the Lord was using me to touch them even though my life was perhaps a pain in their back type irritation every day. There I was, day in and day out, sharing Christ with them. Our automobiles broke; we were barely making rent. It was very expensive to live in Newport Beach on low income. And bad news was, I started putting groceries on a credit card because we had no money. Our car broke again, so we needed another. I rented a car from a local shop called “Ugly Duckling” because they were. Even that vehicle broke down on me and it had to be towed. I was exasperated, frustrated. I began throwing things, and breaking things. It was awful. How do we get out of this mess, I wondered? The second part of a verse says when the enemy comes in like a flood then the Lord raises up a standard against him! Our Southern Cal experience had been going on for a year. I thought we had been called to ministry. How did I end up here? Forgive me Lord for any wrong turns I have made. Please correct my course and get me back where I need to be! I began getting up very early before work, at 5 a.m. There down on my knees I invited Jesus to come in and do the supernatural. I did the same and the next day and the next. “Lord talk to me, let me see you Lord,” I cried. “You have poured out your spirit on me in the past, do it again Lord! Come to me again Lord like you have in the past!” I am reminded of the life of Samson, how that he had a life of submission to God, a man who had been dedicated to God as a Nazarite, known as one of the outright strongest men to ever live on this planet. Once the enemy discovered his secret of success, he was taken into custody, his eyes were poked out, and he was humiliated. But in time his long hair, the secret of his strength, grew back. In Samson’s end, He asked the Lord to come in strength one more time. “Lord, give me one more spurt of strength,” he said. (Judg16.28) He took out more of the enemy in that last blast of energy than he did in his entire life up to that time. God can and will do it in your life again, He is a God of second chances.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Jul 2013 13:55:34 +0000
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