It's a small world after all....

 

We were honored to have a friend we met in Lebanon stay with us recently.  It was a huge blessing since we hadn’t known we were leaving for good and while we’d seen her before leaving, it wasn’t the same.  Her time here coincided with a midsemester performance at the afterschool program the big girls are participating in.  As we chatted with a Syrian family we’d met the week before, our conversation naturally drifted to Lebanon and Syria.  
The husband was planning a short trip with a group from his church to help with relief and outreach in Lebanon, but it had been canceled because conditions there are so unstable at the moment.  He started telling us the story of the pastor of the church they were planning on working with, someone he’d previously known from Syria.  I listened as he told us the dramatic testimony and cost that the pastor and his family had paid for following Christ.  While Lebanon has a number of churches, one focus Horizons has is to strengthen and unite the existing churches so we asked which church he pastors- assuming that while we might not know him, Horizons might have had connections with the church.  Turns out he was telling us the story of one of the pastors of our church (who also is one of the leaders in Horizons).
 
I was surprised when we realized we had a mutual friend, but I think even more moved hearing this testimony for the first time.  This is a man I greatly respected but knew only what I saw in the present, not the past.  He has a great passion for discipleship and often led teams out into the community and within his congregation not just to sow seeds, but to ensure they had deep roots.  His faithfulness to attend prayer gatherings also spoke volumes to me, spending time seeking God’s wisdom and direction as well as interceding on behalf of others.  His testimony is powerful, yet it was his humility and shepherding heart that had shone. 

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:

“Now have come the salvation and the power
    and the kingdom of our God,
    and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
    who accuses them before our God day and night,
    has been hurled down.
11 They triumphed over him
    by the blood of the Lamb
    and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
    as to shrink from death.

Revelation 12:10-11

Our testimonies are powerful, and God uses them in mighty ways, but if we are only pointing back to a single moment in the beginning of our faith and fail to see God working in our lives now, what does that say?  I’m thankful to have heard about this amazing transformation, but even more grateful to see the fruit of the Spirit that is evident in his life now.  

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