A TENT FOR ME!??

Well I have yet to mention something pretty neat that happened to me while I was away at the Pastor's Conference 2 weeks ago.

For some background info, you must know that I've been seeking the Lord over supernaturally providing the resources/money for our mission teams to be able to go and serve without the worry of cash flow. I know that God is a big God and everything is His anyway so I thought I would start petitioning Him to open up doors for us to be able to go more frequently and that He would provide the finances to do so! I don't want our church to be a rich church nor do I personally want to be rich and wealthy, I just want me and our church body to be fully mold able and usable by God to be "on mission" with Him both here in the USA and around the globe. My motive is pure and my desire is to simply see the lost people groups of the world praise Him and come into right relationship with Him. I know that I'm not the only one who would drop everything at a moment's notice and respond out of obedience to go to some place in the nation or the world and share the gospel. I believe there to be many mission-minded friends here at Pioneer that are ready and willing to go and serve...if only there was the money to do so.

Now that you know that, you must know that I was at the alter during the invitation asking the Lord to open up these doors of opportunity and resources so that we can go...I was rather specific in asking to be able to go to South Africa more frequently. As I finished my prayer, I walked away from the alter area and a woman came up to me and grabbed my arm. She said, "I know you don't know me, but I was praying for you while you were at the alter and the Lord showed me that He was going to provide for you the tent and I saw you standing in the middle of it."

Well needless to say I was curious and thrilled that the Lord had revealed something. Even though the "tent" wasn't something that I was specifically asking for, I do believe that it is part of God's plan in something that He has in store for either me or our missions department....remember I was asking for provision.

First of all, do I believe that God will use another believer to speak to a believer? Yes. In fact about 10 years ago, someone called me out of a congregation and asked me to come forward. He then said to me, "Ron you are very special to God and God is going to use you. He will ask you to go through doors and you must go. He doesn't want you to be timid or afraid but to go forward through those doors." Now at the time, I had no idea what it meant, but I believed and knew in my heart it was a Word from the Lord. It was several years before I saw just what all of those things meant, but now I can see. It was interesting just how timid of a person that I can be, but how cool that God reminded me of that and that I needed to ignore the timid side and trust Him with the doors!

So there's no doubt that God has spoken to me before through another believer....so what does this it all mean? A tent could mean a number of different things. Immediately my mind began to believe that it does have something to do with South Africa. Churches meet in tents there (see my older blogs below). I sense in my spirit that the Lord is calling us to be more involved with Africa so perhaps this is His way of showing me ahead of time that I should not worry about the resources because He has/will provide.

The next morning one of the speakers said, "Abraham didn't have a home; God gave him a tent" (meaning that Abraham was always moving based on God's leading and that he [Abraham] never had a permanent place but rather the place that God provided was his home. Well that thought registered in my head also...see at the alter I was also asking for the Lord to provide a way for us to own the home we are currently living in and that we will establish our family there. Is God telling me that my home isn't in a white house on the hill, but rather a non-permanent place that will scoot me all over the place?

Perhaps it's Africa, perhaps it's a call to missions, perhaps just perhaps it's something...I just don't know exactly WHAT. But then we don't always know the WHAT do we? Sometimes God asks us to walk in obedience in little small steps and rarely does He reveal the entire picture to us at once. That's what He did with Abraham when He said to "Go to the land I will SHOW YOU." Abraham didn't know the entire picture but he did the "go" part of the command and God SHOWED him as he went out of obedience.

Please pray that the Lord will continue to reveal Himself and His ways to me as I seek to lead my family and my church. There's a tent out there somewhere with my name on it! I know it's not up to ME to FIND it, but rather I trust our God to SHOW me just where this tent is!