“Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.”
Joshua 21:45 (NIV)
Last time we were together I shared how God revealed two new insights to me from the passage of Luke 1 which I was reading for my daily devotion schedule. I felt it pressed upon me to write them down in a blog before beginning my day.
Not two hours later, I was having a conversation with someone and she mentioned Zechariah and Elizabeth from Luke 1, the very passage God had talked to me about that morning. I was able to share with her the insight God revealed to me and that in turn encouraged her to keep hope because God was using those words to reassure her she was right where she needed to be.
During our conversation, I was prompted to share with her about a promise God had spoken to me about someone I love, back in August 2015. When I was sharing that testimony with her, and the promise hasn’t even come to fruition, yet, she could feel the presence of God in our conversation. She promised to pray in agreement with me about this promise and I told her she will hear me screaming from the mountaintop when it is fully made known.
She in turn shared with me the beginning of the fulfillment of a promise God had spoken into her life two years ago and I promised to scream alongside her from the mountaintop when that is fully answered.
The night before, I was able to share the testimony of God burning my blanket with a friend over the phone… who in turn shared that hope with her husband who also was suffering with depression and feeling quite hopeless.
When I opened my email the day I wrote this post, a friend had written, sharing that God had healed her throughout the night without medication… with prayer, which is much more effective.
All of these conversations happened in a span of three days, not even a whole week. How many times does God use His word or the testimony of fellow Christ followers to offer hope and encouragement to His children who are feeling depressed, hopeless, or as though God has forgotten them? God doesn’t forget His children, but there are times when He is silent during the maturation process, the growing of our faith – those times can be extremely hard.
God used the insight He gave me from Luke 1 and the subsequent chain of events to remind me that when He reaches out and speaks to me, He does it to strengthen my own faith, yes, but He also wants me to use that encouragement to in turn bless someone else… and for them to then use that encouragement to bless someone else… and so forth. God uses His children to create a chain of blessings.
God’s ultimate plan was for Jesus to die on the cross for our sins so that we could experience eternal life with Him in Heaven. God has a part for us to play in that purpose as well. Once we’ve experienced God’s forgiveness and are walking in a relationship with Him ourselves, He tells us to use our experiences to invite others to experience that relationship with Him for themselves. Just as God uses His children to create a chain of blessings… God uses His children to tell others about His love. What better time to start that conversation with someone you love than on Christmas, the day we celebrate our Savior’s birth.
© Cheri Swalwell 2017