God's emails

So it is now 3:50 A.M. on the morning before I leave for Ethiopia. I can't sleep and have been laying in bed wide awake for 50 minutes now before I decided to just get up and try to make myself sleepy with blog surfing. So checking my email, I once again am amused to see that God has sent me a new email, just waiting on me for this very time. I love how He is so technologically advanced!

In a letter from our Compassion regional director, he starts by writing:

“’Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.’” At once they left their nets and followed him (Matthew 4:19-20)

In a devotion about “being chosen”, Os Hillman shares in his writing that during the time of Jesus, rabbis were well known in their community. Each rabbi had his own select group of followers, and it was a prestigious thing to be a chosen student under a rabbi’s teaching. Only the cream of the crop could be chosen to learn under a rabbi. By worldly standards, Peter and the other disciples would not have qualified. Yet Jesus chose them.

Hillman tosses out some gems worth repeating here:

Ø God has not called you for your purposes, but His.
Ø He doesn’t need us, but He has chosen to use us.
Ø God has an agenda for planet earth. He has chosen you and me as the primary instrument for accomplishing His plan.

I sometimes need to be reminded that this work that I as an advocate am involved in isn’t about me. It is all about God and His plan. I need to be faithful with the opportunities that are before me – praying for the children represented in those packets I have ordered and asking God to open up the opportunities for me to share His heart for the poor and the ministry of Compassion. I need to be praying that God would open up opportunities and then I need to be listening and watching to see where He is working. I need to be willing to take up the battle for the children because God has chosen me to do this. He has chosen you, as well."


So that's why I am up at 3:00 a.m. Just so I would know that before I go. Just to remind me of His bigger picture. How awesome is my God????

I also wanted to tell you about how small our little world is. A couple months back, I met a dear friend through her amazing pictures for Compassion. I have now been following her writings and loving that I can have another mom who is as artistic as I, as passionate as I, and who shares a love for Compassion and the work it is doing for these children. How excited I was to find out that she also sponsors a child in Ethiopia and that I would be able to take her child a gift. A small, but huge and beautiful reminder that our Lord loves his children in many different ways and that He has chosen us as a pathway to show His love. Abby posted the following post yesterday. Not only does God find the time to keep the planets spinning in their orbits, to keep every bird flying in the air, but to find time to give a little doll to a little girl, just to let her know that He and someone else loves her. How awesome is my God???

Addendum: Marta's doll in the Ethiopia main office, waiting for her project director to pick her up and hand deliver her! How is that for fast shipping!