Are you ready to be poured out as an offering?

 

Each morning Ian and I start our day with a cup of Peet’s Major Dickason’s coffee (thank you Julie and Pete Wilkerson for that reco) and have our quiet time looking over the farm. We typically read Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest and then move on to scripture.  Today was no different, except that the farm had disappeared as a cloud settled into the valley.

I chuckled as I read the title of today’s message as it said, “Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering?”  Pouring is something that we have been dealing with for two full weeks now – pouring rain. Cyclone Eloise made her way to us on Sunday, January 23rd and the rivers across the country flooded. Our dams filled to overflowing and then kept flowing. The bridge that we cross to drive to town has only been passable twice since the rains hit, and not in the past week. That means no one can come to us, including half of our workers who live on the other side of that bridge. There is a back way to town, but it’s a long drive on a really bad road, over a mountain that is always washed out. You have to have a high vehicle, 4-wheel drive is recommended and courage to make that trip, especially if it’s raining (which it is forecasted to do for another 13 days).

 

The bridge on a normal day.

The bridge this morning (or should I say the river?)

 

We had a day of sunshine and extreme heat yesterday (sauna-like), which helped the muddy roads start to dry out. We had a nice visit with our long-term volunteers by the fire last night and just as they left the rains began to pour again.

Back to Oswald’s message today. Here is what he wrote:

Are you ready to be poured out as an offering? It is an act of your will, not your emotions. Tell God you are ready to be offered as a sacrifice for Him. Then accept the consequences as they come, without any complaints, in spite of what God may send your way. God sends you through a crisis in private, where no other person can help you. From the outside your life may appear to be the same, but the difference is taking place in your will. Once you have experienced the crisis in your will, you will take no thought of the cost when it begins to affect you externally. If you don’t deal with God on the level of your will first, the result will be only to arouse sympathy for yourself.

“Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar” (Psalm 118:27). You must be willing to be placed on the altar and go through the fire; willing to experience what the altar represents— burning, purification, and separation for only one purpose— the elimination of every desire and affection not grounded in or directed toward God. But you don’t eliminate it, God does. You “bind the sacrifice…to the horns of the altar” and see to it that you don’t wallow in self-pity once the fire begins. After you have gone through the fire, there will be nothing that will be able to trouble or depress you. When another crisis arises, you will realize that things cannot touch you as they used to do. What fire lies ahead in your life?

Tell God you are ready to be poured out as an offering, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.

Friends, please go back and read that again. I have read it and re-read it because I love the promise that it makes. And we are living proof of that promise being true. Yes, He might move you to Africa and yes you might have to go through fire and rain and drought and flood and death and disease, but you will also experience joy and laughter and love and peace and contentment and hope that is never-ending. Who doesn’t want that?

Speaking of hope, February is child sponsorship month at Heart for Africa.  Will you sponsor one of our 275 children who now have a life filled with hope because they have been brought to Project Canaan – a place of HOPE?

To sponsor a child in Canada please click here.

To sponsor a child in the U.S. please click here.

Thank you for helping us bring hope to the nation of Eswatini. We all really need it right now.

Live from Eswatini … thankful for the good days and the hard days.

Janine

PS - we still need a few rain boots and rain ponchos for the February container. Please check out our amazon wish list at http://bit.ly/raingearforpckids. Thanks!