Day 6
We have been getting along so well! Anyone one with boys will appreciate the bonding bodily gases can bring! And Willy, he can bring some bonding! Wow oh wow! But the boys just roll and think that it is so funny. We have had the best time!
Yesterday was free day and it was the mid autumn celebration which means everyone gathers at the Yellow River to eat moon cake.
The boys were not interested, so we stayed in Zhengzhou and walked around. For lunch, I ate bullfrog. Not fried, and not just the legs, but any edible or closely edible part of a bullfrog. The boys would have no part in it, but it was an opportunity to show them whose the man is in our house :)
I believe that was my first and last bullfrog.
Afterwards, we went back to the room and watched some TV. I looked down and saw that Willy's shoes were worn down all the way to the foam. There is basically no tread left. Now granted, teenage boys, not uncommon, but he has had these shoes for some time. His toes are bending to stay in them. Never a complaint from him though. We will be getting him some shoes when we arrive in Guangzhou. I am responsible now for this situation, but someone else has seen our boys in this situation before and has put their stamp of approval on it. It is a sobering reminder that these boys would qualify as the least of these.
Gideon was a least of these kind of person wasn't he? And David, he too was a least of these.
"Counted Out" would have been an appropriate label for both of these mighty men to wear.
But that is who God delights in. Everyone expects Superman to save the day, but nobody expects Frodo Baggins to save middle earth.
Everybody expected the Pharisees to speak with authority, but not Peter. He was a nobody, just a fisherman, until you get to Acts. Then he es En Fuego!!!
The weak become strong! In our weakness, by the Holy Spirit, He becomes strong.
Oh pray these boys become strong. They are so desperate, depraved...weak. Lord, please use them in your will. By human standards, they are ready, but I pray you ready their hearts. Do not allow them to forget their grass roots as Saul did, but help them to always remember, as David did, where they came from and how you brought them up.
D.L. Moody said, "When God wants to move a mountain, he does not take a bar of iron, but he takes a little worm. The fact is, we have too much strength. We are not weak enough. It is not our strength that we want. One drop of God's strength is worth more than all the world."
Erwin Lutzer said, "You become stronger only when you become weaker. When you surrender your will to God, you discover the resources to do what God requires."
And oh! How appropriate is this!! China's very own To-Sheng Nee, Watchman Nee said this, "God's means of delivering us from sin is not by making us stronger and stronger, but by making us weaker and weaker. That is surely rather a peculiar way of victory, you say; but it is the divine way. God sets us free from the dominion of sin, not by strengthening our old man but by crucifying him; not by helping him to do anything, but by removing him from the scene of action."
And our God reminds us in Habbakuk 1:11, "...they are deeply guilty,for their own strength is their god.”
Why in the world would weakness be preferable, and honestly the only way. Because our God is a jealous God and he does not share in His glory, yet is glory through our weakness.
Kyle Idleman said it best when he said, "God does not want first place. He demands the only place. There is no first or second. There is only one place, and He must be the occupant. Staggering.
So as I am currently at 30,000 feet above China, somewhere between Guangzhou and Zhengzhou, and sandwiched between two motion sick boys, I pray that these young men will seek after you in passionate pursuit, with a life, fully surrendered to you. Aligned with your goodness, I ask that you breathe into them your life changing Spirit and become powerful through them.
You have my surrendered life. I pray that you have theirs.
“All God’s giants have been weak men, who did great things for God because they believed that God would be with them.” - J Hudson Taylor, missionary to China
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