Saturday, June 09, 2007

Look Who's Following

On Sunday I'll be speaking on the first couple of chapters of my book "Walking with the King", so the subject of the morning is one of my favorites--developing leadership. It's my belief that everyone of us carries influence over certain other lives.

When Susan and I were in Edmonton last weekend one of our pastors told me a story about a member of his church. The man was a Viet Nam Vet who had been thoroughly washed out by his horrible experiences during the war. As a victim of PDS this dear man felt like he had no value and God could never use him. A few weeks ago, the Edmonton church was sending a mission team to Inuvik to minister to the First Nations people there. Not knowing how he could help, the vet brought a gift to the pastor.

He gave him a paper bag full of loonies and several boxes of dried cereal. My friend confided that he had no idea what either could be used for. There were no dollar stores in the remote area and milk would be very expensive and hard to get, but he thanked the vet for his gift and took it anyway.

After arriving, both gifts began to make sense. One of the first things the native leader told the team was that they for some reason had an overabundance of milk delivered that week. They didn't know what they were going to do with it. The next morning the team was delighted to be able to serve the whole town a delicious breakfast. After spending a lot of time outside, the team was very cold and felt grimey. They didn't have access to nice hotel rooms but there were some public showers available. Each shower took a looney to operate. The bag of loonies given to them was exactly what they needed!

When the team returned and told the vet what had happened he was thrilled to know both, that God loved him enough to speak to him and use him to bless the missions trip. God has called everyone of us to serve a very definite circle of influence. Even you and me!

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