My thanks to friend and blogger Lynne
Burkholder (link to her blog http://lynnetreichlerburkholder.blogspot.com/ ) who took this photo of the “miracle
suit.” I think she was trying hard not
to laugh, first at the colors and second that I can no longer fit into it. Not
because I don’t want to, but the photo you see is no longer that of a strong
and trim, young, Bible school student. I wore this suit when I was about 160
pounds. I’m well north of 200 now.
However, as fun as this might be, the most important thing about this suit, is
not just how God provided it, but that He is Jehovah Jireh. Genesis 22:14 NIV,
So
Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said,
"On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."
++++++++++++++++++++
Introduction to this back and forth of
emails:
There are lots of ways that God will
provide. He can give peace in a time of personal crisis. He can be a defender
in a wrongful lawsuit. He can turn the paths of hurricanes. He can heal a
severe illness or something as simple as a cold. He can help meet an unexpected
cash crisis. Or He can help someone get a visa for their passport. Or, or, or.
or....The thing to remember is that since He is the Creator, He can provide
whatever He wants whenever He wants because He is The Provider.
++++++++++++++++++++
John wrote:
Friday, June 10, 2011, 10:29 AM
Hi Dana
Thanks for the updates on Cherie. We pray for
her/you all very frequently....
Just this
morning I saw another news report on the people of Joplin, MO. There is now
some kind of disease that is ravaging them. People are still losing their homes
and lands due to the Midwest floods. Japan. Thailand. The lack of humanity in
Afghanistan or many places in Africa or the Middle East....
Do
you remember when we were at Bible school and you gave me that sport coat that
was the color of mustard and blue and black checks that was a match
perfect to a pair of trousers that Scott gave me?
Your
foxhole buddy
John
++++++++++++++++++++++
Dana Acker wrote:
|
Then
John wrote:
Jun 10, 2011 at 4:23PM
Hi Dana
Carol and I will
begin to pray for Trish about the heart valve.
I've attached one
other letter, but read the Hudson Taylor letter first. (Readers, if you click on this, once it opens. Then scroll down one of the book’s pages to page 503 to
read some of the things God provided to and through this man of faith.)
Got to go start
dinner. Since I'm not working out of the house, most evenings I fix dinner.
Thank God Carol is a good cook and likes to cook, but this is something that I
can take off her shoulders since she's struggling in the work-a-day world every
day.
As Brother Carr used to write when
he’d close a letter, “Yours for the Harvest,”
John
+++++++++++++++++++++
Today, John writes more on the Miracle Suit,
and God’s provision
While
in bible school, Dana and I palled around with three other guys: Scott, Alan,
and Bill. One weekend, Scott asked me to accompany him for
a weekend away from campus up to his family's cabin in the Catskills.
While we were there, he pulled out a pair of dress trousers in the colors of
mustard, blue, and black. They were a good quality wool, dress trousers, and
they fit. At that time I was into bold
patterned clothes. I had a pair of red plaid dress trousers, and a buffalo
check lined winter coat that could be reversed and worn inside out.
Then
a little while later, I got a surprise summons from the Dean of Men of the
college. He just happened to be William (Bill) Acker, Dana’s dad. He had seen me wearing those mustard plaid
trousers, and recognized color and pattern. (In all fairness, I was hard to miss when
wearing them.) Bill called me over to his home one day and pulled out of his
closet a sport coat he had purchased in North Carolina. The sport coat was not
only the very same colors as the trousers, but it was the same exact plaid!!! Dana was there as a witness. As
I questioned Bill about when and where the coat was purchased, and remembering
what Scott said, they were purchased over 600 miles distant from each other and
at least five to seven years apart.
As I look at the colors now in the
light of day, mustard and blue and black (or is it pumpkin or brown or
auburn) plaid, the pairing up of them, under those circumstances (and I believe
any circumstances) was a MIRACLE.
For those
readers who only think of miracles such as the feeding of the 5000 or raising
Lazarus from the dead, God also cares about the little things. I believe that
since He is also known as Abba, or Father, He wants to provide not only for our
needs, but also, sometimes, for our wants. There is, what I believe to be, a
lot of confusion on this, which we will deal with more in a future post.
Purchased
in two entirely different regions of the country and years apart, the material
looks as if it were cut from the same bolt of cloth. As you can see from the
recent photograph, I still have that "suit" and right now it is
hanging in the foyer of our home. Carol calls it my miracle suit (and she still
can't believe I actually used to wear it). Why have I kept it all these years?
Why do I sometimes pull it out of the closet and literally blow off the dust? I
do it because when I need a reminder that God can do anything and provide
anything at any time, I get it out as a type of altar of remembrance of His
power and provision.
Joshua 4:1-8New Living Translation
(NLT) Memorials to the Jordan Crossing
4 When all the people had
crossed the Jordan, the Lord said
to Joshua, 2 “Now choose twelve men, one from each tribe. 3 Tell
them, ‘Take twelve stones from the very place where the priests are standing in
the middle of the Jordan. Carry them out and pile them up at the place where
you will camp tonight.’”
So Joshua called
together the twelve men he had chosen—one from each of the tribes of Israel. 5 He
told them, “Go into the middle of the Jordan, in front of the Ark of the Lord your God. Each of you must pick up
one stone and carry it out on your shoulder—twelve stones in all, one for each
of the twelve tribes of Israel. 6 We will use these stones to
build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones
mean?’ 7 Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the
Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant went across.’ These stones will stand as a
memorial among the people of Israel forever.”
8 So the men did
as Joshua had commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the
Jordan River, one for each tribe, just as the Lord
had told Joshua. They carried them to the place where they
camped for the night and constructed the memorial there.
In the above emails, we also talked about Hudson Taylor. He’s not a household word today, unfortunately. He’s rarely mentioned in sermons today, unfortunately. Except for old timers like me, I doubt if many have read his stuff today, unfortunately. But here was a man who knew that God will provide. For example, click on the link to an account of Taylor being down to his last bag of rice. http://blog.godreports.com/2013/07/hudson-taylors-last-bag-of-rice/
As this post developed and has moved to more on Hudson Taylor, I searched our book shelves for a book on him. I found Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor, published by Moody Press. https://www.amazon.com/Hudson-Taylors-Spiritual-Secret-Classics/dp/0802456588 Hudson Taylor has been called the founder of modern missions. He was the founder of the China Inland Mission. What was his secret? By prayer and faith he believed God and His word, and acted upon it. (See the link above to the last bag of rice as an example.)
Now that I think about it, I believe many of our current readers have probably heard of Taylor because many of you are not Gen Xers or Millennials. How can we get this out to them? Think what young people could do if they really got turned on to faith and prayer and they had examples such as Hudson Taylor to mentor them, even if after the fact.
I could go
on, but I’ll close. E. M. Bounds, one of the 19th Century’s giants
of prayer https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Works-Bounds-Essentials-Possibilities/dp/1604593822 is quoted in the fore front of Taylor’s book.
I will quote, and where the word “men” is used, I would have the reader
substitute “men and women.” (Please note
that Bounds was born in 1835.)
“Men
are God’s method. The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for
better men (and remember to add women)....What the church needs today is not
more machinery (or I would add electronic gimmickry) or better, not new
organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can
use—men (and women) of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not
come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men—men of
prayer....(and women of prayer)”
“....It
is not great talents or great learning or great preachers that God needs, but
men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great
for God....” E. M. Bounds
Hudson
Taylor knew God would provide because he became a man of the Word, prayer and faith. Taylor saw God provide, as
quoted on the back cover of the book on Taylor’s Secret, because he had
“absolute dependence on God.”
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment