Reb Rev's Blog

“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.” – Exodus 16:4

I was recently asked to share a defining moment in my walk with God. I’m going to share one of those with you today.

I was on a mission trip to Venezuela in 1999. My partner for the trip was a guy named Larry who thought if you spoke English loudly and slowly to the local Spanish speaking population, they could somehow understand. (That will be an important fact later in the story.) We were there for a couple weeks and during that time had been blessed with the company of our translators, cultural guides, encouragers, blessings in every way, career missionaries.

They were from the area near the capital of Caracas. We were serving in a community on the far eastern coast several hours away. During the latter part of our trip, torrential floods came to the central part of Venezuela. Roads and bridges were washing away, houses were destroyed, lives were lost – the devastation was horrible. The Mission Board called the missionaries and told them to go home or they may not be able to make it.

They left when we had two days left in Venezuela. The first night they were gone, we were invited to a celebration of our time there given by the local peop. It was a tremendous blessing. During the course of the evening, the people we knew from the church left and Larry and I needed a ride back to the hotel. A couple told the pastor from the church they would take us. I spoke painfully little Spanish at the time, and Larry, well….

It became apparent on our ride back the couple spoke painfully little English. We could not communicate. So here we are, no idea where, in a city we don’t know, with people we don’t know, and we aren’t even sure if they know where we are to go. I was certain they were good people, but if anything bad had happened we were in big time trouble.

It dawned on me in the back of that car, on a very dark night thousands of miles from home – I was totally dependent upon God in that moment. Then two other things dawned on me. First, that was not a bad place to be. Second, in fact, it was where I was all the time – I was just now realizing it in a tangible way.

The verse above is from the account of the Children of Israel wandering the wilderness. God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt, He had delivered them from Pharaoh’s army, and He is reminding them daily of His constant care and provision. They needed to be reminded daily they were dependent on Him.

So. Do. We.

My prayer this week is you will think about this truth – every day.

This entry was posted on March 12, 2016 at 2:19 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.