Meet one of 'His Rivers'

Spring 2013

The Call was given to all WATS students to sign up for a six week ‘assignment’ in missions called Springboard. Among the locations for assignment was a dangerous part of Northern Nigeria where Christians are being persecuted and killed. This assignment was to go and live/work among a village that had been driven out by the Muslim  controlled civic authorities because of the people’s unwillingness to conform to Muslim practices. 

Nixon signed up along with four or five others.

May 2013

Time was fast approaching to leave. One by one, those who had signed up to go began dropping out because of fear. Some were married, and did not want to risk the possibility of being killed, and leaving their families without a father.  Others had various  ‘reasons’.  Nixon struggled with the same fears – mostly of the unknown. But God revealed strongly to him, that he was TO GO.  He and one other prayed and prepared .

June 2013

They left by bus for a 15 hour ride to a City they had never been to, and where weekly reports were coming of Christians being killed. They arrived only to realize that the ‘missionary’ who was to meet them, and take them on the remainder of their journey was nowhere to be found. They ended up spending the night there, praying that God would ‘connect them’ with their ‘host’.

Morning came, and they were connected with their host and began a several hour journey via motorcycle to the village where they would spend the next six weeks.

Next Six Weeks

Living in mud huts
No Power or generators
No Water ( except a small bore hole – see picture)
No Bathrooms
Very little food – and certainly nothing he had ever seen or tasted before
People worked from sun up to sun down in the fields
No furniture except for mats to sleep on

So how do we ‘minister’?

So for six weeks, Nixon and his friend …

Became RIVERS of God to these people.

Every day they took their plows and went to the fields and worked alongside them in 100+ degree heat
Every day they drank the water and ate their food with them
Every night they slept on a mat on the floor of the mud hut
Every day they loved them, prayed for, laughed with, and cried with them
They scrounged up some wood and made benches for them to sit on
They fed the chickens
They met with the Children and told Bible Stories
And they ‘worshiped’ God together

And God protected them – No sickness, No persecution, Nothing that He didn’t give them the strength to endure.

Traveling

Feed the Chickens

A drink of water

Ready for another day

Ready to GO

Hard soil

Work, work, work

Cattle

Plow in hand

Goodnight

With the Children

Baby Dedication

Fresh clean water?

Looks delicious?

This is not a Holiday Inn

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS 7982 Hillcrest Trail Jonesboro, Georgia 30236 404.784.4618 ARTICLES, RESOURCES, ETC. CLICK HERE

West Africa Theological Seminary
Ipaja, Lagos, Nigeria
Thursday March 20, 2014

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS 7982 Hillcrest Trail Jonesboro, Georgia 30236 404.784.4618 ARTICLES, RESOURCES, ETC. CLICK HERE

Charles E. Lindberg
Cinnamon Rolls
& The Bears

Charles E. Lindberg’s solo flight across the Atlantic was fixed in my memory by the smell of cinnamon rolls. My mother had a few chickens and frequently would sell some eggs to several friends who had standing orders for them. On this particular day my mother had called me in and insisted that I clean up so I would be presentable when I delivered some eggs to the Bears. That almost sounds like the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". The Bears weren't really bears but were actually a couple that lived close by the grain elevator. Mr. Bear was the manager of the elevator and the house they lived in was convenient to his work.

As I delivered the eggs I was invited in and Mrs. Bear who had been baking bread and cinnamon rolls asked me to sit down and have a cinnamon roll. They were just out of the oven and the smell was irresistible. She had a radio playing, and that of itself was quite a novelty because they weren't owned by everyone at that time. At least we didn't have one yet! At that moment the program was interrupted, and the announcer came on with the report that Charles E. Lindberg had just successfully completed his solo crossing of the Atlantic and had landed in Paris, France. I was listening to history but was too young to comprehend the extent of this moment for the future. But the smell of fresh cinnamon rolls still reminds me of that event.

Years later I read Lindberg’s autobiography of his flight. He wrote of the building of the Spirit of St. Louis and the planning that went into fitting it out for the flight. Every single comfort feature was eliminated so that the equivalent weight in gasoline could be added. The plane was loaded to a dangerous overload state to provide enough gas for the perilous journey.

His story told of the dangerous and hazardous take-off and then the flight itself. Before the flight had even begun he had gone many hours without sleep, and because the plane had no guidance system except a compass he had to stay awake until he landed. His greatest problem beginning almost immediately was sleepiness. He recounted that only a few hours into the flight he was fighting to keep his eyes open.

After several perilous escapes when he found himself but a few feet above the waves, he started telling himself that the alternative to staying awake was death and failure.

I won't go into further details of that flight but would suggest to you that for us as Christians in our journey of life which we hope will end in heaven, there are many perils just as there were for Lindberg. 

We are constantly fighting the sleep that wants to overtake us in our flight of service, our chores of obedience, and our love for people. We bow our head and close our eyes to the needs about us and say it is now the turn for someone else. 

But, we have not yet landed, we have not finished or completed our journey. We have not arrived at our destination – Heaven. I am so sleepy! But, there is no alternative for us but to stay awake and keep at the task. The alternative is death and failure.

And to this day, the sweet smell of cinnamon rolls reminds me of Lindberg and the heavenly journey that I am on.  “Lord, keep me awake to the heavenly possibilities so upon my arrival in heaven it may be to the applause of the crowd of heaven awaiting .

RIVERS NOT RESERVOIRS 7982 Hillcrest Trail Jonesboro, Georgia 30236 404.784.4618 ARTICLES, RESOURCES, ETC. CLICK HERE

The Love of God
It cannot be measured

Verse 1:

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
and reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled, 
And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain:

Oh, love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure-
The saints' and angels' song.

Verse 2:

When hoary time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God's love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong,
Redeeming grace to Adam's race - 
The saints' and angels' song.

Verse 3:

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made.
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

RIVER NOT RESERVOIRS 7982 Hillcrest Trail Jonesboro, Georgia 30236 404.784.4618 ARTICLES, RESOURCES, AUDIOS & VIDEOS CLICK HERE

TL : DR
“Too Long : Don’t Read”

Rivers Not Reservoirs 7982 Hillcrest Trail Jonesboro, Georgia 404.784.4618 http://www.hisrivers.org ARTICLES, RESOURCES etc. CLICK HERE

What's your Mindset

RIVER?

OR

RESERVOIR?

 “But I’ve worked very hard. I’ve learned my multiplication tables and done my piano lessons; I’ve finished college and gotten a fine job; I’ve furnished a house, raised a family, and supported the poor. I’ve received a great deal, but I’ve achieved something too! Though I am not ‘a self-made man’, I’ve made something out of myself! Can’t I give to God from what I myself have attained?.

The very existence of human beings comes from God. We live, not so much on a borrowed, but on a given breath. We work, we create, we give, but the very ability and willingness to work, along with life itself, are gifts from God."

"Moreover, these are not just gifts we can take and then run with on our own. They are gifts that, like breath, must be given over and over for us even to exist, let alone accomplish anything. “What do you have that you did not receive?” asked the apostle Paul rhetorically (1 Corinthians 4:7). The answer is: nothing, absolutely nothing.”

“Most of us don’t quite “get” the extent of God’s gift giving, even if we grasp it intellectually. We live more or less like Raleigh Hays, the hero of Michael Malone’s novel Handling Sin. He was a decent citizen and a responsible family man who “obeyed the law and tried to do the right thing” and who thought he had secured for himself the decent middle-class life he led. He was wrong. Through a series of unlikely events, he had to be shaken into awareness that some “grace had given him, for no earthly reason, like surprise presents, everything, absolutely everything, he’d thought he earned, and sustained by his own will, and deserved. To come to believe that God has given us “absolutely everything” is to know what it means that, as creator, God is a giver.”

Rivers Not Reservoirs 7982 Hillcrest Trail Jonesboro, Georgia 30236 404.784.4618 ARTICLES, RESOURCES, AUDIO & VIDEO CLICK HERE

Conduits for Christ

"It was only a board but it was an altar where God met me. It was only the steering wheel of my car but it was an altar where God met me. It was only my pillow but it was an altar where God met me. It was a shovel and a pick but it was an altar where God met me.

The most unlikely places have at times been where God moved close and touched my heart. They were times when my heart was reaching out for God. I needed him! I always do, but sometimes I am more aware of my need than at other times. I am more desperate! My human weakness is more apparent. The task or responsibility is greater than I know I can handle. I must go to the source of strength. I must go to the source of wisdom. I must go to the One who will stand with me.

Finally, I came to the place where I realized that any task for God is greater than my human effort can accomplish. I have come to believe that when the awards are given out in heaven it will be 'Well done, as you have allowed me to flow through you. You have been my conduit,' Only when I allow the Holy Spirit complete unrestricted flow through my life will I see the miraculous accomplishments that only He can produce. How foolish we are to think that we can take credit for any of it.

I had a plumbing problem in my little house in Yuma, AZ. When I took out the pipe, I found that it was almost totally closed off by the minerals in the water and was only allowing a tiny stream of water to flow.

Sometimes the carotid arteries taking blood to our brains clog up much the same way as the plumbing in my house. This results in impaired thinking, dizziness, and confusion. We can make irrational and wrong decisions because of it.  

If we are to be the conduits that the Lord wants us to be, it will require the intentional and habitual walking in His presence. It will require the ‘cleaning out’ of the plumbing, and the wrong thinking and it will require intentional frequenting of the "altars" along the journey.

How awesome it is that he has told us to come boldly to him and we will find grace and mercy to help in our time of need. Will you join me in seeking out these 'altars' Will you join me in praying the following:

"Lord flow through me. Flow through me with understanding. Flow through me with compassion. Flow through me with the love that only can come from the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. Clear out of my life anything that would hinder your flow through me.” And make me a ‘Conduit’ of it all. "  

Rev. Elvin D. Leavell  1993

Rivers Not Reservoirs 7982 Hillcrest Trail Jonesboro, Georgia 30236 404.784.4618 www.hisrivers.org  ARTICLES, RESOURCES, AUDIO & VIDEO CLICK HERE