May 23, 2014

I’m being followed

By Casey Greene

 

Have you ever been “followed” by a Bible verse? No, it’s not literally following you, but suddenly it’s everywhere.

You see it on a random poster you never noticed before. Then the pastor speaks on it Sabbath day. A few days later you see it in the passage you just happened to open up to. It’s alarming, and exciting.

That’s where I am at lately. My verse is 2 Corinthians 12:9 which says, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

I especially love this verse because I’ve seen it in action. In March, I had the privilege to go on a mission trip to Guatemala City.

I went with a group of 20 teenagers and a handful of adults. None of us could speak Spanish fluently and a third of our group didn’t even speak English as a first language. We realized that we would need God to do a mighty work in us if we were going to be effective. 2 Corinthians 12:9 became our verse for the trip.

The second day in Guatemala was the first time (of many) that we saw this verse play itself out. We had the opportunity to spend time with the special needs children at the government-run orphanage. There were many people in my group, myself included, who didn’t have much experience with handicapped people. We weren’t sure how to act or what exactly we should be doing, but it didn’t matter. We did our best and Christ’s love shone through us.

Those children knew that they were valued in that moment and you could see it in their faces. It wasn’t us. We were just a bunch of awkward teenagers who could barely speak Spanish. It was all God.

However, it didn’t end there. After spending time with the special needs kids, we got to eat with the teen moms who live at the government orphanage. These girls ranged in age from 21 to 10, all either pregnant or with children under 3.

Nearly all of these girls had been the victim of abuse. How could we relate to those who had gone through such unspeakable horror? We couldn’t really relate to them, but that didn’t matter. We gave them supplies for their babies, and more importantly we prayed for them.

We prayed that they would feel valued and that they would feel loved. We prayed that they would learn to know God and that their children would as well.

By the end of our time with them, most of them had opened up. They shared with us and asked us to pray with them some more. They hugged us and told us thank you over and over. That wasn’t us. We couldn’t have put them at ease and we couldn’t have made them happy, but God could, and He graciously did it through us.

As the week went on we kept seeing God work. He moved in the hearts of the group as a whole and we became closer. As one of my classmates put it, we moved closer to God so we moved closer to each other.

My class had never gotten along prior to the trip, but there we were united in a way only God could have brought about. We saw a guy in our group truly accept Christ as his Savior. We saw God begin to work on the heart of a Buddhist girl in our group. God was working among us and it was obvious and powerful.

I’ve been back from Guatemala for a little over a month now and that verse still shows up everywhere, and I love it. It’s a good reminder for me to share about how God worked while I was gone, and it’s also a reminder that God works through me in the states, too. I’m a prideful person and boasting about my weaknesses isn’t my favorite thing to do. But seeing God’s power is, so I will boast about my weaknesses all the more. I’d like to challenge you to do the same.