I don’t know about you, but I am in a season in my life where I NEED God to show up! I need to be reminded of his UNSTOPPABLE, TENACIOUS LOVE for me. I need to be reminded that He will not forsake the work of His hands and that He is faithful to complete the work that He has begun.
I just received this update from Heidi Baker of Iris Ministries and it was the reminder I needed. I hope it will encourage you too.
“One day my husband, Rolland, was flying me in our little bush plane over a certain area of Mozambique. I noticed that there were no roads at all, but I asked Rolland to take me as low as the plane could possibly go, and when he did I looked down and saw village after village passing below me. And I started sobbing! I was sobbing because there were no roads, and it seemed like there would be no natural way for me to get to those people. I was weeping because I have read the Book, and I know my God – I can’t imagine anyone on this planet not getting the opportunity to know this beautiful Savior! I can’t imagine not doing everything I can to give them the chance. I wept and asked God what I should do. And He said, “get a boat!” So, we began to pray and believe for a boat.
For two years I was told again and again how impossible it was to get a boat to Pemba. Likewise, many of you reading this are chosen and called by God for great tasks, but there may be a lot of people telling you why you cannot go, why it is impossible for you to do what God is telling you to. They may try to explain it to you in detail. They may quote books about what they think we cannot do, and what they think God cannot do. I have read those kinds of books. But the Book tells us what we can do! I know my God, and if He says “get a boat,” He means that we should really get a boat.
So – we got a boat!
The government said that we could not bring it into the country without paying a seventy percent import duty. God provided, and I said, “Here is the money; give me the boat!” No one is going to stop me! …When you are in love, you are unstoppable!
It took two years and ten days for the boat to finally get here. On the way, while it was being hauled overland on rough roads, the transporters damaged the hull and put cracks in both the engines! At one point the donors who had paid for the boat came to see us, and it was still just sitting, waiting for repairs, covered in dust and dirt in the backyard of a non-Christian man who owns most of the city. Their investment was not looking very impressive. I thought, “God, this is not what I had planned.”
Sometimes it is like that. It looks like your vision is in the camp of someone who doesn’t even know God. It looks like your vision has been captured and carried away. It looks like it is full of dust, covered over, and without any fuel. And yet God says: “Believe what I said! And do not stop!” Love is tenacious. Faith is tenacious. Love doesn’t give up, even when the engines are toast and you have to pay seventy percent duty! Do not stop short of your promise. Do not stop short of your destiny. Do not stop short of His glory.
I had to keep searching for somebody to fix that boat, and even some of the people I love most told me repeatedly that it could not be done. Finally, I found a Filipino man who said he could repair it – but it took another year just to get the parts! After that, I was told that the hull was too deep, and I wouldn’t be able to get close to those villages because their coasts were so shallow. So I asked them to get me a dingy. I was told, once again, that this couldn’t be done. For some reason we couldn’t get a dingy in Mozambique. But I was convinced that there surely must be a dingy available somewhere! I had seen them! Someone said to me, “You just don’t stop, do you?”
…After another few months, they finally found me a dingy somewhere. And the day we finally took the boat on our first outreach, one of the engines blew. But the other one worked!
Of course it would have been nicer to have two. But since we had the one, I told the captain to keep going. When we got to that first village, by boat and then by dingy, everyone who lived there came running to us. And I was able to tell them that I had come with good news!
I shared every word that I knew in their tribal tongue of Makua. They had never heard the name of Jesus before that day. We sat in a little carpenter’s shop, which consisted of a few sticks and a ripped piece of plastic, and shared all about Jesus while some of the villagers made furniture. Everyone came. I shared, I sang, and I gave them some little solar-powered audio New Testaments in Makua. When I asked them who wanted to receive Jesus, they all said yes!
What if we had stopped short? What if we had given up?
Do not be stopped by difficulty! Never stop short of what God has promised you! He has a destiny for you. -Heidi Baker”
God’s love for you is unstoppable. You may feel like a boat with a busted engine and the people around you are saying that you will never sail…that you will never make it to where you hope to go. Do not give up!! God will see you through. He will finish the work! There are people waiting on the other side of the water, counting on unstoppable love! Counting on you to make it!
www.iamatreasure.com
