Grace to Help Ahead of Time

GRACE TO HELP AHEAD OF TIME

“…and find grace to help in good time for every need – appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it.” (Hebrews 4:16b, Amplified)

          The time – almost fifty years ago

          The place – Aroostook County, Maine (bordering Canada)

          The event – we were entering a three-church field that would be our first pastorate.  My wife, Kathleen, and I were excited.

          But – there was another event.  We were also awaiting the birth of our third child.  We knew what that would be like.  A daughter and a son had come along just fine in their time.  We could not have known but God knew.  Jimmy came into this world on January 5, and suddenly our world would never be the same.  Jimmy suffered anoxia in the process of being born.  The doctor tried to say all the right things, but there was no comfort in what he had to say.  Jimmy’s brain had been permanently damaged.  He would never be like his brother and sister.

          We were three weeks away from entering the ministry.  Very suddenly our lives were forever changed.  Jimmy would never be able to speak and express himself.  He would walk – only haltingly – and then not until he was four years old.  Did God have a purpose?  Was there a reason?

          There was no time to search for God’s grace.  Life was a whirlwind of activity.  Three churches, three children (one very special), cold (40 degrees below zero), snow (piling up to the cross-bars of the telephone poles) – and so little money to even buy food or heat a drafty parsonage.  No, there seemed to be no time to search for God’s grace.  But there it was – always sufficient and always on time.  All we had to do was drink deeply of that grace and testify to its sufficiency.

          Was Jimmy our cross to bear?  No!  He became our bridge to hurting hearts for fifty years of ministry.  “Pastor,” they’d say, “you don’t know anything about trials.”  And then the Lord would whisper, “Tell them about Jimmy,” and suddenly their hearts were opened to drink of that grace.

          God’s grace continues to be in large supply.  Thirteen years about Jimmy became a resident of Echoing Hills Village in Ohio – a Christian ministry for very special people like Jimmy.

          My counsel: come often to that throne of grace.  It will be appropriate and well-timed – just when you need it. Rev. John Goodhart is retired and lives in Whiting. He is a good friend of the ministry of America’s Keswick and has been one of the contributors of our Real Victory devotional

Team YOU: 1 Chronicles 1-3; Proverbs 17; John 5:25-47

Motivations: Come now, turn aside for a while from your daily employment, escape for a moment from the tumult of your thoughts.  Put aside your weighty cares, let your burdensome distractions wait, free yourself for a while for God and rest awhile in him.  Enter the inner chamber of your soul, shut out everything except God and that which can help you in seeking him, and when you have shut the door, seek him.  Now, my soul, say to God, 'I seek your face; Lord it is your face that I seek.'  Amen. Anselm

Practice to Remember: Level 1:Ephesians 6:13 ; Level 2: Ephesians 6:14-21

Powered Up:  The great tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer but unoffered prayer. F. B. Meyers