Awaken The Dawn

AWAKEN THE DAWN!

We must not be so insecure about God’s intentions. For example, we understand when someone seeks the best medical counsel to cure an illness, but we go into heavy mental gymnastics to justify simply praying for healing because we doubt God is at all interested in our well- being! We tend to assume that our personal concern for health, prosperity, and blessing is much greater than God’s interest in us. We think we can take care of our- selves better than God can. Even when we pray and much time elapses without a vis- ible answer, we must believe that God is causing every- thing to work for good in our lives. As I look back over the fifty-four years that I have been a minister, I must admit that the things I remember with the greatest joy and delight are the times when the going was tough and it seemed there was no way out. Driven to prayer, I cried to the Rock of Ages. Never once did He fail me. When we were building our church sanctuary in San Jose, we used a church bond company to help us raise the con- struction money. Supposedly, it was a good company because a number of California churches had successful- ly used their services. Right in the middle of construction and our drive to sell bonds, however, the company was indicted by the government and our collected funds were frozen! At the time, our congregation met temporarily in a rented Lutheran church on Sunday afternoons. “Six months,” we told the Lutherans, “We’ll only use your facilities for six months, and then we will move into our new sanctuary.” How hopeful we were! When the government stepped in (supposedly to protect the people) we were truly thrown to the mercy of the

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