“For in Him we live and move and have our being…”
Acts 17:28a NEV
I often get my inspiration for spiritual direction and understanding by looking into the ways the first generation church handled themselves in the early years of Christianity. After all, they had very little for them: no money, no place in society. They were mostly uneducated. They were born into a time in the earth where the vast majority of travel was on foot.
Believe it or not, Dan and I have been in places that had similar restrictions, particularly in the early years. Places that had no electricity in the village yet, or even running water in the homes. No media, no radio or television. But, when I read the stories of the apostles as they moved through their world, sharing the Good News wherever they went, I am moved, sometimes to tears, to read of the genuine interest of the crowds and their hunger to hear and understand about this “Unknown God.”
It strikes a cord of remembrance in me, because I can remember a time when we could take our tents and PA systems into a small Indian town, or simply gather around a fire in the glowing evening in the mountains of the Philippines, and the people would come walking….some from far away, just to hear what we had come to say.
They were hungry. They were filled with openness. They wanted to know more.
Many times we are pumped full of this idea that ‘The World’ doesn’t want to know anything about God, about His gift in Jesus. But I have never found that to be true. So long as our message was pure and simple and on point, the Spirit would back up our sharing with His holy Presence, and often many came to us for prayer, and some for commitment. After all, it was at His direction that we were even IN those places.
They were hungry. They WANTED to know about Him. And it was our great privilege to be the ones who got to be there, with them, and introduce them to the One who created them. Who loved them. Who knew them from their mother’s womb. Oh! Those moments, those times are probably the richest memories of my life.
It is IN HIM that we live. IN HIM that we move. IN HIM that have our beings. Seasons may change in our lives, but the empowerment by the Spirit to go and tell never changes.
~ Debbie Ecker
