People of Influence, Part 2

I hope and pray that these posts are encouraging you to reflect on those people and those situations that have made a positive influence in your life.  It is so easy to forget those moments in which God worked through someone to plant a spiritual principle in your life.  Each one of us need those reminders and those teaching points in which God provides direction, encouragement, and even correction so that out lives can more fully reflect His glory and His true purpose for our existence.  I desire to recognize and receive those moments so that my life can more fully reflect the life of Jesus Christ at work in me.

This past Sunday evening was another one of those moments in which God reminded me of courage and faith and He used a lady named Edna to bring those principles to my attention.  We were participating in a service in which the Worship time centered around different individuals sharing their gifts and talents.  These talents and gifts included special musical arrangements, expressive worship, duets, as well as soloists.  Edna was one of the soloists during this special evening of worship.  Edna faces health issues each and every day of her life.  She is on dialysis three times a week as well as facing the challenge of being a diabetic.  Her brother had passed away the week before we were to have the worship service but she chose to sing and participate with the rest of the worshipers.  I could sense in my spirit that she was going to sing something that would speak to my heart.  My anticipation began to grow as I watched her slowly make her way down the isle of the church toward the platform.  She then began to sing the song, Through it All.  I could feel my spirit being energized by the Holy Spirit as the song began to minister to my heart.  Andrae Crouch wrote this song and I want to share a portion of the chorus, "Through it all, through it all, I've learned to trust in Jesus, I've learned to trust in God; Through it all, through it all, I've learned to depend upon Your Word..."  Edna was not only singing a song she was singing her testimony.  The words of that song has resonated in my heart throughout this week.  We must remember that the promises of the presence of God and the strength of the Word of God are always with us regardless of the circumstances that we face on a daily basis.  God used Edna that night to sow the strength of that promise into my heart.  All of us have faced those moments in which we looked for the presence of God in the midst of our difficulties.  But we will find God if we look for Him through the eyes of faith and hope.  

Today, I can declare along with Edna, that God is with me "through it all." I want to thank Edna for being obedient to the Spirit; she sang the song that God intended for her to sing so that He could minister to His children.  God will use each of us to be a blessing to others if we will take the time to seek after His heart.