One of the things I talked about Sunday is the fact that we must differentiate between personality/temperment and spirit.
In other words, a person can have a quiet, unaggressive temperment but because they are filled with the Holy Spirit, be very bold spiritually.
Acts 4: "The believers prayed and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and went out speaking the Word with great boldness."
ALL the believers. Not just the "Type A's" (or D, based on personality tests). Spiritual boldness goes beyond personality!
In the first service, I told the story of Pastor Craig and I flying to Tanzania back in 2001. As we were airborne, the whole Ethiopian track team began to celebrate their victory in the Pan Am Games they had just won.
The hero was a little guy named Haile. They kept chanting his name and had an award ceremony of their own while we were flying. Haile had just set the world record for the marathon. Craig and I just watched and enjoyed seeing their celebration.
After it settled a bit, we saw Haile go to sit by himself up at the front of the plane, just staring at his trophy, absorbing it all. Suddenly, Craig says to me, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking???" I replied, "You know it!"
So the two of us made our way up and sat by Haile. We introduced ourselves as Americans, telling him how great it was to celebrate with him. He let us see his trophy, take pictures with him......and then we said, "God really has blessed you!"
From there, the conversation took its course into surrendering to Christ vs. the religion he had grown up under in a Moslem nation. He listened intently as we explained the way of Christ. When we asked if he would like to pray, he said, "No, not yet. You have given me much to think about."
We told him we would be praying for him, for God to show him the truth, and he thanked us. We never talked to or saw him again, apart from the Olympics on tv where he won the gold medal. We had just planted a seed, trusting God to take it from there.
You can only imagine my surprise when I read this past Saturday the following in preparation for my message! Its from an Aussie newspaper:
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HAILE Gebrselassie, the greatest long-distance runner in history, is Melbourne-bound — for the Great Australian Run, a 15-kilometre road race around the streets of Melbourne.
To find out just what makes him tick, we did some research about the Ethiopian runner, who this month became the first man to break two hours four minutes for the marathon (and, in all, has broken 27 world records). This is what we found out:
■ Gebrselassie rises every day at 6am, drives 25 minutes to the Entoto Mountains, where he usually runs 20 kilometres with other Ethiopian athletes. (He goes to the mountains because the air is clean, there is no traffic and it is slightly cooler than in the city of Addis Ababa.)
■ He then returns home to change and grab a quick breakfast.
■ At 9am, he is in his office, personally supervising his business empire that includes being:
CHAIRMAN of the Great Ethiopian Run, a public fun run that has been a huge success in Ethiopia with 32,000 entries; and
BOSS of a construction company that builds cinemas, convention centres, petrol stations, schools, sports stores, cafes and fitness centres.
■ He fInishes work at 4pm and heads to more training, either back to the mountains for some hard running or to the national stadium for a session on the track.
■ He is home just after 6pm for time with his family or to prepare for any evening engagements, where he is in great demand.
ALL THIS by a bloke who:
■ Is a devoted Christian who presented his first Olympic gold medal to his local church as a token of thanksgiving for his special talent.
■ As an employer, has given half of the jobs in his businesses to women in a part of the world where equal opportunity was once never heard of.
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A devoted Christian!! We planted a seed. God obviously brought others since to water the seed and cause it to grow. But what is amazing to me is to think if we HAD NOT stepped out, never planted a seed.
So much is at stake, folks!
"Father, give us eyes to SEE opportunities to plant a seed, to pray with someone, to encourage in Christ. Deliver us from our bondage to ourself and our own problems. Help us to lift up our eyes and SEE the harvest!"
PB