I am only a few hours from packing my suit case and hitting the road again for the start of my busy summer. We just finished VBS less than twelve hours ago and I will soon be driving Interstate 20 east to Marshall, TX where I will spend the next week ministering to a couple hundred high school students.
This is not just another road trip. This is a spiritual pilgrimage for me. It was at this very camp when I first began to feel the tug of the Holy Spirit on my heart that I was supposed to be a preacher. This shy insecure high school student had no plans to be a public speaker. I resisted. At one point I actually sat in the closet in my dormitory room confused and wondering if I was really being called to preach. Truth be known I hated public speaking. God had other plans and so when I go back to this camp I always wonder how many other young people like me are sitting under the teaching of the word of God.
Another reason this road trip is extremely sentimental for me is that the very auditorium I will be preaching in tomorrow is a place where I have met with God in significant ways in the past. I recall one painful season when I lay on the floor in prayer and a puddle of tears. It was during a excruciatingly confusing time in my life and I was pleading for God to pull me out of a very painful season of life. As I walk back on that campus my circumstances are different today and I have seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. That will be the message I will preach tomorrow morning. I am reminded in my own life that waiting on the Lord and trusting Him to be faithful has brought me full circle and others need to hear that same message.
Read what David wrote in Ps 27:13-14. “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord.”
Some of you reading this have lost heart and you are about to give up. You are on the verge of doing something very foolish as you contemplate taking matters into your own hands and not waiting for God. I am telling you from first hand experience that you will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living if you keep waiting and trusting. I know it does not feel like and when you look around and you can’t see any evidence of it but it is still true. He will come through for you. It might not be today. It might not even be this month or year. He will not forsake you through the tough times though and in time He will alter your situation.
So I am challenging you to take a road trip. Take a road trip in your mind and recall the last time you were in a really tough spot and things looked bleak but in the end God saved the day. You may have to keep taking that road trip over and over again to remind yourself that you will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for Him.
In a very short while I will pack my clothes, my Bible and some books and make the four hour journey east. There will be times when I drive in silence and meditate on what the Lord has done in my life since the last time I was on the campus of East Texas Baptist University. It will be a wonderful road trip but the spiritual pilgrimage is more meaningful than traveling in a vehicle. You and I can do that anytime in our minds through meditation and reflection. Do you need to take a road trip? Let Ps 27:13-14 be your road map to guide you on your way.
This is not just another road trip. This is a spiritual pilgrimage for me. It was at this very camp when I first began to feel the tug of the Holy Spirit on my heart that I was supposed to be a preacher. This shy insecure high school student had no plans to be a public speaker. I resisted. At one point I actually sat in the closet in my dormitory room confused and wondering if I was really being called to preach. Truth be known I hated public speaking. God had other plans and so when I go back to this camp I always wonder how many other young people like me are sitting under the teaching of the word of God.
Another reason this road trip is extremely sentimental for me is that the very auditorium I will be preaching in tomorrow is a place where I have met with God in significant ways in the past. I recall one painful season when I lay on the floor in prayer and a puddle of tears. It was during a excruciatingly confusing time in my life and I was pleading for God to pull me out of a very painful season of life. As I walk back on that campus my circumstances are different today and I have seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. That will be the message I will preach tomorrow morning. I am reminded in my own life that waiting on the Lord and trusting Him to be faithful has brought me full circle and others need to hear that same message.
Read what David wrote in Ps 27:13-14. “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord.”
Some of you reading this have lost heart and you are about to give up. You are on the verge of doing something very foolish as you contemplate taking matters into your own hands and not waiting for God. I am telling you from first hand experience that you will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living if you keep waiting and trusting. I know it does not feel like and when you look around and you can’t see any evidence of it but it is still true. He will come through for you. It might not be today. It might not even be this month or year. He will not forsake you through the tough times though and in time He will alter your situation.
So I am challenging you to take a road trip. Take a road trip in your mind and recall the last time you were in a really tough spot and things looked bleak but in the end God saved the day. You may have to keep taking that road trip over and over again to remind yourself that you will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for Him.
In a very short while I will pack my clothes, my Bible and some books and make the four hour journey east. There will be times when I drive in silence and meditate on what the Lord has done in my life since the last time I was on the campus of East Texas Baptist University. It will be a wonderful road trip but the spiritual pilgrimage is more meaningful than traveling in a vehicle. You and I can do that anytime in our minds through meditation and reflection. Do you need to take a road trip? Let Ps 27:13-14 be your road map to guide you on your way.
I would just like to say thank you Matt for taking time out of your year to come talk to us over Super Summer. You were truely a blessing and you have no idea how much a difference you made in my life as well as that of others in my youth group. We truely needed a Godly experience that week and you helped in giving us that. Once again thankyou, and God bless.
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