It’s been just over a week ago, our team of seven returned from ministering in Cuba. While the trip is a lot of work to put together, we are always blessed by the warmth, generosity, and passionate hunger of the Cuban Christians. We go as teachers, but inevitably, we are the ones taught. This is often the case in missions/ministry. It’s humbling in a great way; it’s encouraging; and, it’s often a reminder of what the early church might have resembled. In fact, from the outside looking in, these churches are characteristic of the church Paul boasted of in abundant faith, increasing love, and steadfast endurance. I’m better for each trip I have made into this communistic island of raw beauty.
Over the last four years, I’ve seen a recurring event that honors me and humbles me even more. Three different times in three different churches, women have come to me with their notes from the previous years of teaching. Two of these times, their notes span back over a six year period. They want me to see that they still have those notes. They want me to know that they continue to study them; but more than that, they all have taken those notes and taught them to other women. Those lessons have gone to women in neighborhoods, to women in other churches, to women in bible studies, and to co-workers in the public arena. Those little composition books are worn thin; the pages are smudged; some are stained…it’s obvious these ladies aren’t just blowing smoke to make me feel good. They aren’t just being hearers of the Word, they are being doers. They are fact checking. They are reminding themselves of Truth. They are applying it, then they are taking the words and passing them forward.
I don’t mean this to sound boastful in anyway; please hear my heart. Every time this has happened, I have wondered about me. I’ve thought about all the amazing truths I’ve been taught over the years of my Christian life. I’ve had pictures of conferences I’ve attended pass through the albums in my brain. I’ve thought about all the notes I’ve taken in Bible Studies I’ve attended…and filed away for years, only to throw them in the trash. I have not been like these women, good stewards of the Truth poured out in my soul. I can’t boast, I’m too convicted!
God’s Word. It is never going to come back void (Isaiah 55:11). That’s a promise. However, if I am growing in faith, and not just growing in little inches, but in leaps and bounds, I am doing something with those Words. They will be my lifeline. They will be my hope in the God of so much more! And, I will be regurgitating them to those around me. If I need them, others do, too. God’s Word is steady. It is faith-building. It’s ways are RIGHT and SURE! I can rely on them leading to successful living.
That’s the thing about faith. It’s contagious. When I see over-the-top-faith in someone else, I desire it; and, I want to do the same – pass it on. It only comes one way: hearing the Word of the Lord. God intended for us all to be messengers of faith, spurring one another on to love and good deeds. I am, indeed, challenged by the greater faith of those to whom I was sent.
This, then, is exactly what Paul boasted of – faith challenging faith in one another; and when it does, we grow in faith, not just a little, but in extraordinary and noticeable ways.
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
Joshua 1:8