Don't Let the Devil Steal You.

1 Timothy 1:18-19
18 Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, 19 holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned it earlier in the week, but we had to make ourselves extremely flexible on our mission trip. Rich, one of the leaders from HOLD the children, did a good deal of planning for us. However, the time in which we did everything was a little later that we expected. I respect the Haitians for that though because they're not in a rush, like we are. As Americans, it's just in our blood that we have to get from point a to point b in "x" amount of time. They certainly live in the now, and don't worry about the future so much.

During my time in Haiti, there were also so many God appointments, that is things that we didn't so much plan. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time, with the help of divine intervention. The big man upstairs had some completely different ideas that we had. It was interesting because there must have been nearly a dozen of these occurrences. This is how it would go: We would be driving on the road going into town. The men in the car would speak Creole so we had no idea what was going on because they didn't tell us. All of a sudden, we would turn on a side road and come up to some place like a church or a school and get out. Each time, my initial reactions weren't very good. I would think, "Oh no, we can't be going here. This doesn't look like a place worth spending my time." That turned out to be FALSE every time. I was amazed. Some of these stops included a church, a school, and the radio station (which I told you about the other day). I mean, the stories behind each were so incredible. We stopped at a church on the way to the Dominican. Some of our leaders prayed and said a few words and Pastor Basile translated for them. Our pastor even heard a testimony of a guy converting from Voodoo to Christianity. Isn't that great?!? This is what I mean. Each stop wasn't in our itinerary, but it was in God's itinerary THE WHOLE TIME. It was an unbelievable yet believable experience (you know what I mean?).

Meanwhile, I've been trying to upload my pictures of Haiti so all my friends can see them. I've been unsuccessful. I even tried doing it on three different computers! I can only tell you who I think is trying to stop me from putting those pictures up on facebook. I'm sure Satan has a big role in this. After all, I've never had trouble with facebook until this week.

Still I think those special appointments keep reminding and convincing me of God's presence and truth. You're going to have to fight to keep the devilish things from coming into your mind and dominating your life, convincing you that there's no God. Just realize that. Also, don't let him take away your sense of faith. He's not allowing me to upload my pictures. Either way, I'm not going to let him steal any part that makes up who I am. I pray that you will feel that way too.

Check out this song. I've never heard of this group until recently. It's called "The Words I Would Say" by Sidewalk Prophets.



P.S. If you have trouble with the video stopping and starting, keep the video paused, and let it "buffer" (load) as it's called for a while. You will see the red bar along the bottom advance (speed depends on your Internet connection). Wait until that bar gets pretty far along (I'd say more than halfway) before you play the video and it shouldn't pause.