It is good to be back in the saddle. I haven’t written a fresh devotional in about four weeks. I think this has been my longest pause, so I’m eager to share what the Holy Spirit has been teaching me. Of course, the Holy Spirit is always teaching us fresh things because “we live by the words that are proceeding from the mouth of God.” The pause was mainly due to a two-week trip in Africa and the preparation time beforehand and the reentry time afterward.
I want to tell you about an amazing thing Jesus said to me one day on our trip. In a very small and remote area near the mountainous town of Kisoro, Uganda, we were ministering in a very small makeshift church. As the worship was beginning, Jesus spoke to me (actually spoke in me), “I am very excited to be here today. I have been looking forward to this for a long time.” I immediately thought of Ephesians 2:10, which says, “For we are His poem, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” We never have to strive and try to work up life’s opportunities for Christ because our lives in Christ are his daily opportunities to manifest his grace. Sitting before these people with great joy in my heart, having embraced Jesus’s excitement about being there to encounter them through us, I heard him then say very vividly, “I have been looking forward to this day for at least two thousand years.” I’ve known what Ephesians 2:10 says for many years, but it became so real to me that day and since. If we will just listen, we will hear Jesus say to us the first thing every morning when we awaken, “I am so excited about this day that I’m going to live through you. I have anticipated and looked forward to this day and all the things we will do in union with each other. I’ve been looking forward to this day and all the people we will encounter for at least two thousand years.” If you can hear what I’m trying to say, it will change your perspective about everything and everybody you come in contact with, no matter how briefly. You will get to, in surrender to the life Jesus lives through us, join in on the excitement that his heart is filled with about the very next step that he is ordering. The joy of the Lord (his sheer joy) truly is our strength.