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Picking up the ringing phone, I heard
the voice of a man who hadn’t called in several years. At
our first meeting, he had been only nineteen. I had just
finished a sermon at his church and, though I didn’t know it
at that time, he had recently dropped out of college where
he had been preparing for the ministry.
My next contact with this discouraged
dropout came about ten years after our original encounter.
He said he thought it was time to update me on the good
things that had happened in his life.
“When you came to our church, I had
just dropped out of college,” he said. “Your sermon was
titled, ‘The Second Time,’ and was about Jonah being given
another chance to serve God after he had blown his first
opportunity (Jonah 3).” He explained that after hearing the
sermon he had returned to college, graduated, and was now
the pastor of a South Carolina church. In addition to his
work as a pastor, he and his talented family were active in
gospel music.
“Every time I hear from you, I’m
reminded of Jonah,” I said, prompting a pleasant chuckle
from him, as I momentarily relived hearing about the
wonderful changes in his life that he had shared in his
first call. Given Jonah’s reputation, most wouldn’t have
considered my comment a compliment, but he knew I was simply
expressing my joy over the positive direction of his life
that had followed his new beginning.
Jonah, somewhat deservedly, has been
given a bad rap by preachers, commentators and the general
public. After all, he had rebelled against his call from
God to become a missionary to Nineveh, described in the
Bible as a wicked city, and as a result found himself in
deep trouble, but that’s not the end of the story.
Later, discouraged and exhausted on a
lonely beach, drowning in self pity, Jonah was offered a new
beginning. This time, he accepted the challenge, headed for
Nineveh and became one of the most successful evangelists of
all time. The entire city responded to his one sentence
sermon: “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
Repentance and faith spread through
Nineveh like wildfire. Lives were changed and the king was
so moved by what was happening among his people that he
joined them in their confessions and prayers. The city that
had been ripe for judgment was spared from destruction.
And, all these good things happened because a man who had
given up on himself was granted a new beginning.
During the mid-nineteenth century,
A.C. Lanphier was employed by the Dutch Reformed Church to
serve as a missionary in some of the crowded and needy areas
of New York City. The work was difficult and Lanphier often
became discouraged. Sometimes he felt like giving up but
found strength to go on through prayer.
Thinking others who were feeling down
might be helped by prayer, he let it be known that he was
starting a series of weekly noon-hour prayer meetings that
would be open to all who wished to come. The first of these
was held on September 23, 1857.
During the first half hour of that
prayer meeting, Lanphier prayed alone. Then, one by one,
others came until six were praying. The next week twenty
appeared and the third week brought forty. By spring,
Lanphier’s prayer meetings were being held throughout the
city, finally birthing a spiritual awakening across the
land.
When we feel like giving up it’s time
to look up.
New beginnings await the tired and
discouraged in answer to their prayers. |
