At whatever time you are reading this, stop for a moment and look around you; if it’s possible, do a 360-degree view. You need to know something. For everything you just saw, there are three things God won’t do.
At whatever time you are reading this, stop for a moment and look around you; if it’s possible, do a 360-degree view. You need to know something. For everything you just saw, there are three things God won’t do.
- God won’t think for you. He gave you a brain and He expects you to use it. No doubt you just saw a lot of things that need to be done;Â by the way, that’s #2. However, before you work you need to think, which for many of us is work.
- God expects us to work. Notice I didn’t say “be employed”. My wife works her tail off but is not employed. Still, if anything is going to get done, even Hover Dam or the Golden Gate Bridge, we have to work. There are a few, but very few times God has just “made” something for someone. God’s modus operandi is you do the work.
- God expects you to pray. From Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Mt. 7:7) God expects us to communicate with Him.
These are exactly what Five Williams College students determined to do in 1806, up in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Here’s the timeline of what happened: Mission timeline
- 1806 – Original Haystack Prayer Meeting by five Williams College students
- Â 1808 – Samuel Mills forms the Brethren, dedicated to spreading the message about missionary service
- 1810 – America’s first foreign mission society, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) is formed
- 1812 – BCFM sends its first group of five missionaries to India
- 1819 – ABCFM sends first missionaries to Near East, including Turkey and Palestine;
- 1830 – ABCFM sends first missionaries to China
- 1833 – ABCFM sends first missionaries to Africa
- 1868 – Woman’s Boards of Missions established
- 1961 – After 150 years, the American Board had sent out nearly 5000 missionaries to 34 different fields.
- 2006 – the 200th-anniversary celebration of the Haystack event in Williamstown
That’s the kind of thing that happens when you ask, seek, and knock with your heart’s desire is for God to help you think, work, and pray for His will to be done.
Now, do a 360-degree view, again. If God can establish a missionary society from five young guys hiding in a haystack what can He do with you where you’re at?
By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10712350