Becoming Un-Separated

Worry and stress were through my mind over and over. All day I had been agonizing about the coming night. I was in Chiquimula, Guatemala, and this was the seventh night I had been preaching. I was worried this particular Thursday because it had rained the previous night, and my open church had been nearly empty, having only thirty-five in attendance. Three small churches met at the Molino church where the anticipated attendance was between ninety and one hundred and twenty people every night. All day I had been hoping tonight would be different, that tonight I would have more people. I could not talk to my pastor, Pastor Guzman because he is a pastor for twelve churches, from what I heard, and he did not have time to attend mine often.

Fear and trepidation, mixed with doubt, had been haunting me all day. I wondered if I had done something wrong. Maybe some sin I had committed was keeping me from being blessed by God. Perhaps I had offended Him in some way. Without my wanting it or believing it, deeper thoughts had been entering into my mind. Thoughts such as, yes I know there is a God, but perhaps this generation has sunk so low and sinned so constantly that God no longer cares about us. Perhaps God has given up on humanity. Perhaps God has given up on me.

I began to pray. My prayer was simple at first; it went something like this: “God, please bless me with your Holy Spirit and help me.” As I began praying and thinking, I was overcome with guilt. Guilt and sorrow for sins I knew I had committed which had separated me from my source of life. I was deeply troubled by this and began to ask God’s forgiveness. It entered my mind that if sin had separated me from God, maybe I needed to ask God back into my life. While I was sitting in plastic lawn chair outside my hotel room, waiting to be picked up, a thought flashed into my mind. Here I was preaching to people about accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, but had I accepted Jesus as my personal Savior? Instantly I prayed to God and asked that He come into my life. I surrendered the day to Him. If God wanted a lot of people at my meeting, He would bring them. Like a slow warm feeling I began to sense the stress melting away. After all it was out of my control. I had prayed and asked God’s forgiveness and that He would come into my life. The rest was up to Him.

Worry no longer ruled my mind, and I was free. I arrived at the meeting and was happy. Not just happy, excited! I had a message that was important – to show that Jesus is our Savior. He died for us. I stood back and watched what the Lord would do. I had eighty people at my church, and over fifty kids. The weather turned out perfect and I preached the best I had so far. I never stumbled, and I was smiling the entire time I was preaching. So many people came up and said, “wow you did so well tonight.” I replied in broken Spanish, “no es me, es Dios.”