Father are you here? Always Jeffrey. Am I following the right path? Yes. I miss normal, I miss routine, I miss 9-5, home for dinner, video games, TV, and being with Deniz. I miss laughter and idle time. I miss the dinner table. Yet you have squander minutes, hours, days and years, you squandered an entire decade. What do you have to show for the time you squandered? Time is precious. Yes Lord. You now have a greater appreciation for what you have been given; enjoy your children, enjoy your spouse, enjoy each moment I give you. Time is short, I will ask you to invest in me completely. Make time for those I have given you. Stop wasting my blessings. Yes Lord. What else I am to learn from this experience? Sacrifice, confidence in me, community, relationship, connection, reliance on me, coordination, delegation, team. So, in this time I am tempted to call wasted you have been at work in me, on me. Yes Jeffrey, you rely on those I have placed around you, you even believe them all more gifted, more valuable than yourself. It was time for you to learn to rely on me and the gifts I have given you. You lacked confidence in me.
From the first time I heard God's voice I knew it was Him; much firmer, more direct than my own, yet more loving and patient than the Devil's. His words are not necessarily what I want to hear but always what I need to hear. I have squander time and taken blessings for granted. My time away from my family and friends reminds me of their importance and my purpose. When we are given an abundance of time, we waste most of it. When we are given little time, we cherish every moment.
God also told me there is much to learn during time alone. During the time I have been whining about being unplugged God has been at work. If you never experience time alone how do you determine your purpose and gifts? Growing up I played saxophone in band. There were times while everyone was playing it became impossible to hear the sound of my own instrument. However, if one by one the others in the room stopped playing, soon the unique voice of my saxophone could be heard. We are designed to play in concert but there are times God asks us to play alone to fine tune us.
Away from what I know, away from the concert where I normally reside, God has allowed me time to connect with Him more confidently and affirmed His work in me. My enemy tells me I am isolated and alone; being punished, marginalized, forgotten. God says differently; He says join me, find me, celebrate your blessings, know my voice and learn your own.
Connections will continue our mission to bring those we serve into relationship with God and each other. We will guide them through loneliness and the feeling of being unplugged. God uses all things for good, even isolation. Growth is found in times when we are alone. Jesus, Abraham, Joseph, and Moses all spent time alone before their missions began.
1-2Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by the Devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when the time was up he was hungry.
3The Devil, playing on his hunger, gave the first test: "Since you're God's Son, command this stone to turn into a loaf of bread."
4Jesus answered by quoting Deuteronomy: "It takes more than bread to really live."
5-7For the second test he led him up and spread out all the kingdoms of the earth on display at once. Then the Devil said, "They're yours in all their splendor to serve your pleasure. I'm in charge of them all and can turn them over to whomever I wish. Worship me and they're yours, the whole works."
8Jesus refused, again backing his refusal with Deuteronomy: "Worship the Lord your God and only the Lord your God. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness."
9-11For the third test the Devil took him to Jerusalem and put him on top of the Temple. He said, "If you are God's Son, jump. It's written, isn't it, that 'he has placed you in the care of angels to protect you; they will catch you; you won't so much as stub your toe on a stone'?"
12"Yes," said Jesus, "and it's also written, 'Don't you dare tempt the Lord your God.'"
13That completed the testing. The Devil retreated temporarily, lying in wait for another opportunity. (Luke 4:1-13, The Message)
Stephen Testifies
1 Then the high priest said, “Are these things so?”
2 And he said, “Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, 3 and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’ 4 Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell. 5 And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him. 6 But God spoke in this way: that his descendants would dwell in a foreign land, and that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them four hundred years. 7 ‘And the nation to whom they will be in bondage I will judge,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and serve Me in this place.’ 8 Then He gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs.
9 “And the patriarchs, becoming envious, sold Joseph into Egypt. But God was with him 10 and delivered him out of all his troubles, and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house. 11 Now a famine and great trouble came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and our fathers found no sustenance. 12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first. 13 And the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to the Pharaoh. 14 Then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and all his relatives to him, seventy-five people. 15 So Jacob went down to Egypt; and he died, he and our fathers. 16 And they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem.
17 “But when the time of the promise drew near which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt 18 till another king arose who did not know Joseph. 19 This man dealt treacherously with our people, and oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their babies, so that they might not live. 20 At this time Moses was born, and was well pleasing to God; and he was brought up in his father’s house for three months. 21 But when he was set out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son. 22 And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds.
23 “Now when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. 24 And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed, and struck down the Egyptian. 25 For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. 26 And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting, and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brethren; why do you wrong one another?’ 27 But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29 Then, at this saying, Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian, where he had two sons.
30 “And when forty years had passed, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. (Acts 7:1-30, New King James Version)
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