“The Lord their God will save his people on that day as a shepherd saves his flock. They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown. How attractive and beautiful they will be! Grain will make the young men thrive, and new wine the young women.” Zechariah 9:16-7
God is looking for people who can look past tremendous obstacles, injustices, and fearsome situations and give thanks while in the midst of them. There’s no denying that every human has a struggle, but as history has proved and modern news continues to prove, some individuals have face hell on earth and still walk in the grace of the Spirit of the Lord which testifies to His great deeds.
God isn’t impressed with what man can do on His own. God is delighted with what man can do with God working through him. God is looking for the ones who will humble themselves, trust Him through every unforeseen hardship, and will keep on speaking His truth no matter the cost.
My junior high classes are reading an excerpt from “The Hiding Place.” In this autobiography, the sisters Corrie and Betsie Ten Boom are imprisoned and taken to numerous Nazi-run concentration camps for hiding, aiding, and protecting Jews in their family home. Their story is heart-wrenching yet so inspiring. The following quotes taken from the excerpt seem to be a shining example of the type of followers God delights in.
The conditions are unimaginable, and the treatment unconceivable, but the Ten Boom sisters, in spite of it all, allowed God to use them for His kingdom work. They would read from the Bible and hold meetings for any woman wanting to hear God’s word. The guards didn’t check their barracks, so they were free to speak light in the darkness surrounding them. And it made a difference.
Join my class and myself over the next few paragraphs and let us be inspired by these amazing women who risked their all for the sake of His kingdom. God’s Word is powerful and can set the captives free no matter where they are, if only someone will share it.
Corrie said their barracks began as a place where women cussed at each other and were angry, but it changed into a place where women prayed for each other and said things like, “no worries” when one had to crawl over her to reach her bed. That’s God activity.
“Thank you.’ Betsie went on serenely, “for the fleas and for-“ The fleas! This was too much. “Betsie there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.” “Give thanks in all circumstances,” She quoted. “It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.”
“One evening I got back to the barracks late from a wood-gathering foray outside the walls. A light snow lay on the ground and it was hard to find the sticks and twigs with which a small stove was kept going in each room. Betsie was waiting for me, as always, so that we could wait through the food line together. Her eyes were twinkling.” “You’re looking extraordinarily pleased with yourself,” I told her.’ “ You know we’ve never understood why we had so much freedom in the big room,” she said. “Well- I’ve found out.”
‘ That afternoon, she said there’d been confusion in her knitting group about sock sizes and they’d asked the supervisor to come and settle it. “But she wouldn’t. she wouldn’t step through the door and neither would the guards. And you know why?” Betsie could not keep the triumph from her voice: “Because of the fleas! That’s what she said, ‘That place is crawling with fleas.’” ‘My mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie’s bowed head, remembered her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for.’”
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” John 10:27-29
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