“And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.”
Today is Wednesday. Every Wednesday I teach. I teach English at 7am for two hours using the gospel of Mark to an executive of a major company here in Hungary. At 1pm I teach the gospel in the jails for two plus hours. This morning I could not go to my English lesson as I had to go to the hospital to meet with my doctor about my rapidly deteriorating knee, frustrating!. As is the norm I went to the rendelo, the first come first serve section of the hospital. I waited for almost three hours and began to gather my things to leave. As I did my doctor walks by me in the crowd of now about 100 plus people outside his door without a glance my way. As I pulled up to my house my phone rings, doc asks, “Are you here?” Frustrating!
I walked inside my house, sat down at my desk and began to look over my notes for today’s teaching. As always I scribbled some more thoughts; whether from the Lord or me I trust from Him. I called my doc again to try to get in before the jail as walking is becoming a painful chore. He told me to come, that he would wait for me. As I walked up to his office door he comes out with a patient, walks by me and says, “I’ll be right back. Talk to the nurses”. Frustrating!
As I sit down I notice nurses everywhere leaving for lunch. Then his nurse comes out of the office and locks the door to leave. As she turns to leave she sees me, comes over and frustratingly asks for my papers (which the office that gives them out refused to give me in the morning). Now she huffs and puffs me to the office, “Sit”. Soon she shoves a paper in my hands and tells me to go. Lucky I know some Hungarian and off I go to the X-ray Department for another hurry up and wait session. I rush back to doc’s office as time is running short. I sneak in the inner office as doc had told me to before. The nurse comes out and tells me to leave and go wait with the masses still hovering around 100. The Clash began to play in my head, “Should I stay or should I go now”. Doc shows up, sees the pics, and says, “Endure”. Frustrating!
I race over to the jail to meet with my friend, go upstairs, set up and wait for the guys. We have twenty-five men signed up now. True to form some came and asked to be excused to go and walk. Some never showed up because it their only time to shower. OK. To be honest the most we’ve ever had at one sitting is eighteen. Today we were not allowed to shake hands with anyone; corona virus. We ended up with two guys today. We began to teach in Matthew about the storm on the sea. Two more guys, freshly showered, showed up. We were soon interrupted and told we cannot comeback; coronas virus. We continued teaching about the doubt and faith of Peter; that Jesus is always saying, “Come”. The statement begged the question; do we listen, any of us, believer or nonbeliever alike. On my notes, I saw something I’d scribbled down.
Now I have often written this down after preparing a study but this time I knew the Holy Spirit had written it, altar call. All four of these men whom we have seen the Holy Spirit speaking to, whom God chose to come today, gave their lives to Jesus. I told them (and truly believe it) that God manufactured today’s circumstances to ask them to “Come”. My friends let nothing frustrate you, distract you or get in the way of the work He has given you. Thank you for supporting this ministry. Please continue praying for us…and as always, stay strong!
…just a thought