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| Vanilla Wafers |
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;
(John 10: 27
NASB)
I coordinated a recruiting tour for
Youth With A Mission in the late 1980s and early 1900s, called Night of
Missions. We held meetings in
thirty-five cities east of the Mississippi River around a nice dessert
format. I once learned that by not
listening to God, a Night of Missions could become a “Fright of Missions.”
In an exasperated voice I said, Lord,
who is in charge here? Several weeks
earlier we had to cancel part of our tour for logistical reasons. I had sent letters of explanation to all of
the affected city directors notifying them of the cancelation. One day in my office in central Virginia I
got a phone call from the Director from Virginia Beach, Virginia, one of the
canceled cities. He said, “We are
looking forward to you coming. We have
just sent out four to five hundred invitations.” My heart fell from my chest into my
stomach. I explained to the Director the
missed communication. He seemed very
disappointed. Due to the disenchantment
of the Director, and the lingering image of a huge crowd of people being
challenged to reach the world, I made a snap decision. I said, we’ll make it happen. It was a couple of days before the scheduled
event, and I had no team, and the multimedia equipment we used was on the west
coast.
I begged and borrowed a makeshift team
of missionaries from our staff. I rented
the media equipment, at no small cost, thinking with a crowd of several hundred
people we would recoup the expense. We
arrived at Virginia Beach for the meeting, and there was no one to meet us at
the church. The atmosphere was strangely
quiet. Not long before the meeting was
scheduled to start, the Director arrived with his son. The boy plopped a partly eaten box of vanilla
wafers on the otherwise empty dessert table.
I thought to myself; this is not good.
A few people straggled into the hall, maybe ten or so. We had almost as many on the platform as in
the audience. If we had raised the
volume of the media equipment to its capacity, we would have the blown the
small group of people out of the back of the auditorium.
With a stiff upper lip, we did the
presentation. That night we went to bed
a little discouraged. The next morning I
got up and was greeted by a flat tire on our van. I said, Lord, who is in charge here? It is funny how we try to blame our mistakes
on God. It was not long that morning
before I realized the error of my ways.
I had violated a foundational value of the mission with which I worked,
hearing the voice of Lord and obeying in detail. My hasty decision upon receiving the phone
call from the Director was partly due to the fear of man, and partially due to
the lure of a successful meeting.
One day the next week back at our
training center I found a box of vanilla wafers on my office desk. One of my staff had put it there to gently
remind me, seek God first, Ken. And to
this day I still do not eat vanilla wafers.
PS -A few months later I met a young
lady who was working with our mission.
She told me that she was called to missions that night. God can even use our blunders for His glory.
Ken
Barnes the author of “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places” YWAM Publishing
Email: kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: https://sites.google.com/site/kenbarnesbooksite/
Email: kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: https://sites.google.com/site/kenbarnesbooksite/
Podcasts: http://kensblogpodcast.blogspot.com
