Guide and Instruct Because of Love

As we start the new year, I think back about the first few months of the S.O.W.E.R.S. training program. In the work portion of the program we have learned to do many things such as how to cut down a tree and process it into usable firewood and how to start a fire to keep warm.

A student can learn many things from work, things like how to guide and instruct, and that it is more blessed to give than to receive when it is done out of love. There is nothing better than seeing Mac warming herself next to her fire.

It is a lot of work to process firewood, and if it were just for me to stay warm, I’d rather just put on another sweatshirt. However, if I wanted my family to be warm, I’d start a fire in the fireplace… If I knew how.

Draw me a picture of a student being told to “take that large oak tree and put it into Mac’s room to burn it to keep her warm.” What are the endless possibilities that could pass through their mind? It is an overwhelming thought, but if we are shown and guided how to go through the process, then it makes perfect sense.

It is like telling someone, “Read the Bible.” Well, that can be more overwhelming than telling someone to “take a rooted oak tree, put it in Mac’s fireplace, and light it on fire.” It reminds me of Phillip asking the man from Ethiopia in Acts 8, “Understandest thou what thou readest?” The man’s reply was, “How can I except some man should guide me?” We don’t want to merely tell some one to read the Bible, we need to be ready to guide people on how to read it. We don’t tell people they ought to get saved, we tell them that how to get saved is Romans 10:9 “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

We can learn many good things from work, one of those things is how to guide and instruct. Another is that it is more blessed to give than to receive. There is nothing better than seeing Mac sitting next to her fire or your neighbor getting born again of God’s spirit!

Happy New Year,

Victor Wierwille
Victorpaul38@aol.com