My wife, three young children, and myself came to DeWitt, Arkansas 2 years ago on May 9, 2008 to start a new church work. Suffering from the everyday struggles of not only pastoring a church and dealing with people, but the financial stress associated with starting a new church, last November I thought was at my witts end. I was going through some things emotionally, and was struggling with my personal finances, and the finances of the church. Earlier that day someone had given me a cd of Sis. Agenes Holmes preaching from 1982. It was an awesome message and God ministered to me. At the end of the message there was music playing and I could hear the sounds of an old time Altar service. I sat in my overstuffed easy chair, Weeping in prayer. My humanity kicked in, and I asked the Lord, "Do you even know where I am?" I pleaded, "Lord lay me on someones heart." While I was weeping my telephone rang, and I noticed a very strange number. I normally would not have answered, but the Holy Ghost quickened me. Upon answering the phone, a lady on the other side of the phone said, "Are you Pastor Mike Matos?" I said, "Yes" (I thought it was a telemarketer) She said, "I was praying today, and the Lord gave me your number and name and told me to call you and pray for you!!!!" This lady was from Sydney, Australia. She was with the United Pentecostal Church. I immediately began to rejoice knowing that God knows my name, and he has my number! I just felt like sharing this today on AMF. God Bless!
Thank you for passing that on.
I believe that God does have His eyes upon us at all times. He knows where we are, what we're going through, and what we need.
Back in the late nineteen fifties and early nineteen sixties I went to a church where Norman and Mary Alice Paslay were assistant pastors. They had been evangelists for some time before settling down to assist Bro. Frank Curts who was the pastor of that church. On Sunday nights before one of them would preach (usually he preached but every so often she would) they would sing. One of the songs they sang has the words listed below:
Tenderly He Watches
Tenderly He watches over you
Every step, every mile of the way;
Like a mother watching over her baby,
He is near you every hour of the day.
When you're weak, when you're strong,
When you're right, when you're wrong,
In your joy and your pain,
When you lose and when you gain.
Tenderly He watches over you
Every step, ever mile of the way.
Long before time began
You were part of His plan;
Let no fear cloud your brow,
He will not forsake you now.
Tenderly He watches over you
Every step, every mile of the way.
__________________
Sam also known as Jim Ellis
Apostolic in doctrine
Pentecostal in experience
Charismatic in practice
Non-denominational in affiliation
Inter-denominational in fellowship
When I read your post I thought of something I heard when I was quite young in the Lord. I was attending Bethel Tabernacle (UPC) in Racine, WI. We used to have a monthly fellowship meeting that rotated from church to church. There would be time in the afternoon when various ministers spoke, then dinner was served, and after dinner would be a Pentecostal Conquerors Service followed by an evening service. One afternoon Geneva Bailey, a missionary to Liberia spoke.
She told about ministering in Africa. At that time before the UPC had an airplane there, the people had to walk a lot. Sis. Bailey had a journey of 125 miles (if I remember correctly) and had to walk it. Part of the trip involved fording rivers. She had worn a blister on her foot which had broken and she had blood poisoning. She felt like she had gone as far as she could go and sat down under a tree and prayed. She believed she was dying and she just could not pray any more. So, she asked God to lay her on someone's heart who could touch God for her. God intervened and she got up healed.
Later while traveling in the U.S. she told this and found out "the rest of the story." By comparing times and dates she found out that at the time she felt like she was dying and asked the Lord to lay her on someone's heart, someone gave a message in tongues in a church in Texas. When the interpretation was given it was an exhortation to pray for Sis. Bailey because she was dying of poisoning. The folks there in Texas thought that she may have been poisoned by unfriendly natives and they prayed corporately for her. It was at that exact time that she felt God's hand upon her in Africa and she was able to get up and resume her journey.
awesome bro mike .. good story .. i have made that call a few times to pastor friends when i was evangelising .. but i already had there number lol. just need to know they needed to hear a right word for that situation.
again thx for sharing that , it just needs to happen once to spark a fire in your faith!keep on going on bro.
I had something happen to me once while ministering in the early 90's. I dreamed on a Saturday night that I called a pastor in a church across the country, whom I personally know, and told him on the phone that people are believing God with him. I also told him to especially tell his wife people are praying and everything is going to be alright.
As soon as I woke up, I know I had to fulfill that dream and call. So I called that Sunday morning, and got his answering machine. I explained on the voice mail what I dreamed.
I forgot all about it, and actually spoke at his church that following summer. As he introduced me to the pulpit, he turned around to me with tears in his eyes and said he will never forget the message I left on his answering machine. He said he had been going through a terrible ordeal, and prayed and asked God to have someone call him on the very day that I called, and five people including me ended up calling him out of the blue. It gave him the faith he needed to go through his trial.
Wow. God is awesome!
__________________ ...MY THOUGHTS, ANYWAY.
"Many Christians do not try to understand what was written in a verse in the Bible. Instead they approach the passage to prove what they already believe."
My ministry from when I was a youth leader in my late teens and twenty's was to reach out to people in need. I would ask God to lead me to someone every service, and he would many times the first time I would approach someone, they would tell me no everything was alright. and I would ask God if he truly spoke to me. But the next time they would open up for many years we would have young people ot our house after work that were going rough times encouraging them. Because of this I learned to know Gods voice and my faith was built more each time God used me.
So when I went through a rough time for 4 years, the only reason I went to church was because of my upbringing. But every service God met with me and knew just what I needed to get me through. Years later My freind and the pastor of the church we were assosiating with at the time told he, all he could do was pray he was afraid if he said any thing it would put me over the end. With God I made it through he new just how to keep me and to keep others from me.
So yest God does have our # every time I would ask God if he had forgoten me something would happen to let me know God still knew where I was.
__________________
Study the word with and open heart For if you do, Truth Will Prevail
__________________
"God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours."
--David Livingstone
"To see no being, not God’s or any, but you also go thither,
To see no possession but you may possess it—enjoying all without labor or purchase—
abstracting the feast, yet not abstracting one particle of it;…."
--Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Song of the Open Road
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