It was a great victory when each of my children bowed their hearts to the claims of the Gospel and trusted Jesus Christ as Savior. The next great spiritual goal in my mind for my children is for them to totally surrender their lives to the Lord. Each needs to realize that after salvation, he or she needs to present his or her life as a living sacrifice to God.
As I look at Josiah, it often seems too soon for him to be involved in youth activities with other seventh through twelfth graders. Yet, he is in the seventh grade and is perfectly eligible to go to youth meetings, my nostalgia notwithstanding. Because of the broken down trailer and our being detained in Mobile, Alabama, we were asked to join the church youth group in a trip to Acworth, Georgia, to a youth rally in which several churches were involved. Josiah came with us while a family from the church watched our younger children in Mobile.
The music and the preaching at the youth rally were Christ-honoring and Scriptural, and Josiah sat on the front row taking it all in. After hearing a message on Abraham offering up Isaac to God, Josiah decided to give to God his most prized possession, his life. After hearing how God wants what matters most to us, the decision was very plain in his mind. He would surrender his life to do whatever God wanted him to do.
As different young people were responding in the invitation, one of the rally workers approached me and asked me to deal with Josiah, not realizing he was my son. So it was that father and son got a chance to speak freely about this monumental decision. It was a time of real tenderness on Josiah’s part and great victory for me as his father.
My dealing with Josiah was not unlike my dealing with anyone who makes public a decision of total surrender. I stressed to him that the decision of full surrender is one that must be revisited daily. He must remind himself of this promise often, lest he be tempted to take back what he has given to God. Only God knows what Josiah will ultimately do, but as long as recalls this decision made at this rally today, God will gently lead him every step of the way.
I invite all of you who pray for us to rejoice with me over the broken down trailer. I invite you to praise the God Whose ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts. The seeming difficulties we have faced with the trailer are more than worthwhile when we consider all that God has done in the lives of many in our extended stay in lower AL. Praise the Lord!
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