Encouragement Letters
Published by Barnabas International • PO Box 11211 • Rockford, IL 61126 • Volume XVII • No. 6 • June 2003
LEE HOTCHKISS, Executive Director <> LAREAU LINDQUIST, Founder
TRANSFORMATION . . . it's a great word. The Bible is filled with the stories of individuals who were transformed by the work of God in their lives. History, too, tells the stories of many more who were touched by God and then transformed by Him. This same miracle of transformation is still taking place in the lives of people all over the world. It happened again just weeks ago in Iraq.
PEOPLE MAGAZINE, in its issue of May 5, 2003, tells the story of David Bloom, a television reporter. He was on assignment in Iraq. Suddenly and unexpectedly, this young man died. Not from war wounds but from a pulmonary embolism. His wife, Melanie, received an e-mail from David just hours before his death. Observe the prophetic tone of the e-mail (quoted in part below).
Mel,
. . . You can't begin to fathom, cannot begin to even glimpse the enormity of the changes I have, and am continuing to undergo. God takes you to the depths of your being, until you're at rock bottom, and then, if you turn to Him with utter and blind faith and resolve in your heart and mind to walk only with Him and towards Him, He picks you up with your bootstraps and leads you home. I am at peace, Mel. I am at peace with God and with you.
. . . Save this note. Look at it a month from now, a year from now, ten years from now. You cannot know now, nor do I, whether you will look back at it with tears, heartbreak, and a sense of anguish and regret over what might have been, or whether you will say he was and is a changed man. God has worked a miracle in our lives . . . .
With love and devotion,
Dave
What a remarkable e-mail. What a remarkable story of transformation. Don't be surprised if you notice some common ingredients in your own process of transformation that were present in his.
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Change might be slow or rapid, even limitless.
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The catalyst for change might be tough times, even at rock bottom times. David, Job, and Peter are three biblical models of this.
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God is engineering it in His own time and in His own way. He is the Author of change, the real Transformer. I know of no one else.
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Keep your focus on Him alone.
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Don't hesitate using the term, miracle, in describing His work in you. David, the Psalmist, generously used that word in describing what God did in David's time and also in the times that preceded David. Miracles then . . . and miracles now. He is the Miracle-Worker.
Stuart Hamblen wrote the gospel song, IT IS NO SECRET. The refrain goes like this: It is no secret what God can do. What He's done for others, He'll do for you. With arms wide open, He'll pardon you. It is no secret what God can do.
What about you? In your life, is change taking place? Is the process of transformation happening? What about some long lingering areas that need transformation?
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