I have known for awhile now that my spiritual gifting lies in pastoring, shepherding and teaching. I love working as a marriage and family intern, but I also love to teach! When I am using my gifts to serve Him, I feel His pleasure!
I talked to the ladies about the beauty in the Old Testament when the Israelites would erect stone markers to commemorate God’s faithfulness. In Joshua 4 the Israelites created two stone markers in order to remember God’s help in crossing the Jordan River. As Christians I think that we too need to erect markers in our minds of God’s faithfulness in our lives. I shared one of my markers of God’s faithfulness in my life with the ladies, and then I encouraged them to erect markers in their minds of God’s faithfulness.
After finishing teaching I went for a walk in the mountains with a new friend. During our hike, I looked down and a smooth river stone caught my eye, but I kept walking. After walking a few steps, I turned back, picked up the stone and put it in my pocket as a marker of what God has done for me, where I have been, who I am in Christ and that the Lord is always with me! Being able to teach and testify about the power of God in my life and the freedom He offers is a desire of my heart; one that I have quietly held for years. “Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4 NASB
Ladies of Calvary Bible and my dear friends, this is my prayer for you and… me: “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:14-21 NASB
(c) Daena Longenecker
