Danna
Shirley
This phrase
conjures up so many scenarios that it is difficult to even calculate the
results. My “what if” thoughts tend toward my life with my husband, Ron.
What if his ship hadn’t come into port in San
Pablo, California where I lived in 1968? He was there for just three short
months before going to Viet Nam for the third time but it was long enough for
us to meet, get engaged, and marry upon his return.
What if there had not been that fateful meeting
that took me away from my family and everything I knew in California and sent
me to a place and culture I didn’t know in Montgomery, Alabama. This was just
the beginning of Navy life living in three countries and seven states over the
course of our thirty-four years together.
What if Ron’s separation from the Navy hadn’t
led us to his employment with Alabama Power in Demopolis and eventually to his
decision to pursue continuing education which brought us back to Montgomery?
What if our short time there hadn’t brought us
to attend First Assembly of God Church before moving on to our next
destination?
What if our hearts hadn’t been ripe for harvest to
bring us both to His saving grace and our salvation through the testimony of Betty Baxter?
(Note: It is important to understand we
had lived in Montgomery several different times and had the opportunity to
attend this church previously but in God’s grand scheme of things “our
hearts weren’t ripe for harvest” until May, 1980.
What
if
Betty Baxter hadn’t been healed from a crippling and debilitating condition
that led her to serve God and give her testimony the rest of her life? Her
faithfulness to God brought her to speak at First Assembly of God Church, which
brought us to our salvation?
This is not to
say we each wouldn’t find God another way by His leading but would I have this
family . . . my family now?
We were just two
people out of billions and billions over time in whom God orchestrated down the
long path of life to dwell in our present place in His kingdom.
Here’s another
exciting chain of events to follow…
What if a young teacher named Edward Kimball hadn’t taken a Saturday and sought to help a
young man understand what the gospel was all about? He went to the shoe store
where he was stocking shelves and led Dwight L. Moody to receive the Lord.
What if this
young man hadn’t received salvation in the stockroom of that shoe store? D. L. Moody wouldn’t have touched two continents for God, with
untold thousands coming to faith in Jesus Christ.
What if another
man’s heart was not touched by God under Moody’s preaching? Wilbur Chapman was an evangelist who preached to thousands.
One day, a professional ball player had a day off and attended one of Chapman’s
meetings, and thus, Billy Sunday was converted.
What if this
baseball player, Billy Sunday, hadn't quit baseball and become part of Chapman's team. When Chapman accepted the pastorate of a large church, Billy Sunday began his own evangelistic crusades. A young man named Mordecai Ham attended one of these crusades and was converted.
What if this
scholarly and dignified gentleman, Mordecai Ham, had
decided he wouldn’t go listen to an ex-baseball player? Then he wouldn’t have come
to Charlotte, NC to preach against a house of ill repute located right across
from the local high school. Some male students were going to interrupt the
meetings and a young man named Billy Frank Graham decided to see what would
happen.
What if the most famous
evangelist of our day, Billy Graham, hadn’t been
curious to attend the meeting of Mordecai Ham? He wouldn’t have given his heart
to Jesus in 1934 and as a result, travel the world and preach the gospel to
approximately 2.2 billion people.
As the old saying goes,
"You can count the apples on a tree,
but only God knows how many apples are in a single seed.”
We
cannot possibly know how many lives have been converted by Billy Graham or how
many more seeds have come to fruition through him and Ham, and Sunday, and
Chapman, and Moody, and Kimball, or even you and me.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that
not of yourselves;
it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should
boast
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.
which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
(Eph 2:8-10)
All
we can do is be faithful with our part in and for the Kingdom and trust God
for the results.
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