For those who may not know, I attend Shekinah Glory Outreach Ministries; a non denominational Christian Church located in Norfolk, Va. Yesterday around 8pm, I received a text messages and it read:
“As you may or may not know our church caught on fire and we can’t have service there” then it went on to say “we will have service at the Renaissance Hotel”.
After reading this text message, I immediately went to my mother and asked her if she heard about the news, she checked her email and there it was — an email from the pastoral assistant confirming the text message I just received.
Giving you some background information about our church, in late 2008, Shekinah Glory Outreach Ministries was birthed; however, we didn’t have a building to worship in from late 2008 until March of this year so we worshiped in a public school each Sunday. It wasn’t until mid march that God blessed the congregation with a building of our very own to worship in. God showed his divine favor upon us as He blessed the church to do what would have taken others years to do. We (the church) knew that God blessed us with this building and for it to be gone means a lot to us.
When my family and I arrived to the hotel today for service, we walked into a room filled with worship and praise. The local news channel was there as well. We praised God with our voice singing songs of praise unto Him and shouting “glory!” to his name. Being honest, I personally wasn’t expecting to see that today (not so early in the service). I thought maybe there were going to be people crying, and they were, but it wasn’t because of the building, it was because we know that God will make provisions for his people. If He allowed this situation to happen, then God must have another building for us to worship in.
Today, I want to talk about there being a greater glory. I entitled this blog, “a greater glory” because there are going to be times when God will allow things to happen in your life and you won’t understand why he allowed it –but just know there’s a greater glory. Sometimes God will allow things to happen and we stand there before the Lord crying and upset with God because we feel as though he’s the blame, however, that’s incorrect, there’s just a greater glory and our plans are not always God’s plans.
What do I mean by, “there’s a greater glory”? Let’s look at the story of Gideon and the Midianites (Judges 7 and 8). Gideon and the Midianities were going into war against each other, but before the war started the Lord said to Gideon,
You have too many warriors with you. If I let all of you fight the Midianites, the Israelites will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength. Therefore, tell the people, ‘Whoever is timid or afraid may leave this mountain and go home. So 22,000 of them went home, leaving only 10,000 who were willing to fight.
There’s more to the story
But the Lord told Gideon, “There are still too many! Bring them down to the spring, and I will test them to determine who will go with you and who will not.” When Gideon took his warriors down to the water, the Lord told him, “Divide the men into two groups. In one group put all those who cup water in their hands and lap it up with their tongues like dogs. In the other group put all those who kneel down and drink with their mouths in the stream.” Only 300 of the men drank from their hands. All the others got down on their knees and drank with their mouths in the stream.
The Lord told Gideon, “With these 300 men I will rescue you and give you victory over the Midianites. Send all the others home.”
As you can see, Gideon had 32,000 men in his army, however, God didn’t want the men to boost and think they won the battle by their own strength so God brought Gideon’s army from 32,000 men to only 10,000, yet this was still too many. It wasn’t until there were only 300 men that God was pleased. God wanted the glory and didn’t want anyone to steal it from Him. He didn’t want Gideon’s army to boost of their own strengths.
In this situation, we see that if Gideon is going to successfully defeat the Midianites, it required Gideon to have faith in the Lord. Understand that the Midianites had well over 100,000 men in their army and that there’s a greater glory when 300 men battles against 100,000 men (and win) vs. 32,000 men against 100,000.
Bringing this back over to the situation at hand, though my church and I may not understand why God allowed a fire to take place, we will trust in the Lord and know that even this situation will be used to glorify God; out of this situation comes a greater glory and victory and though we may not understand, God does everything to His greater purpose.
I want to encourage you today and let you know that if God allows it, God made provisions for it. Don’t let your circumstances consume and worry you. Know that God is in control. If God gives you instructions, understand that you’re not always going to know why God instructed you to do it, just trust in God and know it’s to His glory.
The fire that took place on the 4th of July was no coincidence, God allowed it to happen and I will rejoice because God didn’t let that fire happen on a Sunday during church service. I thank God that no one was at the church when the fire took place. God defiantly kept a shield of protections around us and I thank Him for it. Know that even through the hard times, during the times when you just don’t know why a particular situation occurred or how God allowed “this” to happen, know that there’s a greater glory and purpose. Be blessed in Jesus name.
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Where are you from? Is it a secret?
Have a nice day
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Virginia Beach, Virginia =]
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Amen!!!!!
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true in deed, during a situation, we always question why this why that bt God does things for a reason, amen
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