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As we've had an opportunity to get acquainted, I've shared with you that surprised by God describes my testimony. One of God's great surprises came in East Berlin during the early 1970s. I was visiting an elderly East German pastor when he began to tell me that 100,000 hardcore atheist, communist youth would be gathering in East Germany the following year. He said, "They will come from all over the world and be trained to reach the world for communism and atheism." He then looked me straight in the eyes and said, "I want you to pray about coming to the meeting and preaching the gospel to these young people."
I was shocked. "They wouldn't let me do that". I protested. The old man wouldn't let me off the hook. "This will be a pseudo-freedom affair," he said. "They will try to impress the world with a false sense of freedom. You pray about it."
I made the mistake. I prayed about it. God spoke deeply to my heart one word, "Go." With two friends of mine, Fred Bishop and Fred Starkweather, we returned to Germany and infiltrated the Communist Youth World Festival. We couldn't believe our eyes. As far as we could see to the north, east, south, and west, there was one solid mass of communist youth. I don't have time to tell you how we reached those young people. I'll do that in the coming months. Suffice it to say we saw 200 of these hardcore communist youth place their faith in Jesus Christ. Ninety five percent of these young people followed through with their commitments to Christ and became involved in local churches through out Eastern Europe.
I was invited to speak in many of those churches. Consequently, the Holy Spirit birthed an evangelistic ministry that now spans the entire globe. If I have learned any lesson through that experience, it's simply this. If we will be faithful to God's call upon our lives, He will surprise us by His sovereignty and we'll come to understand what the Scripture means when it says that He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think.
Have you been faithful in the little things of the Christian life? If so, you may find that one day God will surprise you with things beyond your imagination. For Jesus said that whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with very much.
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