"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." — Proverbs 3:5-6
I want to tell you about a man who dug a well on a tropical island while his neighbors thought he had lost his mind. And when the water came up, they concluded he must be a god.
His name was John G. Paton, and when he arrived on the island of Aniwa in the South Pacific in the 1860s, the people there were cannibals. Literally. And everybody back home in Scotland knew it. When Paton announced he was going as a missionary to the New Hebrides islands, a well-meaning church elder grabbed him by the arm and said, "The cannibals! You will be eaten by cannibals!" Paton looked at the man calmly and replied that his body would be eaten by worms in the grave soon enough anyway, and it made little difference whether it was worms or cannibals, as long as he was found faithful to Christ.
That is a man who had settled something on the inside.
Now, Aniwa had no fresh water. The islanders depended entirely on rain, and they were skeptical that anything useful could possibly come from the ground beneath their feet. Paton told them he was going to dig a well and find fresh water. They thought he was either deluded or dangerous. He dug down, and down, and down in the tropical heat, day after day. And then one morning, fresh water bubbled up from the coral ground of that island, something that had never happened in living memory.
The people of Aniwa stood there with their mouths open. They called it a miracle. And through that well, a door swung open for the gospel that changed the entire island. Within fifteen years, the whole of Aniwa had come to faith in Jesus Christ. Paton later wrote, with tears, that he had claimed Aniwa for Jesus, and that Aniwa now worshipped at the Savior's feet.
History is just HIS story.
Here is what I have had to learn over these many years. God will sometimes ask you to dig where nobody thinks there is any water. To trust Him in a direction that looks foolish to everyone watching. That is not the absence of wisdom. That is Proverbs 3:5 with a shovel in its hands, "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding."
What is God asking you to dig into today, that looks impossible to everyone around you? Maybe it is time to pick up your shovel.
Let's pray: Father, give us the courage of men and women like John Paton, who trusted You past the point where their own understanding ran out. When You call us to dig, help us dig. In Jesus' name, Amen.
#Faith #Missions #TrustGod #ChristianLiving #DailyDevotion #Perseverance #BiblicalWisdom #RTTBROS #Nightlight
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