Clear Vision:
Stopping for stoplights can be an interesting thing here in Bolivia. Most of the time there will be someone either selling fruit, juggling, or wanting to wash your windshield. Their goal of course is that you give them a coin or two at the end. Many of the people refuse to let them wash their windshield by turning on their wipers because they don’t want to have to give them money. The other day while one of the kids was washing my windshield I thought “Wouldn’t it be interesting if someone came out to wash windshields, not for money, but to show God’s love for them?” This past month that is exactly what we did. We chose an intersection, or a round-a-bout in reality, not too far from the church where a good number of cars pass by. We prepared small packets with a few tracts and one of our customized pens from the church. We calculated that the light changed every 25 seconds or so, so we had to work fast if we were going to wash their window and give them the info. We divided into teams of two and spread out along the side of the road. While we didn’t get to wash a window at every light we did at least get to hand out several packets each time. The two hundred packets that we prepared were gone in less than a half an hour. We continued for a while longer just handing out tract and inviting people to church. I think it really had an impact on the people and you should have seen their faces when we said that we wanted to wash their windshield but for free. Some even tried to give us coins afterwards and they were even more shocked when we refused. Our prayer is that these people would not only be able to see better because of a clean window but that they would also be able to see and know the love of God in their lives.
SOAP:
You might be asking why I would write an article entitled SOAP. Besides being something good for good personal hygiene it is also a great way to keep up with your personal devotional time. One of the most important things for us as Christians, and perhaps the most neglected, is our devotional time with the Lord. Psalm 1:2,3 tells us that if we delight and meditate in the law of the Lord regularly that He will bless and prosper us. The problem is that often we don’t know how to effectively read our Bibles and get something out of it. Bible reading can become dull and meaningless. Well the other day while listening to a podcast, I heard someone speaking about a method to maintain our Bible reading and devotional time called SOAP. I think it has been around for sometime and there is even a website where you can subscribe to keep up with your devotions. Using this method has really helped me and changed my devotional time. So what does SOAP stand for. It is an acronym that stands for Scripture, Observation, Application, and Prayer.
1. Scripture:
This is where you read your Bible and when there is a certain passage stands out or that the Lord uses to speak to you, you write those specific verses down.
2. Observation:
From there you write out your observation of the passage or what the verse is teaching. This might be more than one thing but it is good to try and focus on one or maybe two things to make it easier.
3. Application:
This is where you write the application to the passage. This would be how you can apply the verse in your own life.
4. Prayer:
The last step is to turn the application into a prayer. Our devotional time is not just about reading the Bible but also turning what we read into a prayer to the Lord.
If your devotional time has become stagnant or almost non-existent, try this new method to put life back into your time with the Lord.
Prayer Requests:
1. Pray for our upcoming youth conference in July with Bro. Jeff Bush
2. Pray for our evangelistic efforts as we spread the gospel in many different ways in Bolivia.
3. Pray for our church, the church in Irpa Irpa and also the work we are starting in Quillacollo.
4. Pray that there will continue to be unity and teamwork in the churches for the Lord’s glory.