Karen Mains and her husband attended her 50th high school reunion. Throughout the whole two days, she heard testimonies about spiritual journeys. One friend referred to a chat in the locker room with a Christian friend and how certain words spoken about Jesus Christ had helped to inform a spiritual conversion. Another said, “I was raised Catholic, but I really became serious about faith after I met and married my wife.” These kinds of encounters happened over and over.

J. Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission, was truly God’s chosen servant. Yet even he found that the hardest part of the Christian life was to maintain regular, prayerful Bible study. “Satan will always find you something to do,” he would say, “when you ought to be occupied about that, if it is only arranging a window blind.”

Someone emailed that he had had an eye-opening experience as he sat with his wife and friends and talked about a crucial experience he had as a six-year-old that still troubled him.

At our Citywide prayer, Amy told that because she had been a frail child, her Buddhist parents dedicated her to, not just one, but to two gods. When she was in her twenties, she became a Christian. One night as she lay in bed, she felt she was being choked. The next morning she had black eyes and bruise marks on her arms as though she had been pinched repeatedly.

Evelyn Christenson shivered in her hotel room in Australia one winter Sunday evening. Chills from a sore throat, plus sitting all that day in cold buildings, left her miserable. She bit an apple, but her throat hurt too much to swallow it. And starting early the next morning, she was scheduled to speak all day!

If only our test of faithfulness would be preceded by a loud warning buzzer and a bright flashing neon sign, we’d always be faithful. But our faithfulness is tested when we least expect it just as it was for King Josash in 2 Kings 13.

Monday I received this encouraging report from a nurse friend in Pennsylvania. Here it is as she shared it with me:

“Yesterday, 1/30/2022, 11:05 our daughter Natalie and I had a WhatsApp call to talk about Emma our 5 year old granddaughter. We had been communicating throughout the morning off and on. Emma started vomiting and had diarrhea since the day before, and even though Natalie had been waking her up in 15 minute increments to try to give her ice chips, jello cubes or electrolyte solution, Emma was becoming more difficult to awaken and less responsive. We were going to wait just a bit more before calling an ambulance and making the 20 minute journey to a hospital. I should say, they are in a new country and we’re not sure if they could stay with Emma once the ambulance came.

Janine Tartaglia, as an anchorwoman for television news, became a Christian after observing the faith of the parents of one of the Americans taken hostage in Iran. A year later, God called her into full-time ministry, so she left her career in journalism desiring to minister at her home church. She enrolled in seminary courses and then marched into Pastor Lee’s office to reveal her plans.