It's Not Over Until You WinSample

Give Generously “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son...” (John 3:16). God loved, so God gave. We too should give. There is power in giving. We can give time, money, love, compassion; really, we can give a lot of things. It doesn’t matter how broke we are; we can always find a way to give something to someone. Even if we don’t have any material possessions at all, we can still pray for someone and show compassion and kindness. Even when we are extremely busy, we can find a few minutes in our day to be a blessing to someone. The strain of life and ministry can push you to the brink. If you aren’t careful, you can come to the end of yourself, wondering if it is all worth it. How do you find the strength to keep moving on, to keep fighting against enormous opposition, when every fiber of your being is screaming, “Give up!” I have found that during those times, it is best to find someone to whom you can generously give love, financial blessing, or prayer. One of the times I wanted to totally give up was during a season when I had gotten infected with parasites and wanted to die. That would have been the most extreme form of giving up. Instead, God told me to give. He told me to call 10 people every day who were sicker than I was and pray for their healing. I thought, God, that is impossible. I can’t do it. Still, each day He gave me 10 people to call, and I would call them and pray with them. God also told me that I had to be totally positive while I was on the phone with them. That was extremely difficult. I could not complain about how badly I felt. I could not comment on how sick they were or how drastic their physical condition appeared to be. Many times, those were very short calls because it was hard to find positive things to say! In those cases, I prayed and then quickly said, “Goodbye.” But by giving to them through the phone call and prayer, even when I felt that I had nothing to give, God changed me and put me in a place to receive total healing.