It's Thursday Number 2

13 November 2014

'Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, "The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her."' Genesis 16:1-1,2

Satan loves to tempt us using our nearest and dearest whose motives may well be good ones. Sadly, Abram would have done far better to have relied on God rather than listen to what turned out to be a foolish suggestion. The fact that God might appear slow in fulfilling his promise to us, or that it seems an impossible or ridiculous pipe-dream is no reason not to believe in he 'who is able to do more than we ask for or imagine,' (Eph 3:20). Admittedly, God had not said that Abram's seed would be of Sarai, but she was the woman he was married to. Why would God have Abram seek an answer outside that which he had clearly ordained? (Genesis 2:24).

It all ended in unhappiness for all concerned. When we resort to relying on human wisdom and understanding rather than seeking God's counsel, the inevitable results are always disappointment and unhappiness. Maybe that is also why we see so few miracles today. 'Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding,' (Proverbs 3:5).

God bless you all.

Howard Webber
SA Officer, retired

Bournemouth, England

Christianity Magazine's Book of the Year 2010, Meeting Jesus, is now available for your Kindle!

Extraordinary moving stories of evangelism on the hard side of life. 

By A UK Reviewer

Fred is high on drugs and doesn't want Howard Webber, the then Salvation Army captain, to come round to his flat because it is in chaos, rather like Fred himself. They meet, instead, in the cafe at a supermarket in a nearby town. But the road isn't straight and we follow the twists and turns of Howard and Fred's relationship - through missed promises, desperate heartache and self-destruction and final redemption.

This book is perhaps the most extraordinary one I've reviewed since writing for Christianity. It is a series of stories of evangelism on the hard side of life. It is painfully honest and lists as many failures as successes, as many deaths as new lives. Documenting Webber's spiritual battles too, it is possibly the most moving set of accounts I've ever read, and the most hopeful. It is all too easy to see the role of being God's ambassadors as reduced to preaching, or set among those who we love and are safe. But this book challenges us to be where Jesus would be, with the down-and-outs, with the hopeless and the broken. It looks the cost of such ministry square in the eye and carries on just the same. Please buy this book.

Steve Morris

Christianity magazine (UK), October 2010

AMAZON COMMENT

5.0 out of 5 stars

This is an inspiration! 
By Fairlee E. Winfield VINE VOICE


I grew up as a Salvationist and this modest, small book makes me proud of that heritage. I am reading and rereading a chapter daily. Major Howard Webber is honest. His sincerity shines through in each chapter. He relates not only the trophies of grace won for Jesus, but the painful failures. There is a real sense of warmth that the reader can touch.

TO ORDER: AMAZON