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An Entrapment Gone Good; Christian Story by bpw 7-7-10
Topic Started: Apr 19 2014, 03:11 PM (191 Views)
A thinker
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***In the following fictious story "the/a man of God," "the meager Christian / man of God", and "the Christian Farmer" are all the same character.

A man of God is visited by an angel of God. The man of God went to his knees, as all men do, in fear (and justly so) for being in the presence of a being from God. The angel of God spoke to the man of God saying, "Rise, for God has heard your prayers." The man of God spoke saying, "For which I did as God is my master and I His servant." The angel of God replied, "To this is why I have been sent. Thou hast in thine heart the word of God and thou has a need and that need is in company with confusion. Thou has not sought thy master, God, for counsel on thou's heart's need and confusion."

The man of God was deeply beside himself because he did not know of any such need nor confusion in his heart. He had given everything of himself to God and was extremely distressed that God saw something he had not known was there. The man of God's distress was even further complicated because he was aware that the angel of God had pointed out that he not only hid something from God but in addition he had been disobedient in not giving even his hidden unknown needs to God. You must understand that this man of God thought he had been completely obedient in all aspects of his life and then to be visited from an angel of God to be told you had not been was complexing because why would God send and angel to notify him of his error instead of revealing his error through the Holy Spirit.

God, knowing the entirety of all men's hearts (to include the deepest most "hidden" areas of a man's heart), sent the angel of God to His servant not to reveal His servant the error of his ways of disobedience but to give the man of God resolve and reward in recognition for his obedience.

The man of God remained silent before the angel of God but his thoughts were still preoccupied with what he had unknowingly hid from God. The angel, knowing the man of God, knew he was not focused on God's will of wanting to bless him so the angel of God told the man of God not of his fortune nor of his present disobedience and said, "Servant of God, I have been sent to inform you that because you have not given your heart to God, you shall be facing a life changing decision in short-time and that depending on your decision will determine the blessing you receive from God."

The man of God bowed his head realizing that God would now be teaching him for his disobedience. Upon raising his head the angel of God was gone. A few months had passed and the man of God was no more of understanding that which was hidden and confused in his heart. The man, recall, was a man of God and after the few months of praying for understanding any prayer revealed nothing to him; the man of God resolved to give the situation to God to reveal to him his heart's secret and clarify the associated confusion. This was as the man of God had done all his life and had always been rewarded with God revealing to him answers in God's time.

A few more weeks had gone by and the situation was not a part of the man of God and his meager way of life. A stranger approached the man of God's abode and begged for shade and provision. Many a traveler, in the man of God's life, passed by the man of God's meager dwelling and God always provided the man of God a means to provide so the man of God gave that which was given to him by God's grace and in doing found the traveler to be unique in that he was mysterious yet definitely a man of God. Hence, the two Christian men conversed while the traveler took of bread and water in the company of the meager Christian's home.

The traveler, upon sharing the meager Christian's hospitality and discussion about the word of God, rose and gave thanks to God for a fellow Christian's service to Him and asked for God to bless the fellow man of God and then sought his leave to continue his travels.

The man of God, still puzzled of his fellow Christian brother's mysteriousness and thought of him briefly longer then discarded his brother as just another traveler on his way to do God's biding and that God had given him the means to provide for his fellow Christian brother with a brief and meager break in his walk with God, went on in his service to God for the remainder of the day.

A few days had passed when the man of God was visited by a rare traveler. This traveler was seen regularly yet he rarely stopped at the meager Christian's home because the deliverer was about nothing but his profession as well as the meager Christian lived a meager life and had no need for the deliverer to stop on his route at the meager Christian's house. There had been only two other occasions where the deliverer had stopped and on those occasions where the deliverer stopped it was immediately obvious the deliverer was about getting on his way by asking for a signature and then going on his way.

This time the meager Christian was given more of the deliverer's time and conversation. The deliverer stated that a mysterious man had approached him inquiring of the deliverer's route and upon the route being given the deliverer was further asked if he would deliver a letter to an address on the deliverer's route. Now none of this was irregular until the deliverer said he was perplexed by the mysterious man's appreciation of his services by saying, "May God continue to bless you child of God." Being recently saved, the deliverer was more about his profession than that of God; yet, he confessed that God had been blessing him and that because of receipt of God's blessings the deliverer was convicted to deliverer the mysterious man's letter immediately. The deliverer stated he guessed the mysterious man was part of the congregation of the church he attended and had probably just not recognized the mysterious man in church before in regards to the mysterious man knowing of his recent salvation. The deliverer did not wait for the meager Christian's rebuttal, as being of his profession, and simply handed the meager Christian the letter and parted on his way.

The man of God was joyous to hear about another child of God being brought into the service of God and prayed that God's new child to be receptive and obedient in the child's service to God. The meager Christian prayed for this because he was of knowing how children innocently stray from their parent's (God's) sayings and will struggle on their own before seeking God anew.

The meager Christian took the letter addressed to, My Brother In Christ, and signed, God's Servant. The letter revealed and resurfaced the man of God's visit from the angel of God. The letter stated that the mysterious man was in fact a man of immense wealth and had been convicted, after his visit with the meager Christian, to offer the meager Christian a choice of two different properties in which the letter further described the properties. The letter closed stating that the meager Christian, upon making his decision, was to go and ask of the caretaker of the property of his choosing and tell the caretaker, "God has deemed me to be the new master of this residence," and upon telling the caretaker this the meager Christian would receive the deed to and all the belongings to whichever property he chose.

The meager Christian knew this was the life changing decision God had told him about in his visit from the angel of God and after reading the letter got down on his knees and praised God for beginning his lesson and asked for God's wisdom in making the decision on which property to chose and thanked God for the gift.

Being God had blessed the meager Christian with such a great gift and the man being of God's will, the meager Christian did not hastily act upon receipt of the letter and did not make his decision right away. The meager Christian prayed and meditated on the word of God, reflected on life lessons God had already taught him and others and surmised two things God had always done for him was to reveal what was needed of Him and that by obediently doing God's will he always reaped good rewards in which he was then able to return such rewards to God because they were in fact not his too keep but to be used to further glorify God's will. This way of obedience to God was how the meager Christian was able to never take honor or possess earthly gains and ultimately a means to do God's will.

Six months had passed since the meager Christian had received the letter from his fellow brother in Christ. The decision had yet to be made on which property to choose. This was truly an extremely generous gift of greatness from his brother in Christ because of the value associated to each property. One property had a 20 bedroom mansion and various means of transportation, staff to maintain the enormous property and the property's other belongings, a garden house that was an established and flourishing business which provided the income to compensate for all the expenses associated to overseeing such a diverse and immense property.

The other property was, on the surface, less enticing but had many good attributes that offered endless possibilities. The other property had a stream running through it, 1,000 acres (1/2 forested and 1/2 cultivated farm land). The only staff were a widowed woman with two sons of which the three took the responsibilities as the caretakers. The only structures were an enormous barn and a two story, four bedroom farmhouse which was occupied by the caretakers. This property was also allotted two vehicles (a pick-up truck and a tractor). The property was known to provide a very large sum of annual income and this profit was kept in a banking account which would also be part of the deed to this property.

The seventh month had arrived and the man of God was still no closer to making a decision than he was when he received the letter. The wealthy Christian returned a visit to the meager Christian not in an attempt to persuade the meager Christian to make a decision but yet with another conviction from the Holy Spirit. The wealthy Christian informed the meager Christian that the Holy Spirit had convicted him to relay to the meager Christian that the meager Christian's decision was not for God to make but was a decision he was to make from that which was in his heart.

Upon hearing this, the man of God collapsed to the ground and began crying and thanked the wealthy Christian for delivering the message in-person this time. The wealthy Christian was now the curious and mystified one because he had not expected such a simple message to result in such a severe reception. Still lying prostrated on the floor of his meager home, and crying, the meager Christian said a simple prayer of thanks to God, "Always faithful God, thank you for showing me my heart's need and clarifying the confusion."

The wealthy Christian knew there was profound depthness in the meager Christian's prayer and was convicted not to inquire of the meaning and prayed over his brother Christian, what he presumed was a time of grievance, during his brother Christian's seeming time of need and then silently excused himself and left still awed and mystified.

The next day the meager Christian rose after the best sleep he had in seven months, since he began praying to God on which property to choose, and collected his meager belongings and moved into the farmhouse with the widow and her two sons.

Four years passed and many blessings continued to be bestowed upon the man of God because his life was now complete in that even though a hidden and desired thing was kept from God and including all his service to God, God knew His child and saw to reward His child in which teaching His child He let His child know that He knew his heart and what he hid was not bad but the wrong and disobedience he had dis-serviced upon God was thinking he could hide and keep anything from God.

The man of God married the widow for she too was a woman of God as were her two sons. Now in their fifties, the man and woman of God were able to serve God beyond their prayers. They helped struggling families by letting them farm the land that helped provide food and income to the struggling families. The forested part of the property was developed into housing in which the forest provided the lumber to make the homes. The two sons, being college educated, began Christian insurance and real estate companies to assist the struggling families with moving into insured homes on the now developed forested property. The state realized the historic and natural value of the stream running through the property and assisted the man of God and his family to establish the river and its surrounding land as a federally funded national park in which the federal funds provided employment for the struggling families. The struggling families used the income from their national park jobs to repay loans to the man of God and his family that had been lent out over the years from the man of God and his family to those struggling families.

The man of God lived another 35 years in abundant blessings of God and always returned his blessings to the service and glory of God. On his death bed the man of God pulled a sealed letter from his bed stand and asked his wife to give it to the delivery man and that he'd know who to give the letter to. His beloved wife was confused because the envelope was labeled To My Wealthy Brother In Christ. Though the wealthy Christian had never stopped by the new property, that began as a simple and meager farm, he had always wondered about the meager Christian's reaction upon delivering the message in-person upon which he later learned the meager Christian ended up choosing the lesser of the two properties even though the lesser property was now more in value than the developed property would ever be (more in value than he knew) -- the wealthy Christian never understood why the meager Christian chose the under developed property.

The deliverer was old in his days now and his profession now allotted him to stay within the confines of the postal office. Because the deliverer knew of the Christian farmer who had literally built a Christian Community from the ground up, on his own property, that this was the same person who had dwelt in a very meager home on his once route, saw throughout the years of the Christian farmer's life the endless blessings bestowed upon the farmer by God, had the great honor of developing his walk with God per tutelage directly from the Christian farmer, and ultimately saw the results of obedience and servitude given to the Christian farmer by God -- the deliverer had also been privileged with being told of the Christian farmer's confusing hidden heart's secret from God and how God had seen fit to still bless the Christian farmer. Knowing all this the deliverer was convicted early on to be the man of God's personal postman and had been around the same time that the meager Christian became owner of the farm and it's belongings. So when the deliverer made his daily trip to the farm he was greeted by the farmer's wife and, as always, asked of the farmer. The Christian farmer wife replied with a big smile on her face, "He is in our Father's farmhouse now waitin for me." The postman and the Christian farmer wife prayed and the postman left excitedly to deliver his most important delivery of his career to the wealthy Christian.

The wealthy Christian welcomed the deliverer because the postman had befriended the wealthy Christian too as was the triad of three brothers in Christ. The postman was how the three communicated and developed their Christian bonds over the years. The wealthy Christian was of passing years too but welcomed the news that his former brother in Christ would be waiting for him in heaven.

The postman asked if the wealthy Christian would mind if he kept his company while the wealthy Christian read the Christian farmer's letter. The wealthy Christian welcomed the company and even asked if the postman would mind reading the Christian farmer's letter to him and the postman obliged and took the letter back from the wealthy Christian and opened it and began reading the Christian farmer's letter.

Dear Wealthy Christian Brother:

I am sure our brother, the postman, has delivered this to you and is probably even reading it to you for I have known of your failing health. Brother, I have known for years that you have been a Christian and a gentle man and would never ask about our first meeting and to the severity of my reaction of your telling me your conviction of the Holy Spirit. I thank you, brother, but I was waiting and willing to tell you if you had ever asked. I learned early in my brief life that God's will is His and we are the ants to simply do His bidding and the quicker we are about doing His bidding the sooner He will bless us so we can continue to further build His fruit farm by planting more seeds for Him to harvest. I apologize for all the farming references but I am grateful for they too, in these last years it seems, have continued my growth in doing His will.

Brother you only have knowledge of my walk from that time God joined our paths by the Holy Spirit. Brother, I have always know God was teaching and cultivating me and thought I had and never would do God a disservice and thought I was even blessed with a content heart until an angel of God visited me and told me, what I thought back then, was that I had a major teaching lesson to learn because of some unknown to me hidden confusing secret within my heart. OH brother, there was so much I have since learned, from our Father, since our paths were first conjoined and going back to the visit from the angel of God.

First, I had been proud that I went to God with all aspects of my life -- except when the fear of God's angel appeared before me. If I had been as I thought "such an obedient servant of God", I would have thanked God for sending His angel to me and then asked for what honor did I owe such a visit? Instead, my pride spoke after I had been spoken to by the angel of God and I said I had done what was asked of me as I was His servant. Brother, I let my fear cloud my mind and I spoke prideful instead of obediently.

I now know that God was sending me a gift of great honor and wanted to show me the importance of that gift by having it delivered by His angel. His angel had been sent to tell me of my reward yet there was my sin, in my approach to God's angel and because I erred in being disrespectful to God's messenger, God chose to let me struggle in my error and let me receive His blessing later and in a more indirect way instead of receiving God's blessing in-full, then and there, from the angel of God.

You see brother, God had seen in my heart that I had a hidden secret that I was not even aware of and had even doubt and confusion about this secret but I had just left the secret in the deepest part of my heart and until recently did not know the entirety of my heart's secret and the confusion about such a secret. I also now know that God had not sent the angel to teach me a lesson about hiding things from God but instead had been sent to reward me regardless of what was in my heart. I became knowledgeable of the entirety of God's blessing for me per my eldest step-son recently asking me a question, "Father, did you ever know you would be blessed in such accord and bounty that God has seen to continuously bless you?"

This, brother, was when I knew God's blessing to me had been completed and was convicted to write you this letter. Now to that which the postman has known for years and to which my family now knows for I told them of the bountiful blessing God told me I would receive from His messenger, an angel. Brother, I unintentionally buried a desire in my heart about 10 years into my service to God a desire to bring unknown numbers of seed to Him to grow His fruit. Upon this desire taking root in my heart I thought there was no way to financially afford such a desire and was confused as to why God had put such a desire in my heart. I was already being blessed by God in many seed planting opportunities through interactions of the travelers that stopped at my meager dwelling on the postman's route. Yet God had planted the seed in my heart to plant seeds of unknown volumes for Him not meager known volumes. I buried and discontinued such a desire because I thought there was no way for it to become real.

I never prayed about that "hidden" secret desire nor the confusion on how to financially make such a desire become real. I told myself, back then, that such a fool hardy imagining could not become real and became content with meager planting of seed in the hearts of travelers passing by my meager abode. When you sent the letter, via the postman, I thought my lesson from God had begun. Now I know it was only beginning a great blessing God was bestowing upon me.

I have never questioned what God willed me to do even if I did not understand it because I knew He would, and always did, reveal to me in His time what the meanings of His will were -- the way was not always known nor easy but I was always rewarded for my sewing for His will. The meaning was important to me but I knew the goal/intent was God's will and I always put God before my lack of understanding and thou a few bumps they were short lived in comparison to the long stretches of success gained by sewing seed even in the, what I now call, "the drought years" of living on sewing meager amounts of seed instead of sewing unknown volumes.

When you visited me in-person for the first time, I thought then that I finally and completely knew the meaning of my lesson God was teaching me when I recalled back when I began sewing for God my heart's desire and it was God now giving me that which I never asked Him for and that because I never asked Him for my heart's desire, which I now know was His seed planted in me, He let me survive on meagerness of sowing seeds for Him.

Again, I thought, in my prideful obedience, I now knew what God wanted me to do was what He had planted in me was the desire to sow seeds of volume for Him. I did not know, then, it would have developed into the seed factory it now is! I did know, then, that I was to chose the under developed property instead of the developed property because of conviction from the Holy Spirit giving me absolute peace when I chose that property. I did not let the means to which the underdeveloped property would bring unknown volumes of seed to His glory because my meager planting of seed years had experienced me that God's will will be done and the means to which to do His will He provides as well in patience, obedience, servitude and praise. Brother, I knew then you were a devout man of God and knew that you would have staffed the developed property with people that already had seed sewn in them and that though my earthly life would be a lot better and easier if I chose the developed property that I would not be able to fulfill the desire to sow seeds of unknown volumes. So brother this is why I chose the underdeveloped property because what better of a place to sew unknown volumes then a place that is not known to be a planting field of seed sewing of and for God?

So we come to the close, brother, of my blessing. You know of the results through our communications over the years via our brother the postman. Yet there is that last bit of which I just mentioned to which I have been referring to as "God's teaching" which was my last revelation by the Holy Spirit through my eldest step-son's question of my spiritual blessings that I finally realized God had intended me to be blessed very early on and I had been blessed a short while later but I had always looked at it as a lesson instead of a blessing. I felt so foolish yet so honored and thanked God for my ignorance and Him giving me a will to go about His business regardless if I had approached it with a misunderstanding because it was not important of my knowing the meaning of a lesson vs. a blessing the importance was that God's will of sewing seed for Him to reap the fruit was done in which ultimately I achieved my heart's desire of planting more seeds than I could ever imagine or count -- I know He knows the exact count!

When I looked up, after completing the reading of the Christian Farmer's letter, I realized the wealthy Christian too had gone to heaven to be with his brother the farmer Christian. I know the wealthy Christian left in great elation because a very peaceful yet very obvious smile was upon his face and it was this that the Holy Spirit convicted me that yes my brother the wealthy Christian knew before he went to live with God and his brother the farmer that the entirety of the Christian Farmer's letter had been revealed to the wealthy Christian before he passed.

The postman knew the entirety of the Christian farmer's walk with God and was curious to see if those "unknown volumes" could be accounted for and put the task to the Christian farmer's two step sons. The error in the idea was the farmer's family and the postman and all associated with what developed into a major project was that they only began their research from when the farmer started sewing seed on the farm and had not thought to consider the seed the farmer had sewn while at his meager dwelling on the postman's route.

The postman realized this error close to the end of the project and saw it fit not to bring attention to the error because the project itself sewed seeds for God. The project resulted in identifying hundreds of thousands of seeds the farmer was directly or indirectly accountable for and for thousands of developed fruit for God to reap were identified with the farmer's direct or indirect involvement. The project lost the focus of the Christian Farmer's life in that counting the seed is a task only of God because He is the only one that knows the exact count of doing His will. Only the postman knew of the error of the results and left it alone because he let his Christian brother the farmer's advice be his guide in his decision: "It's not the meaning / intent that is the importance in God's will for man; it's the goal of God being completed that is important and that is always where the focus should be -- planting seeds."
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