Better Than Bars

If you have ever vistited a Latin American country (or downtown Kansas City), than you are very familiar with the bars and gates on every door and window of every house.

Our house is no exception. We have a front gate, a gate at the front door, and several locks on the wooden front door. I feel like I have moved into Fort Knox.

Last night while we slept, there was a loud clanging on one of the many locked gates around our house. Keeley woke me up because it sounded like someone was trying to get in.

OK. Adrenaline is pumping. Now I need a weapon....OK found a metal flashlight. Then it dawned on me that I don't even know what to yell at an intruder in a language they will understand. Some choice Clint Eastwood or Arnold Swartzenager lines should do, everyone knows those. So around our dark house I crept.

After a thorough checking of all the gates and doors, I was satisfied that our home was still secure and no breach had taken place.

Now I need to go back to sleep. Right. While I waited for the adreneline to be absorbed back into my body, I prayed with Keeley and pondered what had just happened. Here are some thoughts.

Here we are in a new place where there is so much to learn about and adjust to. Satan would love to have us be consumed by fear and worried about our safety at every turn. It would be easy to be so preoccupied with fear that we are unable to minister the way God would have us to. As we prayed, we asked God to give us a spirit of power, and of love, and a sound mind.

Because after all, God is exceedingly better protection for my family and I than some steel bars on our doors and windows. The same God that stopped the mouths of lions from eating Daniel is the same God that brought us here to Costa Rica. The same God that protected Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the firey furnace is the same God that brought the sun up on our new home today. God wants to build our faith, and last night He used to rattling bars to draw us closer to himself.

By the way, after talking to the neighbors behind us today we found out that there are some cats that fight each other at night and they scamper up the gates causing them to rattle. They also run on the roofs making a racket too. God is good, all of the time.