Preach the Word

“Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” 2 Timothy 4:2-4

These words are St. Paul’s advice to the young Timothy, when Paul believed he was nearing the end of his life. He wrote : “I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” (2Timothy 4:6-8) 

How wonderful and poignant to be able to read these words from a man who gave up so much for the Lord, suffered persecution and still remained steadfast, imprisoned in body but not in mind and spirit! Push on, he tells Timothy, whom he met in his second missionary journey, do not give up! Timothy perhaps was a little timid at first, but eventually became zealous in preaching the gospel with Paul, leaving his comforts to share in his mentor’s sufferings and poverty. 

We must remember that no matter our station in life, no matter if we think we have little gifts, we can all be used by the Lord. Whatever is in our hand and heart, no matter how small, if we give it God, like the little boy who offered his loaves and fishes, God will multiply it. Sometimes, because I write these meditations, and make a painting every day, I get praised, and thanked, and someone may say, “Amazing!” 

Yes, every day I am amazed, because I start out with absolutely nothing. I read God’s word in Anawim, a meditation guide, let His words sit a while in my mind, and have an absolutely blank brain. But because I have been faithfully pondering God’s word and writing in my journal every single day since I was in my 20s, God is faithful, and uses me! Even I am amazed! I feel that there is a fountain in me that has to be released, a fountain of love for a God who is faithful and loving and kind!