What Could Be Better?

6 Then Peter said, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”

Acts 3:6 (NKJV)

On my way home from work today I was blessed with the most beautiful rainbow in the sky...and me without my camera!  Thankfully I had this picture in my archives from another trip on this same road several years ago...

(Click on HERE to get the story behind this particular rainbow)

I wasn't the only one enjoying today's spectacular vision of God's promise in the sky.  As I was driving along I noticed a truck stopped in the road ahead, with an old hippie-looking kind of man standing up in the door of his truck taking a picture of the rainbow.  I slowed down, rolled down my window and said "Hey! How about sending me a copy of your picture since I don't have my camera!"  He laughed and said "Sure" as I drove away! I was happy to see that I wasn't the only one crazy enough to want to stop and actually take a picture of a rainbow in the sky! I think I would have at least pulled OFF the road instead of blocking an entire lane on the wrong side...but, well, that's what you get out here in the boonies where I live.  

Anyway, I enjoyed looking at that rainbow in the sky all the way to the outskirts of my neighborhood, where it stopped and faded into the clouds...before I could get my camera of course.  But the memory of the joy it gave me lingers still.  I felt such hope and encouragement from the heavens above because God set His "rainbow in the cloud" as a sign of His promise and love for His children.  (See Genesis 9:13)

Click HERE for another story of a rainbow in the sky over our home several years ago.  At that time, we had just moved to our home out here "in the boonies"...a fulfillment of God's promise to take care of us always...and to give  hope for our future here.  We are now at another kind of new beginning.  If you read my last post in which I shared with you the good news of my upcoming retirement, you will know that I am looking forward to the start of a new life here...and yet I don't know exactly what the Lord may have in store for us.  However, this rainbow in the sky today gave me such hope...it reminded me that God is with me all the way...and that I have nothing to fear.

So what does all this rainbow and hope talk have to do with the verse quoted at the beginning of this story? Well, that's a good question. This verse just popped into my head this evening as I was chatting with a friend of mine on the phone about some concerns we share regarding people that we know. People who need hope...the kind of hope that only God can give.  People who don't know that God can give them that kind of hope because they've never truly known God.  And as we talked, the idea came to me that perhaps part of what my new adventure will be is to be an instrument through which God can offer these people hope.  

The old King James Version of this verse goes like this:

"Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk."

That's the way I remember learning this verse..."silver and gold have I none"....in other words, I don't have money to give away (especially now that I am retiring), but what I DO have is God's offer of hope and healing in the Name of Jesus Christ. No, I don't expect to be able to make the crippled and lame walk again...at least not in the literal physical sense...although if that is what God desires, I know He can do that...but what I do expect is for God to bring the kind of healing that can actually help these individuals "rise up and walk" in hope and love...The kind of healing that brings salvation to wounded souls and gives them the courage to rise up from their beds of affliction, whether it be emotional scars, physical and spiritual brokenness, poverty...and yes, hopelessness, and to walk in wholeness and joy.

Only the love of Jesus Christ can accomplish this. I can not accomplish this in my own strength. But I can be a vessel for His love to flow through...how? By using the gifts that He has given me to share with others...my home, which has already been dedicated to the Lord... and the knowledge of His love and salvation that is free to all who will receive it. 

I don't know all the details of this yet...but a plan is forming in my heart and in the heart of my friend as we agreed together in prayer that we would be open to however the Lord may direct in this adventure.

I would ask that you, my praying friends in "blogland", would also pray that God would give us wisdom, courage, and the strength to carry out whatever His plan may be.

No, I may not have silver and gold, but what I do have, I will give to you...in Jesus' Name.

What could be better than that?

I may not have been able to capture a picture of the rainbow today, but when I got home the first thing I saw out of my window was this lovely rose blooming! Just another of God's ways of showing me that He is with me...and that the gifts He offers are far greater than any silver or gold! I know that I am meant to share them with others one way or the other! They are not for me alone.

What could be better than that?