How to Find What You are Looking For

Following each Sunday morning service at GODTEL’s Livingston mission, we make our weekly trip from there to the Nacogdoches mission where we repeat the service that evening. After arriving in NAC, we unpack our clothes, briefcases, and whatever else we may have transported, and then we rest for a short while before the evening service.

As I unpacked from one recent trip, I could not find my retainers in the zip-up pouch where I ALWAYS put them. I diligently searched that pocket but did not find them. Then I thoroughly searched the main area of my tote/suitcase—to no avail. I thought back to when I was packing up and I remembered putting them in their hard plastic case and picking them up from the bathroom counter. My mind went blank at that point.

Three days later, when we returned to Livingston, one of the first things I did was diligently search for my retainers. I looked in the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, laundry room, living room, and the dining room, but no retainer case. I went back to my suitcase and looked, oh, so very carefully in the pouch where I ALWAYS put them and then, again, in the main area. No retainers. I unzipped the pouch at the other end of the tote, telling June, “This is the only place I have not looked, but I NEVER put them in h… OH, MY!! Here they are!” Then I laughed heartily (better than crying) as I realized that they had been there all the time, waiting to be found. I just had not looked in the right place.

So-o many people in this tired old world are looking for what only Jesus can provide but they would NEVER think of looking to Him.

I was sad that I went without my retainers for those three days, but how much more grievous and tragic for a man or woman to miss what they are looking for because they are looking in the wrong places and will not consider Jesus (the other pocket in my tote).

I am reminded of the song “He Was There All the Time,” which contains the following phrases “Time after time I went searching for peace in some void” and describing Jesus as, “… waiting patiently in line…”

The problem today is that we are running out of time. To find the fulfillment, peace, joy, love, and perfection we are looking for, we must look to Jesus without further delay. He will meet our every need.
 
Bottom line: To find what you are looking for, you must look in the right place—where it is. (Hint: Jesus is the missing peace.)
 
Former Resident
 
Bro. June received a phone call from a man who had stayed at our Nacogdoches mission fourteen years ago. He called to say thank you and to let us know he is employed by the Los Angeles sheriff’s office and is doing well. He and his wife have one child and have decided that they want to include GODTEL in their charitable giving.

Some bad decisions had brought him to our shelter those many years ago, but hearing the truth day after day and being held accountable for his actions helped him understand that his life was headed nowhere but down if he did not decide to let Jesus enable him to make better choices in the future—and he did.

We love to hear success stories such as this. They encourage us to keep on keeping on.
 
Guests Cooks
 
We continue to be blessed by groups, individuals, churches, Sunday School classes, businesses, sororities from SFA, etc. who come to prepare and serve a special meal to our residents. We are very thankful and pray God will bless each of you abundantly.
 
Life After Delivery?
 
I do not know who wrote this but I found it thought provoking:
 
In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense,” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life could that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat with our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first replied, “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by Her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first, “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”
 
Think about it and share it with unbelievers.

​~Nancy Gentry