Reaching Out – With the Love of Christ
How far can you reach? I measured my arm length and my best reach is about 34 inches. And as I recall (hey, maybe my memory is bad) when I played junior college basketball and at my “peak” physical condition I had a 32-34 inch vertical jump that extended my reach even a bit further.
Today my physical reach is shrinking, but God is increasing FamilyLife’s “reach” to new borders.
Webster defines the word reach “to extend or thrust out,” “to go as far as: attain.” Last month Barbara and I went about “as far as” you could go on the other side of the world. And God was clearly there extending FamilyLife’s reach.
Let me explain.
Barbara and I were taking a break and shopping in a smog-clogged, people-packed city in Asia. As we were walking down a corridor of shops, I heard my name called out. I turned around to meet a father and his 12-year-old son. The man was stunned to see me … but not nearly as surprised as I was when I heard his story!
He began to tell me how he and his son were on a father/son getaway, using FamilyLife’s Passport2Purity™ resource. This material leads parents and pre-teens through a special weekend in which they discuss important issues of adolescence. They had just finished listening to one of my audiotape messages when they decided to take a break and go find a memento of their weekend together—thus our divine appointment.
When I asked the boy if he had listened to the “birds and the bees” tape, he didn’t need to answer … the reddish color on his face was all the answer I needed!
I was reminded again that when you join with God in what He’s doing in the world, your reach will be much more than 34 inches … in this case, it was thousands of miles! To God be all the glory!
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