My second Carnaval story is a story of obedience. Many times when we are doing things in ministry we wrongly go after success in our ministry as our main motive. While it is not bad to desire a successful ministry this should not be our focus. Our focus should be 100% obedience to God.
One night of Carnaval about 3 of us felt God telling us to set up a “prayer tent” in a sense. We made a sign that said prayer and stood under a Pacifico (Mexican beer) tent right in front of Casa del Marino which was our outreach base. So we were right outside our hair salon, coffee shop, kids ministry, and prayer room. However, this night of Carnaval there were barely any people walking by our building. This could have been an easy excuse to give up on the prayer tent and find something else to do that was doing more but we knew what God had told us so we stayed. People walked by and we’d ask if they wanted prayer and they’d say no. Then no one would walk by. However finally, this one guy comes up and doesn’t ask for prayer but starts asking us where we are from.
We end up talking to him for quite a while about Jesus, about his family and many other things. He was totally wasted but you could tell the Holy Spirit was getting through and he was being touched and really encouraged. He then proceeded to bring us over to his 3 friends who ended up accepting Jesus into their hearts as well as inviting the Holy Spirit into their lives. We got to give them all Bibles as well and really encourage them to seek after the LORD. It was really awesome because these were the only people we talked to all night. So it wasn’t that we got to reach a lot of people but we were obedient to the LORD and talked to the 4 men he had prepared for us to talk to that night. It is so satisfying to walk in obedience to the LORD even when it doesn’t seem to produce results. However even when we don’t see the results God knows what He is doing we just need to trust Him and obey. We need to find satisfaction in obeying Him not in the things that happen as a result.
"And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full.
(Deut 11:13-15)
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