Only If God Moves

As a serving one, I have a burden to take care of new ones and I have been doing my best to follow them up for shepherding. Yet for some reason, many of these new ones are not responding positively, giving me the only option available, ie.. to pray and pray and pray. This is indeed a trying time for me especially when I wanted to contact them and they did not respond at all. Most of these ones are from gentile backgrounds and they have not really been fully opened to give up their religious practices especially idol worship. In a way of shepherding, I did let them know that idols are nothing and that the true and living God must not be equated to a deaf, dumb, and dead idol. Perhaps, I have not been able to spend more time with them to shepherd them on a regular basis and help them step by step. But what I could do best, I believe, I have done it. Beyond my capacity, I cannot do anything further.

As I consider this matter carefully, a new light dawned on me. If God does not move, what can I really do? Try however much I may, all my human effort would be in vain if the Holy Spirit did not do His works on these new ones. If the Holy Spirit does not move in these ones, I dare not even try to do anything. I don't know why some of these new one's growth comes to a standstill. I may have my guesses, but it's all useless. The end of the matter is: Only if God moves, then I can only cooperate with God's move.

Now I pray and wait for the Holy Spirit's move in man that I need to cooperate with. This is a precious lesson I learned recently.  The same case applies to anyone. Though as a brother I may have a burden for people here and there, unless the Lord moves in them, I am helpless. Therefore, I have taken my hands off from trying to contact people who do not bother to respond at all. Be it believers or gospel friends, I would not sneak into their life unless I sense the work of the Holy Spirit in them. Lest I end up offering strange fire to God.

In response to the lesson I have learned, I have stopped sending messages to many new ones I used to send before. I also put a temporary hold on "trying to shepherd" those who are not interested at all. I also put a hold on inviting gospel friends for the gospel meetings if they do not show any interest at all. In fact, I also stooped responding to people who try to misuse me for their gain without any interest in the Lord Jesus Christ. I do this for now until the Lord would move me to continue following them up again, or until I sense the work of the Holy Spirit in them. So I resorted to prayer only for all these ones now.  I will continue to do so as long as the prayer burden for them is not lifted. I will move forward again if only God moves. 

What a precious lesson! It saves me a lot of my time and energy and even money. I used to be so busy running after so many new ones. Now that I should discern first if the Holy Spirit moves in them at all, then and only then, I would follow the move of the Holy Spirit in sweet coordination with the Lord. 

I will move only if God moves...