Unless the Lord...

No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up in the last day. (John 6:44, RecVer)

Unless Jehovah builds the house, Those who build it labor in vain. Unless Jehovah keeps the city, The guard watches in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, To stay up late, To eat the bread of toil; All the same, He gives to His beloved while they sleep. (Psalms 127:1-2, RecVer)

Unless the Lord draws men to Himself, who am I to draw man to God? Unless the Lord gains people, who am I to gain people for the Lord? I have tried a lot, I have labored a lot, but all to no vail. Now, the Lord has taught me this important lesson, I can do nothing except what the Lord does.

I have been preaching the gospel weekly. I have have shepherding a handful of new ones weekly. I have also been trying to gain them to the Lord and also for the church life. But all my efforts seem to fissle out as a punctured tyre losing it's function. The more air I tied to pump in, the stronger the pressure of the leakage. I have now come to a conclusion that if only the Lord so wills, then only all these news ones under my shepherding care would be gained by the Lord for His church. But as of now, I must do only what I can do, shepherd them. Even that shepherding is just to the extend that they are open to me. I cannot insert my zeal and burden either. I have no choice but to do only what the Lord allows me to do.

I have a list of 10 names who I have been shepherding weekly. Some face to face, some over the phone, some I visited, and some visited me. I can only shepherd them according to how much they are open to me and gave me time. I cannot do anything more than that. Even if I tried to exert some force to do beyond what I should do, it only resulted in disappointment. So I have learned my lesson to trust the Lord in shepherding and not to unnecessarily bogged down when I did not get my expected response. 

Just do what you can. After all, it is the Lord who draws man to Himself. Unless He draws, I must not. Unless He builds, I must not. O what a spiritual lesson! 

I kind of learn this the hard way after much struggle for so many years trying to gain people for the Lord and for His church. When the Lord draws people, they simply come. It does not require any of my input unless He leads me so. There are a couple of families that came to the Lord, got baptised, and are now in the church life in Gurugram in a very simple way without must effort from our side or their side. Whom the Lord draws, they just come. Yet there are also other families who have been struggling for years to come into the church life despite my "burdened" efforts to bring them in. No matter how hard I tried, they still would not come. Simply because, the Lord has not drawn them yet. Perhaps, He will draw all of them in His way and in His time. I simply must learn to cowork with God and not go beyond what He intents to do.

Recently, I tried to visit a brother's family for shepherding, but he never responded positively. He even seemed to avoid me. So, I simply prayed and prayed for his family. Then, last Lord’s day, he himself called and invited me for a dinner lovefeast at his new home in Gurugram. Then, we visited and had a wonderful time of shepherding fellowship over dinner lovefeast.

What a release to learn this lesson! What a rest not to unnecessarily struggle! Lord, unless You draw man to Yourself and to Your church, I must not.