When God brings witnessing opportunities to our door

I often pray that God would keep away unnecessary interruptions. After such prayers, I find that I have no allowance to be frustrated by the interruptions that come. I have already prayed in faith that God would prevent unnecessary interruptions and am now free to focus my attention on the interruption confident that this is the situation that God wants me to concentrate on for the moment. Rather than become frustrated by an obstacle that is keeping me from my original plan, I am aware that the circumstances that I am facing is not a bump on my path but rather a part of God's plan for my day, week, or sometimes month.

Let me digress and deal with an objection or two. Some may ask, "Why pray?" I know that God is sovereign and controls all things, including the circumstances of life in which I find myself. In fact, it is because I am convinced that God arranges all my life's circumstances according to His desire that I pray. Before I often found myself frustrated by little problems that would crop up in my life: a flat tire, some misplaced item, a visit from someone with whom it is difficult to interact. Because I had not prayed, my spirit was not prepared to accept that such seemingly pointless interruptions were from the Lord of all. Which leads me to deal with the second, related objection that my prayers did not change my circumstances. After all, God already has planned and knows all things. It is not as if during my prayer God relented and said, "All right, I won't send this situation today just because you prayed." It is not that I am arguing that my prayer can change God's mind. Rather, I am arguing that my willingness to submit to God's plan and my human request for God to prevent interruptions gives my spirit the proper attitude needed to handle such circumstances.

But back to most recent example. The last few weeks, I have not had as much time to spend in my office as I would like. Multiple trips to the airport, dealing with other individuals in the church, some translation work, making visits during Tsagaan Sar - all these those necessary responsibilities had kept me from the usual amount of Bible study and preparation that I want to put into my sermons and lessons each week.

I came to Wednesday of this week eager to sit down and accomplish some studying. My study was interrupted by the arrival of some Jehovah's Witnesses to the door. I knew that there are JWs in Mongolia. Their kingdom hall is literally a short stone's throw from where the church meets. They have also come to my door two other times.

This time Kristie answered the door and found two ladies waiting to talk to her. They started with some standard questions about believing the Bible, being a Christian, etc. I overheard the conversation and knew from previous experience who it was. I sat in my chair debating whether to go to the door or not. As Kristie began to see where the questions were going. She came to get me.

Is this interruption from the Lord or should I just send them on their way? I thought to myself. After all, I had study to do. And these people were speaking Mongolian. But I sent up a prayer for wisdom and went to the door.

They asked me early in the conversation why I thought there were so many denominations. I thought that was a strange question. Then they asked what I thought was the key to understanding the Bible. With an eye towards keeping the conversation germane, I said that I thought the key to the Bible was understanding Who Jesus Christ is.

They tried to show that Jesus Christ and God the Father could not be the same person. "Think about President Enkhbayar," one of them said to me, "His son cannot be President Enkhbayar."

I took them to John 1:1 knowing how they would answer me. "Jesus is God," I said firmly.

"Yes," they responded, "But there are many gods in the Bible." They even got out a little booklet and had me read a section about the translation of John 1:1 which I had seen before in English claiming the Jesus was a god but not Jehovah God. The pamphlet mentioned that even Satan is called the "god of this world."

"But," I pointed out having anticipated this direction, "all the gods that your pamphlet is talking about are false gods. Satan is a false god." I mentioned a few names of the false gods that Mongolians worship. "These are all false gods. Is Jesus another false god?" I finished up asking.

There response was to say something like, "We can see you know your Bible. Please think about what we said to you."

Realizing that they were leaving, I responded, "Please throw away all these pamphlets that you have and read the Bible."

We need to pray "that the word of God may have free course" and that the heresies that are being taught in Mongolia would be hindered.