The Wilkes Team

Who can cheer the heart like Jesus,

By His presence all divine?

True and tender, pure and precious,

O how blest to call Him mine!

All the thrills my soul is Jesus,

He is more than life to me

And the fairest of ten thousand

In my blessed Lord I see.

Thoro Harris (1873-1955)

This past week Jennifer & I had the opportunity of working one late afternoon & evening with Child Evangelism Fellowship in an outreach to the attendees of the Prince William County Fair.

CEF had rented a booth in the large vendor building with a simple sign inviting people of all ages to sit down and hear the story of the Wordless Book – the most incredible story in the world. Next door to our booth was a newspaper salesman, across from us an eco water system booth. People from all walks of life came by our booth. Our offer, was to invite whosoever would to come and listen to a story – the greatest story every told.

We had children as young as three all the way up to a dear elderly lady in her 70s come by our booth and hear the Good News of Christ’s free gift to all mankind.

Around 7pm, Jennifer and I took a short break. We walked through the crowds, through the food booths, by the entrance to the carnival, and over to the Grand Stand where a Demolition Derby was about to begin. This was to be a new experience for the two of us. Six ragged old cars lined up for round one. A countdown soon began and then vrooooooom – six cars roared to life.  Zooming back and forth, each car was doing all it could to crash into the others in hopes of halting the locomotion of every other vehicle on the track. Cheers from the audience erupted as the moving cars began to dwindle. In about 5-7 minutes it was all over and two battered cars remained able to move. These would later advance to the finals.

Yes it was thrilling but Jennifer and I walked away with a feeling that something just wasn’t right about all this. Upon making our way back to the CEF booth, we spoke with EJ, a missionary from Korea to the USA working with CEF, about the derby. He commented how that two years ago he had attended one of these demolition derbies. His response was one of wonder over how much Americans enjoy such chaos & destruction – similar in some ways to the thrill Romans had over attending the ancient ‘games’ held at the Coliseum in Rome. Is this all that thrills their souls? How about my soul?

We settled back down in the booth to begin sharing the Wordless Book. During the final hour and a half that we were  there, four children came to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Oh the thrill of seeing those smiles erupt on their face as they came to realize what had just happened – Jesus had washed their heart from sin – praise the Lord. In simple faith believing, they came before the throne of grace. Christ with open arms welcomed them – they became children of God – sealed forever until the day of redemption. We were thrilled – joy overflowed.

And then the bigger picture came into focus…..

The thrill of the derby was suddenly contrasted in my mind with the thrill of lost souls coming to the Savior. For myself, the question comes to mind, what brings thrill to my soul in my day to day life? That evening, the Lord gave me a taste of the joy which comes from serving Jesus. How grateful we are for Dad’s encouragement to go minister. I see a constant need to renew my mind with this perspective. Vanity fair calls out – will we heed their thrills?

Oh may we earnestly desire to have all the that thrills our souls be Jesus! May we view all this world has to offer as paling in comparison to walking with our Savior.

“All the thrills my soul is Jesus,

He is more than life to me…”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 4:24 pm and is filed under Ministry Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.