WHO SHOULD I GO TO? WHO CAN I BELIEVE IN?
Two questions on the verge of despair.
The person who addressed me in this way is Ion Sadoveanu. He is 39 years old, he is married and together with his wife Ionela they have nine children. He has been suffering from diabetes for six years. Lately Ion's health has deteriorated, so he has started taking insulin. For some time he began to have terrible back pain, which is why he was hospitalized for two weeks. Analysis showed that surgery was needed. The doctors did not give him much chance, telling him that the operation is a risk due to diabetes. Now he is at home and lying in bed. He does not want to have surgery because he is afraid.
The other day when I visited him he told me that he didn't know who to go to and who to believe. He is confused by his relatives who told him that he must go to the grave of the priest Arsenie Boca. I asked him if a man who was dead could hear him or help him? After looking at me for a long time, he said he didn't know. I told him there was Someone who had died but had power over death because he had risen on the third day. I asked him if he had heard of the One I was talking about, and he said “yes.” He knew about the Lord Jesus Christ because Ion came to our church meetings for a long time. However, from the moment his relatives and friends began to laugh at him, he stopped coming to my meetings. When he came to church, he said that he was feeling better and that he was calmer. Now that he had been discharged from the hospital and is on the brink of despair, he told me that he regretted that he had given in to all those who laughed at him, thus keeping him from attending church.
I asked him what I could do for him. He told me that he wanted me to pray to God for him to be well. I also asked him what he was going to do if God would heal him. He told me that he would repent. I told him that he did not have to wait until then, that he could repent at that very moment. Thus John received the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of his life! Please pray with us for this man.
I never thought that a man without any direction, accustomed to seeking satisfaction in all kinds of sins, can be changed. Behold, what man cannot do, God succeeds!
Today my prayer to the Heavenly Father is for Him to bring about change in the lives of our young people. I would like these young people to experience the peace that God has given me. He has filled my heart with joy, and He has given me security, trust and forgiveness. This is why I became a disciple of God, because He paid the price for my iniquities. I decided to show gratefulness to Him to carry the message of salvation to others. May God work in the lives of the young people I work with and make them His disciples! We invite you to pray with us for these young people to become tools in the hands of God, A POWERFUL GENERATION FOR JESUS.
May God have all the glory!
Florin Sfetcu, PIEI-Romania Missionary