BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

JAN 1995 One of the first articles by George Pearsons to be published in BVOV Pick Up Your Shovel and Dig Another Well Walk into a church on Sunday morning. What will you see? If it’s a Spirit-filled, Word-believing church, you’ll see rows of smiling people, standing tall, praising God. You’ll see believers who look as though they’re living from one victory to the next. But as a pastor, I can tell you, looks are sometimes deceiving. Many of those people who are standing and smiling on the outside, are sitting down on the inside with tears of discouragement in their eyes. They’ve been beaten down by disappointments. They’ve been hurt and rejected by others. They’ve faced so many failures that they’ve given up on the hopes and dreams that once stirred their hearts. The devil has come to them and said, “You’re finished. Life is over for you. You have no future.” Do those words sound familiar to you? If you’ve been a Christian more than a week or two, no doubt they do. The devil says them to each one of us at every age and every stage of our lives. That may surprise you. You may have looked around at all the other happy faces at church and decided you were the only one who felt like a failure. But I can assure you, you’re not. In fact, you’re in good company. If you’ll look in the Bible, you’ll see that the devil used past disappointments and present adversities to pressure every great man and woman of God. How did those heroes of faith handle that pressure? What did they do when it looked as though everything had gone wrong? They picked up their shovel and dug another well. If you want to know exactly what that means, look in Genesis 26 at the story of Isaac. He was a man who faced trouble many times. During his lifetime, he experienced one setback after another. He was mistreated, rejected and robbed of his own accomplishments. But when it was over, Isaac came out on top. He finished a winner. And if you’ll follow his example, no matter how bad things are in your life right now, you’ll end up a winner too. What Did You Say, Lord? “Oh, but Pastor George, you don’t know just how rotten my circumstances really are!” Maybe not, but I doubt if they’re much worse than Isaac’s because Genesis 26:1 tells us “there was a famine in the land” where he lived. "...And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar. And the Lord appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of: Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father.... And Isaac dwelt in Gerar" (verses 1-3, 6). Personally, I’ve never been in a famine, but I’ve seen pictures and read enough about it to know it’s a desperate thing. I’m sure Isaac’s natural inclination was to get out of that place, and to jump up and run to a country like Egypt where there was plenty to eat. * * * * * * article continues on p. 10 * * * * * * * BVOV : 9

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