Providentially Yours

Have you ever read about the great American Evangelist D. L. Moody? He was called the Master Evangelist and Disciple Maker by author Lyle Dorsett, and as written by others, Moody was known as one of the most outstanding disciple makers in church history. As I speak about Moody and others in these daily Bible readings, it is like licking the bowl from the stories of great men and women's lives; who became known for their abandonment to God. Moody was one of these born into abject poverty in 1837. With only a fourth grade education, he walked away from his humble roots in Massachusetts. Like so many others, he left it all behind, moving from the known into the unknown. As I meditated on this, I realized Moody had very little Bible training, but God had a plan for him.

"Dwight Moody's life in Christ began when he left the hardscrabble soil of northwestern Massachusetts. Leaving behind his grinding labor as a farm hand, the restless teen moved to Boston, where he found employment in an uncle's shoe store. Moody's godly relative provided room, board, and a day job to his seventeen-year-old nephew with one condition: he must faithfully promise to attend Sunday school and church every week. Young Moody kept his promise, and Uncle Lemuel Holton witnessed the answer to his prayers. Dwight heard the gospel story from his Sunday school teacher, Edward Kimball, who one Saturday stopped by Holton's shoe store where he found Dwight alone. Moody never forgot the day Kimball came behind the counter "and put his hand upon my shoulder, and talked to me about Christ and my soul. I had not felt I had a soul till then.""


I want to share with you something I found as I sought out information concerning him. In a letter to his son he wrote:


I think we can all agree that the next generation should be our legacy.

With this in mind I sing:


PROVIDENTIALLY YOURS,

Pastor Cleddie Keith