King's News 32

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Lost gifts

Pastor Colin Bond on how we can gain when we lose...

Long ago I remember struggling to buy a house. It was wrongfully withheld from us and then sold to another. I was so upset. I felt it was ours. We lost it! Then while waiting to resolve that purchase (unsuccessfully), another came on the market. It was bigger, better, had more potential and the agreed purchase price was much lower.

Bedford Villas nostalgia - (above) a 'Gang Show' at the Dungeon Club; (below) Preparing to leave for Communist Europe

So we bought No. 1 Bedford Villas, Tavistock. What a fun and challenging home that proved to be. Many of our readers will have happy memories of Bedford Villas! Some helped clean and decorate, some helped demolish parts! Some painted huge murals on the walls. The Youth Club, the 'Dungeon Club' took over, they brought the first carnival for 10 years back to Tavistock, they camped on Dartmoor, holidayed in a Paignton hotel, they discovered new life from the Lord Jesus, they became a family of God, in fact, they became 'Community Church'. The 'King's News' comes out of the work they initiated.

Friends bought the house we had lost. There was woodworm and their piano fell through the floor! In God's wisdom one house was lost so He could guide us to a better one for His purposes.

God still deals with me in just the same way. So many times my faith is tested by my plans being thwarted, by my hopes being dashed. So many times what I want is lost, yet every time a wise Father replaces it with something much better or saves me from unseen consequences. When I was busy with the church's mission in Africa, a base to rest and facilitate travel seemed so good. So when pastors in Uganda suggested buying a house there it looked God's provision. A bungalow, built by the British colonialists, in a fantastic spot with views of 'paradise' was on offer. I paid a deposit and signed a legal contract of purchase. The vendor took the money, reclaimed his title deed and promptly sold it to someone else! I'd lost it. The disappointment!

But then the neighbour offered his much better bungalow at a cheaper price and it had servants' quarters in an acre of ground. (And while this was happening someone else offered a plot in an exotic position for the restaurant and apartments you have read about in earlier King's News.) Passing time revealed that the vendor who cheated me had built his house over the boundary and I now owned ¾'s of that house. Then we discovered 6 water mains for the town passed through the grounds so they could not be built on. The house proved illegal and the grounds unusable for building. I was so grateful it was a lost gift! God had a better gift waiting.

Our heavenly Father is immensely rich. Are there gifts with your name on them waiting to be found? Or are there gifts we hold on to when our Father has much better for us?

Colin
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