Blog In Audio:
Greetings;
Well, it has been a busy weekend. Two birthdays with two granddaughters and lots of family activity. My youngest is now 1 year old and the second youngest is now 6 years old. It is great to have family. We are enjoying the company of our California crew. God is good! Loving God and loving one another is what creates a world of life.
I have been addressing the need for us all to be seed and bread to our world. Today I want to share a bit of my personal testimony as to the value of being a testimony of living bread to those who have been given to us in life. I came to Christ late in my 17th year. I have been a believer now for 48 years. When I met Jesus, I committed my life fully to Him. He radically changed my life! The Holy Spirit in my life was very real and life-transforming in every way. Shortly after inviting Christ into my life, I entered the military and found Christian connections there. I was fully involved with God and with the church throughout my military years. When I was 21 years old I met my wife Bonnie and we were married just before I turned 22. A couple of years after we were married we had our first son. Bonnie and I committed his life to God and we invited God to help us to be parents to His son in the way that He desired. In a couple of years we had our second son and we committed him to God in the same way. We were both very strong believers and were fully involved in the church. I was involved in the church as a worship leader and also committed my life fully as a husband, a father, and in business to serve God in every way. In my 27th year, Bonnie and I moved from Texas to Washington State to assist in planting a church there. I ended up pursuing business as a means of providing financial support as my means of supporting the purposes of God in the church I was joined to. When I was 30 years old God began to call me into committing my life to ministry. It was not my desire. My desire at the time was to fulfill a career working in a business that promised a great income and a someday early retirement with a good financial supply. I had a piece of property in the mountains and I was busy carving out what I thought to be my dream. I was still committed to the church, but I had a desire to live for my family and to complete my life for that cause. God began to speak to me about His purpose for my life. One morning, while driving to work I was involved in a rollover accident on the freeway. I ended up with a couple of broken processes in my back as well as what appeared to be a cracked neck. After several hours of fervently praying in the emergency room of the hospital, it was concluded that my neck was not broken. I believe God healed me that day. In any case, during the accident I agreed to talk to God about His call upon my life. I began to read my Bible more, in an attempt to position myself to hear God. Shortly after the accident I was reading the book of Ephesians.
Ephesians 4:17 So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; 19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.
As I read these words God spoke to me. He said, “That’s you. If you don’t see it, hear it, smell it, feel it or taste it, it doesn’t exist as far as you are concerned. You’ve lost your sensitivity to Me. Read on!”
I read further in the verses that followed and as I came to verse 28 I read; He who steals must steal no longer… As I read that line God spoke to me loud and clear. “You thief! You’ve taken the children’s bread and you have fed yourself. I made you who you are and you have consumed it upon yourself. Your heart is hard”.
Those words put me on a journey to discover the point of my life. Within a couple of days I was driving home after working a night shift on my job and I saw a sign outside a church announcing a men’s prayer meeting. I decided to stop and enter the church. Upon entering the building I saw groups of men in circles around the room praying. I stepped into a circle and said; You don’t know me, but I need to make a confession. I took the hands of the men next to me in the circle and prayed. God, I confess before you and before these men that my heart is hard and I need you to break it. I then let go of their hands and walked out of the building. On my way home God’s presence filled my truck cab and He broke my heart. For the next months that led to years I couldn’t stop praying, reading my word, and pursuing being living bread to others in my world. God gave me the following Scripture as a foundation for my life from then on.
Ecclesiastes 11:1 Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. 2 Give a serving to seven, and also to eight, for you do not know what evil will be on the earth. 3 If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth; and if a tree falls to the south or the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall lie. 4 He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. 5 As you do not know what is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes everything. 6 In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand; for you do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be good.
I have written this testimony today to simply inspire us all to know that the life that has been given to each of us is given that we might be seed and bread for our world. It is for this reason that I am a house of bread to my world. In whoever you are and in whatever you do in this life be sure to give your life to give life to others within the boundaries of the sphere that God gives you.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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