What does your life look like on canvas? What type of frame does others place around your life?
The Daily Lily, which is you and me on canvas, gather here with our trumpets and make a loud noise by “Trumpeting Faith, Giving Hope, and Serving Others with Love!” We are needed on the worldwide web and in every little corner of the world we visit daily to “Trumpet our Faith, Give Hope to the weary while Serving Others with Love.” Ones that may feel loveless, lonely, and discouraged. And, rightly so! When we read or hear worldwide news, face financial crisis, job layoffs and recession alarms that are ringing around the world it feels hopeless. I just heard today that Chrysler says ” it will cut 25 percent of its salaried work force starting next month. The company says the cuts are in addition to those previously announced and will be done through involuntary layoffs and voluntary retirements and buyouts.” Just another piece to the larger puzzle of trouble for the “average Joe.”
I would like to tell you about a young man from a small east Texas town in 1939 that I read by Victorial Osteen. His name was Sam Martin. Now Sam would go to high school every morning and write scriptures on the chalkboard. You can imagine how weird the others students thought him to be. They would not have much to do with what seemed like poor Sam. But, Sam was passionate about his faith. He was a man to trumpet his faith. One night a fellow classmate was walking home from a night club and began to think about eternity and what he was going to do with his life. The young man went home and opened the family Bible randomly and it fell open to a picture of Jesus standing at a door and knocking with a caption that read: “If anyone will open the door I will come in.” This young man’s heart was stirred. Then he remembered that was the very scripture that he had seen Sam write on the chalkboard earlier. He approached Sam the next day and asked, “Sam, why do you think I am feeling this way?” Sam replied very simply, “that is God drawing you.” The next Sunday Sam took his new friend to church. That was the day that John Osteen, the father of Joel Osteen made a decision for Christ and his life of faith began. Sam went on to become a pastor, but he never spoke to large crowds of people like the world famous John Osteen did. But, if it were not for Sam Martin blowing his trumpet of faith there just might not have been a world renown Pastor and Speaker by the name of John Osteen and then his now famous son Joel, still blowing a trumpet of faith worldwide. Some fifty years later Sam Martin wrote a book and called it, “I Touched One but He Touched Millions.”
Today, we are placing a frame of faith, hope and love around the life of a young weird bold man named, Sam Martin, almost 70 years later and displaying his life with many friends right here on this website. If The Daily Lily is your chalkboard continue to make it ring with hope, love and faith. Stir up the gifts and talents that are resident within you and proclaim your faith widely and loudly as the trumpet does. Make sounds of Hope, show signs of Faith and be a server of Truth. If your life is framed today, good. If your life is framed 50 years from now, good! Just make sure that your life will be framed and displayed in the presence of The King. Maybe you will be like Sam and say, “I touched one but he touched millions.”
Sam Martin, in 1939 . wrote on his school’s chalkboard daily. Why not in 2008 almost 70 years later write on our computer ‘chalkboard’ daily and leave the results to the framer of lives! Be a Daily Lily with Joy! Joy shows in your chalkboard writings.
thedailylily.com 
Sara, this an amazing TRUE STORY. REAL life is stranger than fiction, for sure. Your post gave me chill bumps as I read it because as I was sitting at my computer earlier this morning, even before I read LILY, this phrase rose up in my spirit. ” I CAN SEE ETERNITY FROM HERE.”
And now I believe I heard rightly. Your true story confirms to me what I heard. John Osteen touched thousands of people for Christ. The Bible teachers John & Gloria Copeland were pastored by John Osteen and they have even now, touched thousands of lives by their evangelistic meetings and are teaching currently, on TV.
If we will look into ETERNITY, just like you looked up at the wedding and saw the cloud of witnesses who were taught and touched by some faithful preachers/teachers during their lifetime on earth we must realize that we can effect someone’s “eternity” if we will do what the Bible says and you exhort above, “MAKE SOUNDS OF HOPE, SHOW SIGNS OF FAITH AND BE SERVERS OF THE TRUTH”.
Then when we stand in the gates of Heaven and are surrounded, lovingly, by a crowd of saints, we will say to the KING….” But Lord, who are all these?” And HE will reply, “These are those whom you touched on earth with MY TRUTH; The TRUTH of the GOSPEL”
GO FORTH, OH LILY!!
I agree with you MG about this story. I have read it over and over hoping to increase my faith and it has. The disciples of Jesus payed, “Lord, increase our Faith! ” I believe this is one of the many ways God has of increasing our Faith. Thanks for taking the time to interact in faith building techniques on The Daily Lily, which is right here, 24/7.
Again, you are right, I had an epiphany moment, a moment of sudden revelation and insight into the mystery of God at a recent wedding overlooking the ocean in Duck, NC. God never fails to be able to teach us many things, many ways and in many places. I love that He taught me at this holy wedding. Jesus preformed His first miracle at a wedding, didn’t He?
Stories like this help us keep life in perspective and the reason for why we are here. Sam Martin stayed focused on the goal. He had has mind on Christ. What impressed me was his diligence and faithfulness and God honored that. He must have been listening to and walking in the Spirit for that one scripture to be just the one for John Osteen.
Sam was a good farmer who faithfully planted the seeds of the Word in the face of oppostion and one day he reaped a harvest. He was a living example of Galations 6:8-9.
“The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
Jesus said that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, (AND YOU PLANT IT, if you SOW it ) it will grow into a huge tree (of life) that will house the creatures of the earth and people can come and eat from it and be filled with love and joy and truth because faith brings forth and produces. Lack of faith diminishes and repletes.
Whan the farmer plants, and I know Debi knows this very well, he plants EXPECTING to receive a harvest, a crop.
Let us sow that way ,too. Expect the harvest. Look for it. Await it. It might come in heaven when, as I said before, you will look around and ask the Lord who all these are and He will tell you they are the ones who came from the seeds you planted, or watered. But IT WILL COME forth.
Just keep planting and sowing and watering. Christ will bring the harvest in HIS timel
What a mighty testimony Sam Martin leaves to the world – Standing and with standing – trumpeting for Jesus – although he stood alone. The resonance of the Holy Spirit through that act of faith called another. Perhaps there is someone out there right now who is saying I need Jesus. I need that hope to get through this financial crisis, to get through another day. Each of us receives the call. Where were we when we got the call? Jesus we thank you for the call to faith that someone dared to play to call out even if it were one. Isn’t that what Jesus did – died on the cross to save us from our sins even if it were one. We thank you for the trumpeters who go before and when they really look back they are amazed at the following but Jesus is not for it is the MASTER’s call they answered. NO other call is more desirous.
Sam’s ‘trumpet’ of daily writing a verse on a blackboard may have seemed small to him or small and insignificant to others, but it was a mighty tool in the hands of God. Just like in John 6:9 …””Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” …that seemed like a small offering to bring to Jesus for Him to use to feed five thousand people. But Jesus can use a gift and mutiply it to feed many.
Luke 9:60 “But Jesus told him, “Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead! Your duty is to go and preach about the Kingdom of God.”
2 Timothy 1:11 “And God chose me to be a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of this Good News.”
Sam Martin must have read the scriptures above. The Word of God framed his life. He continued to write on the board the Word of God, even if it wasn’t the most popular thing to do. Sam wasn’t hanging out at the bars, he was writing scriptures on the board. What an awesome picture on Sam’s canvas with a beautiful frame around it.
Chickenfarmer, two very interesting scriptures you have given us on preaching about the Kingdom of God and being a teacher of this Good News!
I am so grateful to be a part of this classroom and have this site to be my chalkboard. I know each of us hope to have the same rewards as Sam Martin and others that have shown us the way to do it! Now if we just “Do It!”
“Trumpet our faith, give hope to the weary, while serving others with love”, yes, right here on the dailylily.com. I am grateful for a website that allows us to do this very thing. Sam Martin used what he had….a chalkboard, and we can use what we have…a computer, to help people all over the world know, that Jesus loves them!
Needles, I stand in awe of our chalkboard and our platform for teaching the Word of God. I walked back in my mind when I was in school we had a blackboard, then a green board, then a dry erase board and schools now have white boards and many other tools for teaching.
The Word of God, the Bible, is so easily assessable to all through computer programs. But, we still need relationships and connecting and interacting one to another. It is so exciting to share the teachings of Jesus with one another. Prayers for one another. When we share our thoughts, concerns and creative ideas one with another while loving one another we gradually peek out of our darkness into His light. We see peace where there was doom, we see hope where there was despair, we see love where there was rejection. May we use all the excellent tools available to us to communicate, socialize, and cooperate as we work together until the midnight cry, and it’s closer now than it’s ever been…
“What does your life look like on canvas? What type of frame does others place around your life?”
I would like to place a frame of thanksgiving around MG’s giving life. Our church had clean-up hour and music practice on Saturday. It was happy hour as MG arrived with a full blown pumpkin cheesecake. And, was it ever good. It was lovely to look at with its fall pumpkin orange topping. MG had lovely large dinner napkins to match the color. Perfect orange with plates to match. And, a new Starbuck’s coffee, Pikes Place. Now was that a happening!
MG’s life looks like a giving, caring, hoping and topped off with music notes to make the giving sing. Let’s just call it a Hallmark greeting card with music!
Wow Sara! Thank you for that & I recieve that. I thank God that in our Bible Study of LIVING BEYOND YOURSELF that we are learning that AGAPE love, God’s kind of love, is an action word. It consists if obedience and moving or acting when the Spirit says so, whether we feel like it or not; whether it is convenient or not; whether we have time to do it or not; whether we understand it or not. Beth Moore teaches that , “Agape love is fueled by someone else’s need.” When I help fulfill that need I am in AGAPE” It doesn’t matter at the time if the feelings or emotions are there. They will come once we are obedient to the Spirit of the living GOD and act upon His promptings.
But the zinger that really touches me is that Love (agape) NEVER fails. It is never in vain, says the teacher. “If God is calling you to love a difficult person or to stay loving (agape) in a difficult situation, be assured that it will NOT be in vain. We can always count on the effectiveness of Agape love. It will NOT fail. God’s word says so. Agape love, God’s kind of love, is always effective, always energizing and always successful. No matter how long or how short a time it takes, love never fails. Because LOVE is a PERSON and that PERSON is GOD and HE NEVER FAILS.
Giving is a GOD-CHARACTERISTIC. ”
For GOD so loved the world that He gave…”
A phrase in this morning’s devotional by David Teems inspired this poem/prayer that I would like to share. It evoked the thoughts of what we are studying, currently, the Fruit of the Spirit.
Jesus, Mender of my soul
Lord make my heart to be
Weighty with GOODNESS, just like Thee
Let the well-being of others come to be
An initial cause and goal for me
And as the Fruit of the Spirit grows
Expand my heart with PEACE that flows
So that my JOY that’s really Yours, under duress
Responds with FAITH and GENTLENESS
Enlarge my heart with KINDLY deeds
To help, not turn, from others’ needs
And Lord let this also be my goal
To show true LOVE by my SELF-CONTROL
Jer. 9:23-24 says, “we are to boast about knowing and understanding God. And, if you know and understand Him then you know that He is The Lord God that exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth and that He delights in these”. And, Psalm 68:35 says God gives power and strength to His people.”
MG,He gladly answers your lovely poem/prayer! And, as you sow blessings into the lives of others, you’ll see that increase of harvest in your own life in return! Now the economy crunch just got scrunched.
The economy rears its ugly head!
Short on milk and short on bread
But God has the formula that will surpass
The Fannie May’s and the Freddie Mac’s
Just listening to the nightly news
And the experts who are singing the blues
The crunch on loans and the run on banks
But we praise God and give Him thanks
A table He prepares for us
While the heathen rage and make a fuss
But if we follow God from the start
keep our lives clean with purest hearts
Just keep on giving of yourself
You ‘ll never have an empty shelf
For God provides you more and more
Who takes and renders to the poor
A financial plan for prosperity
With compound interest and no fee
With dividends by God,for free
That’s God’s KINGDOM ECONOMY