So the Israelites examined their food, but they did not consult the Lord.

Joshua 9:14 NLT

Our Scripture is part of a section where the Gibeonites deceived Israel because they did not seek guidance from the Lord (Joshua 9:1-21 NLT). I learned this lesson the hard way when I did not seek God first.

While working with Youth With A Mission, I worked on a recruiting project called “Night of Missions.” One year we canceled part of our east coast tour for logistical reasons. Our event coordinator in Virginia Beach, VA. called and said, a few days before the previously scheduled date, “We are really looking for to you coming. We have sent out five hundred invitations and expect a huge crowd.” I don’t remember even telling him we had canceled his event, probably because the sound of a huge crowd kept reverberating in my mind. I just said, wow, we are looking forward to coming also.

I had no audio-video equipment and no staff for a team of about seven. I rented the equipment and begged, bribed, or whatever I had to do to recruit a team from my YWAM training center staff. I assembled a team in just a few days and was off to Virginia Beach. We arrived between 5:30 and 6:00 for a 7 PM event. The church was eerily quiet. Sometime later, the event coordinator arrived with his son, who was eating out of a box of vanilla wafers. The boy plops the box on the dessert table and says, “Here is our dessert.” We planned the night to be a mission’s challenge and fellowship around a nice dessert. 

Nobody showed up, and it was 6:45, and then they arrived, all seven of them. The speakers could have blown them out of the auditorium. We went on that night with a stiff upper lip. The following morning the van had a flat tire, and in exasperation, I asked the Lord, what is going on here.? After a few silent moments, wisdom became a keen sense of the obvious; I had not sought God first. 

Once back home, I said I could start over in a new week. Monday morning, when I opened my office door, there it was on my desk, a box of vanilla wafers put there by one of my staff. To this day, I still do not eat vanilla wafers.

I worked for seventeen years as a missionary with Youth With A Mission.  My missionary work has taken me to Mexico, Canada, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Spain, and Ukraine.  I hold a Masters of Education in curriculum and instruction from Virginia Commonwealth University.  [email protected]