Praise God For Smoking? (Let me explain......)

I would just like to publicly thank God for allowing me to smoke for 24 years. I started when I was 14 and when God truly converted me just a few years ago, He took that away from me. I tried several times to no avail and could not do it on my own. Kind of like my conversion too - I said "the prayer" countless times through my life and only until He saved me was it real.

So why am I praising God for allowing me to smoke for those 24 years? Because it gave me a common ground to be able to share my faith in God tonight. See, even though I may ramble on in my writings, in person I have a tendency to be somewhat quiet, well o.k. REALLY quiet. So when God opened my mouth this evening to witness to a group of teens at an area rally for teens, it was really breathtaking. There was a young lady smoking while sitting on a bench outside of the "Christian" event. In fact there were a lot of teens smoking outside of this event. A few of us were handing out tracts and Scott and Bobby are truly gifted in the area of street evangelism, me not so much. My heart is there, but my mouth doesn't seem to cooperate very much. I am normally there for spiritual support (which is needed), so when God saw fit to put me in contact with this group of teens, give me an "in", something I could relate to them with, it was awesome. Did I stumble on my words? You bet ya I did. But God was glorified, I did share the gospel and God did use me in a way I have been praying for - for a looooooooong time now.

Please pray for me as the Lord continues to mold me and shape me. Also please pray for the groups that go out from my home church to be empowered as we go out to spread the Word of God in the coming weeks. Please pray specifically that when God puts specific people in our path that we realize who they are, that we will look to the cross for His strength and that He is glorified. We are just spreading seeds and the Lord will water and harvest.

Praise the Lord for allowing me to smoke for 24 years, that it may work for Him to be able to spread His glory to others. Wow! I am speechless. God is good.