Full-Time Training - Testimonies

An Old Song, M.S.L.

When I was eight years old, my father and I were driving in our family's large green Ford. It was one of those cars with the large bench seat in the front. The kind made of synthetic leather that would burn the back of your legs in the summer time. We were accomplishing the day's errands and had come to a familiar intersection. Dad turned on the car's left blinker signal and we sat there waiting for the light to turn green. Looking across the street, I was intrigued with all the people coming in and out of a Waffle House diner arrayed with its signature colors of black and yellow. As we waited there, my dad, surely prompted by the Lord, asked me to pick up his hymn book, which was sitting next to me on the bench and turn to hymn #308. Prior to that moment, I had never before used my dad's hymnbook and only knew of it as the book the “big people” sang from on Sunday. Dad made the left hand turn unto Chamblee Tucker Boulevard and once I found the right page he began to sing it to me by heart. The second time around I joined my father and we sang all three stanzas singing the lines of the chorus, “This is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior all the day long,” (Hymns, #308) with extra gusto.

Now, I am twenty-four years old and the Lord, being my faithful and merciful God, has not only brought me to the Full-Time Training in Anaheim, but has given me the opportunity to stay for two years. About a month ago, I was reminded of hymn #308, especially struck anew by the lines of the chorus. Suddenly, those simple lines had so much meaning. They where more than just part of a song that I loved to sing with my father. Those lines were my newfound reality and my declaration to the world. When Fanny Crosby wrote this song, she was expressing the joy she felt over her salvation. Yet, when I sing those lines, what reverberates in my being is the realization that I have not only been saved, but that I am part of God's eternal purpose, His economy.

In one of our classes this term in the Full-Time Training, we read a book entitled, The Economy and Dispensing of God, by Witness Lee. Page after page of this book made God's economy more clear to me. I saw that God is dispensing Himself into me, even into every part of my being, until He fully makes His home within me (Ephesians 3:17). This is not so that I can become some isolated spiritual entity. Rather, He is dispensing Himself into all of us, in order to gain a group of people to be His corporate expression (Ephesians 3:8^a, 1:22, 23). What an incredible mercy to be living on the earth and know the purpose of my existence. To be part of God's economy is the highest calling in the universe. So, this is my story. I meet with the local church, and my life is wholly for God and His economy. And this is my song. What can I do, but praise the Lord!

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