Rusty Stephens, a Navigators director in Virginia Beach, Virginia, tells a story: \u201cAs I feverishly pushed the lawn mower around our yard, I wondered if I\u2019d finish before dinner. Mikey our 6-year-old, walked up and, without even asking, stepped in front of me and placed his hands on the mower handle. Knowing that he wanted to help me, I quit pushing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mower quickly slowed to a stop. Chuckling inwardly at his struggles, I resisted the urge to say, \u2018Get out of here, kid. You\u2019re in my way,\u2019 and said instead, \u2018Here, Son. I\u2019ll help you.\u2019 As I resumed pushing, I bowed my back, leaned forward, and walked spread-legged to avoid colliding with Mikey. The grass cutting continued, but more slowly and less efficiently than before, because Mikey was \u2018helping\u2019 me.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuddenly, tears came to my eyes as it hit me: This is the way my heavenly Father allows me to \u2018help\u2019 him build his kingdom! I pictured my heavenly Father at work seeking, saving, and transforming the lost, and there I was, with my weak hands \u2018helping\u2019. My Father could do the work by himself, but he doesn\u2019t. He chooses to stoop graciously to allow me to co-labor with him. Why? For my sake, because he wants me to have the privilege of ministering with him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rusty Stephens, a Navigators director in Virginia Beach, Virginia, tells a story: \u201cAs I feverishly pushed the lawn mower around our yard, I wondered if I\u2019d finish before dinner. Mikey our 6-year-old, walked up and, without even asking, stepped in front of me and placed his hands on the mower handle. Knowing that he wanted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3980,3045,3982,3981,404],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4600"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4600\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}