The Night Shift

"You have fooled me, O Jehovah, so that I was fooled. You used your strength against me, so that you prevailed"- Jeremiah 20:7


Well it was bound to happen. You see, I believe that at times we make a statement to ourselves and although no one else hears it, Jehovah does and he deals with us accordingly. He must say something like: " Oh really? Well now, let me just straighten this here out..."
 My issue goes back a few months in our Congregation Bible Study. On page 39 of the Jeremiah book there is a picture of a couple witnessing in a gas station. The picture appears to be either very early in the morning or in the night sometime. I remember at the time studying it and thinking to myself "what a fine example, they are truly extending themselves in the ministry" or something of the sort. Well, Jehovah was listening to my thoughts. He must have known that I really did not mean that; that my true thoughts were " that's way too late to be out in service!". He has seen to it that I have had an epiphany of sorts, yes I have come around and changed my point of view...Welcome to the night shift.
It started off slowly at first just one call. Suzanne met a woman with a teenage son who wanted to study from the Questions Young People Ask book. The problem was he was only free to study on Mondays, our day off. "No problem, he's only 14, I'll get him to change the day" I thought to myself. No can do, you see the young fella truly has a full schedule and Monday was the only day he could study. In fact when I showed up on Wednesday his mom says "you have to come on Mondays when he is here!". After whining about it for a while I snapped out of it and guess what? It has turned not only into a regular study but since I am already out, we keep working doing NH and RV and are finding many people at home. Monday evening witnessing has actually been enjoyable :-) But wait it gets better...
Suzanne too had a study late-Friday evenings at 6:00. Though she tried to make it earlier 4:30, 5:00 the woman was just not home until after 6:00. What was the solution? More studies of course! After staying out later in the evening and working NH, Tonya found another woman who wanted to study at 7 p.m. on Friday evenings. I see a pattern developing here...
Lately we feel as though we have been working the night shift! We have two nights a week- Wednesday and Friday that we are out into the night; our record right now is 9:40 p.m. It is kind of humorous when we meet for service the next day and we ask "what time did you finish? 7:00? Slackers! We were out until 9:00!"
Although we would love for all our studies to be between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. we realize that we have to make ourselves available when the people are home. Any inconvenience we may have felt has vanished; it is worth it as our studies are getting a chance to come to know Jehovah. We have several late evening Bible Studies and we know Jehovah is pleased that we are holding nothing back as we try to accomplish the work he has given us to do.
Now, if you will, please excuse me. I've gotta get some sleep ;-)