Digging Deep

First, remember podcast is tomorrow night here: https://thecolleyhouse.org/live-digging-deep-video-podcast.  Subsequent podcasts for the remainder of 2024 are October 22nd, November 19th and January 7th (December’s podcast). This represents one change from our original plan, so mark these dates! And next…

I may have cried when I read this little package of mail delivered to me last Wednesday night by our church secretary. It was a letter from  Jennifer Allen, of McCook Nebraska, accompanied by letters from various places in Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas, and Alberta, Canada. It seems Jennifer and some of the ladies in McCook Nebraska have done the study for several years. It just fed my soul to learn that God’s Word was changing women’s lives in that remote ( to me, anyway) place. 

Then Jennifer went on to say that there were women in the larger area who did not have groups with which to meet. SO Jennifer and her daughter decided to start another group via Zoom in which these ladies in somewhat discouraging situations could find sisters who are in the Word. Jennifer’s mother-in-law and several of her nieces, and two sisters-in-law were able to join that Zoom group. As a result of these two women, there are two groups in these small churches that are presently struggling through a hopeful formation process. Please pray for them. 

Marissa is a digger from McCook who has studied along for years. She recently moved a couple of hours away and now has eighteen ladies in her own group in her new (and very small) congregation. The McCook ladies are planning a field trip to go and visit the new group! 

Jennifer’s youngest daughter moved to Kansas and now has about 12 ladies signed up in her new group in that place. No wonder we are running out of books down here! We just had no idea how God was blessing in areas to which we have never even traveled. He is so amazingly resourceful. I praise Him for the chance to navigate His wonderful blessing of the Dig! I praise him for the highways of evangelism that he paves for all of us! He is so very good to Digging Deep! 

So my husband came in as I was reading through this voluminous pile of mail, that I really had forgotten had been in my purse for a couple of days. He said “Oh no. What’s wrong?” 

I said, “Everything is right. You have to sit down here and let me read you this envelope of encouragement.”  

He kept interrupting to say things like “ Oh Wow! I do not think about places like this when I am packing those books. God is really blessing this work.”…and “Aren’t they just so sweet to you?”  

And then there’s this mustard seed necklace that one of them made (yes, made) for me. I will treasure it and think about the trees in Nebraska and Kansas and the Dakotas and Canada whenever I wear it. My faith was small, like a mustard seed 14 years ago when God started this digging phenomena. I had no idea I was any part of any group, much less an international dig into the Word. that would continue for more than a decade now. I did not do any of this, though. It was only my tiny mustard seed, that God used to “move this mountain.” 

I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. 

I realize that Jesus was speaking to the apostles here and that their moved mountains would truly be miraculous;  but I’m telling you, sisters…God can providentially move mountains, too and He is moving mountains of sin as far away as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). He is moving hearts of women to come back to the places of blessing where He has called us to be. He is applying the blood of Jesus to souls of women who were lost before they came to know a few diggers in their areas. He is moving!… through a Bible study that I never even knew, back in 2010, was emerging. I am truly amazed that I get to watch, up-close, the hand of God moving through Digging Deep. It is absolutely nothing I did or will ever do. He just showed me what HE could do with an insignificant little beginning that I thought was “one and done.”  He just gave me this work to do. I praise Him for this providence. I praise Him for the many women who are helping to make the Dig deeper and better in so many ways, from tech to organization aspects, to inviting, to prayer. I praise Him!