Inside Story for Friday 30th of May 2025

By Andrew McChesney

Diana and Loren were planning to get married in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when they found out that they were expecting a baby. Diana postponed the wedding because she didn’t want the baby to be the reason for marriage.

After the baby was born, the couple moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where Diana’s parents were living. They had had enough of life in Santa Fe.

Although Diana and Loren weren’t living as Christians, Loren wanted to get married in a church. He chose an Adventist church and contacted its pastor. He also asked his father, an Adventist pastor living near Chicago, to perform the ceremony. This presented a dilemma for both pastors because Diana wasn’t a church member and the couple wasn’t living a Christian life. But after much prayer, they said they felt impressed to “err on the side of love.” Loren’s father gave premarital counseling over the phone.

On their wedding day, Diana was surprised to see church members whom they didn’t know in attendance. Who attends a wedding of strangers? she thought. Her surprise grew when the church members gave them gifts.

Unpacking at home, Diana came across a small book titled Happiness Digest. She thought it was a book from the three persistent women who had visited her in Colorado. She began reading it, and she couldn’t put it down. When Loren came home from work, she excitedly said, “This is truth!” He said, “Oh, that’s Steps to Christ, written by a prophet named Ellen White.” The idea of a prophet confused Diana, but a desire sprouted in her heart to visit the Adventist church and learn more about what she had been reading.

When Diana showed up in church, members didn’t say a word. They accepted her as she was and even took care of her children so she could listen. When she overheard the head elder talking about Bible studies, she told him, “I want to study.” Loren interrupted, “I can tell you whatever you want to know.” He was embarrassed that he hadn’t studied with her. “No, I want to study the Bible for myself,” she said.

The elder, Lorell Herold, and his wife, Carol, came to their home every week for 28 weeks. As Diana studied, her worldly appearance began to change. No one spoke to her about it. No one preached about it. She simply lost interest in worldly things as church members loved her and as she learned about God’s love that was poured out in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Her enthusiasm for the Bible surprised Loren. He wondered what he had missed growing up and began studying the Bible on his own. The two decided to get baptized together.

This mission story offers an inside look at how God miraculously worked in the life of Diana Fish, development director of the US-based Holbrook Seventh-day Adventist Indian School, which received the Thirteenth Sabbath Offering in 2021. Thank you for supporting the spread of the gospel with this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering on June 28. Read more about Diana next week.

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-09-inside-story-part-5-love-and-marriage/

Daily Lesson for Friday 30th of May 2025

Further Thought: Read Psalms 133:1-3, Acts 1:4-9, and Revelation 5:4-7.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

“During the patriarchal age the influence of the Holy Spirit had often been revealed in a marked manner, but never in its fullness. Now, in obedience to the word of the Saviour, the disciples offered their supplications for this gift, and in heaven Christ added His intercession. He claimed the gift of the Spirit, that He might pour it upon His people.”—Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 37.

The disciples were instructed to bear witness to Christ “ ‘to the end of the earth’ ” (Acts 1:8, NKJV), a work that would herald the return of Christ (Matthew 24:14). We are to continue what they started.

When Christ told us to carry the gospel to the world, He did not leave us alone to figure out how it might happen. The work is directed from heaven’s sanctuary. Our work is intimately wrapped up in Christ: He guides and empowers us. This is His work, not ours: we are asked to follow His lead. You will notice this is how it worked with Israel: God asked them to follow His instructions, and then He made the impossible happen. The Spirit is already at work in the hearts of our neighbors; we are asked to be there when the moment of decision arrives so that we can invite them to join God’s people as they stand with the Lamb on Zion. We do not have to invent new means and methods because we have never been in charge of the work.

Discussion Questions

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25b-09-further-thought-in-the-psalms-part-2/