MY FUTURE IS IN GOD’S HANDS
by Erwin Bourne—April 19, 2002
My earthly father had the biggest, strongest hands I
ever saw on any man. When I was a small boy about
three years of age, my father rescued me from a big
collie dog. Were it not for this incidence, I would
never had remembered my Great Grandfather Stephen
Carpenter. We were visiting down in Beaver Valley,
Nebraska. My Dad and I walked out behind a shed where
Granddad, as my Father called him, was milking a cow.
This big collie dog was standing by his side. I
reached out to pet the big dog. Perhaps it thought
that I was going to harm the cow—or Granddad sitting
on the one-legged milk stool. (Isn’t it amazing all
the details that can remain for a lifetime in a
three-year-old’s memory.) The dog caught my shoulder
biting deeply into the muscle. Dad caught me up in
his big hands, lifting me over six feet into the air.
The furious dog kept leaping high—but I was safe! I
carried this deep scar on my upper arm far into my
adult lifetime.
David, the Psalmist, wrote these words: “You are my
God!” My future is in your hands. Rescue me from
those who hunt me down relentlessly (Psalm 31:14-15
NLT). Back in 1938, my future was in my Dad’s hands.
I can testify to many times since when my future was
in God’s hands! Earlier in verse eight, David said,
“You have not handed me over to my enemy but have set
me in a safe place” (vs. 8). Today I can’t recall the
pain.
A MISSIONARY’S LIFE IS INVINCIBLE
TILL HIS WORK IS FINISHED!
What does God foresee in my future? I have laid
unconscious in a hospital bed for seven days with
typhoid fever. As consciousness was returning, I
begged God to take me home. He said my work wasn’t
finished on Earth. After open-heart by-pass surgery,
I laid unconscious in the recovery room for three days
while friends and family waited. At age 66, I have
undergone thirteen surgeries. I can count many
“battle scars” inflicted in this body. At two A.M. I
am sitting in a corner of our bedroom working at my
computer. I couldn’t be more blest! My wife, Jean,
shares the workload of this mission. Likewise, we
share the vision of this expanding operation. Our
future is in God’s hands! He can lift us above all
danger, and rescue us! from all evil!
Yours for OUTREACH AMAZON,
—Erwin and Jean Bourne
Yours for OUTREACH AMAZON,
—Erwin and Jean Bourne