Can I spell my own name?

So at church this morning Ps Mark was talking on the subject of Eternity..woah what a BIG subject and very difficult to comprehend with the human brain, especially as we only use 10% of it..imagine if we could use 100% even then i don't think i could understand Eternity....

A man named Arthur Stace was mentioned.. oh how i love his story, being a christian and from Sydney I had heard about him before but this afternoon i read up on his life a little more and I couldn't help but feel encouraged and emotional at the same time.

Arthur Stace - Mr Eternity

From the Gutter…

Arthur Stace was born in 1884, growing up poor in the Sydney suburb of Balmain his mother & father were both alcoholics. All his siblings (two sisters and two brothers) spent much of their life in jail with one of his sisters running a brothel.

He had almost no formal education and at the age of twelve he became a ward of the state. When he was fourteen he was already a wandering drunk and at fifteen he ended up in jail for the first time.

In his twenties his job was to carry booze from the pubs to the brothels (particularly his sisters’ brothel). Then there were other jobs such as a cockatoo (the one who gives warning of the approach of the police) at a two-up school. He was also mixed up with various housebreaking gangs and ,because of his size, he was very useful as a look out man.

..to the Gospel

During the Depression a metho drinker, dirty, badly dressed, had to be the least likely of any to get a job. The word had gone around that a cup of tea and something to eat was available at the Church Hall up at St. Barnabas - In the 1930s one would put up with almost anything for free food.

There were about 300 men present, mostly down and outs, but they had to endure an hour and half of talking before they received their tea and rock cakes.

Arthur Stace knew that his life was a mess and he knew that he needed to change. After the service was over, he crossed the road to Victoria Park where he sat under a tree and committed his life to Jesus Christ.

It was a few months later he heard the evangelist Reverend John Ridley speak who told his audience that men and women everywhere must think about Eternity and where they will spend it.

Stace recalling the day, said:

“He repeated himself and kept shouting ‘ETERNITY, ETERNITY’ and his words were ringing through my brain as I left the church. Suddenly I began crying and I felt a powerful call from the Lord to write ‘ETERNITY’.”

"I had a piece of chalk in my pocket and I bent down there and wrote it, the funny thing is that before I wrote it I could hardly have spelled my own name. I had no schooling and I couldn’t have spelt ‘ETERNITY’ for a hundred quid But it came out smoothly in beautiful copperplate script. I couldn’t understand it and I still can’t.”

The City Council had a rule against defacing the pavement and the police “very nearly arrested” him many times, he would tell them “But I had permission from a higher source”.

For 37 years, he chalked this ‘one-word sermon’ – and it is estimated he wrote it more than half a million times.

Stace did not like publicity and for years its was unknown who wrote the word Eternity through the city of Sydney.

To bring in the Millenium as apart of the Sydney fireworks display the word "Eternity" in all its glory was there for billions of people to see.

Reading this I could only ask myself one question "Can I spell my own name?" the answer is yes, so what is my excuse for not using the gifts God has given me. Arthur Stace couldn't even spell his own name and he touched the lives of billions of people...WOOOOOOOOOOW!!