This past week (May 10-13) I had the privilege of attending the PAOC General Conference in Edmonton, Alberta.  The theme of this years conference was “Rooted in Relationship”.  This series of posts contains my notes from the speakers I heard at the conference.  Many thanks to my church for making it possible for my wife and I to attend!

I’ve never heard a message on Leah before (see Genesis 29 for the introduction to Leah).  That was the subject of the message by the Assembly of God’s General Superintendent, George O. Wood.  Here are some of the statements he made that I thought were important enough to record (note that although I tried to record the words of Rev. Wood verbatim, there may be instances where I just got the spirit of what he was saying):

• circumstances in Leah’s life were out of her control
• Leah is the one who is recorded as putting her faith in the Lord. Notice Rachel stole her father’s household idols.
• Notice that Genesis 49:31 tells us that Jacob wanted to be buried not with Rachel but with Leah!
• Leah’s story teaches us that we cannot measure the effectiveness of our life within the span of a couple decades.  Sometimes the effectiveness of our life isn’t even seen until long after we die!!
• Leah did a whole lot more to build up the house of Israel than did Rachel.
• All the key players from the Christmas story are descended from Leah.
• Barnabas was descended from Leah
• We will make choices that will impact others long after we are gone.
• Ministry is about people not buildings and we have to leave our “failures” (or what we think are failures) to God.
• There is a reward that exists for both the sower and the reaper
• 6 of heaven’s pearly gates stand in tribute to Leah’s legacy in her sons – what will stand in heaven as a tribute to what you are going through now?
• What will matter 100 years from now is the legacy of your life that you pass on to others.

For the next few days I’m just going to post my rough notes from the conference and I may comment here and there.  However, I’m going to reserve the majority of my personal reflection from the conference until the last post.  In the meantime, feel free to write your own thoughts in the comments!