Knowing you, Jesus - there is no greater thing!

    This past week has been a really challenging one for me.  I know that God is working in my heart ... and yet at the same time there is this deadening pull to let myself get all wrapped up in (and pulled down by) things: Circumstances. Problems. Pain. Discouragement. The Deadline.  My overly-full schedule.
    So as I go through my days, I find that pull to be very real. Right when I'm up to my neck in serving, and when my heart is just thrilling in the opportunities He's opened up in my life, bam, it hits me. That little, sneaky suggestion: "Hey, did you remember that problem? I wonder how this situation is going to work out.  Huh.  I just know he or she is going to cause a problem... what am I going to do? Oh no. I forgot that she wants that order filled by next week.  And the wedding next month!" and on and on it goes. 
    And all the strength I once had to serve the Lord drains away, leaving me just about as limp as that old celery in the refrigerator.  I'm not kidding.  It's like there's a leak in my life! 
    The Lord has been showing me in more ways than one, that my life is very, very finite.  I'm limited in my ability.  I only have so much memory.  So much passion.  So much strength.  It's HIS strength that is limitless.  He's the one that gives the ability.  He's the only way that my life can, in any way, have streams of living water flowing out of it. 
    And my focus so often turns away from Him, to the of-this-world problems.  And my it goes in a downward spiral from there.  I can't afford to waste any of my strength on worrying about the circumstances I'm in.  I can't afford to waste time worrying about my reputation.  Wondering about that Big Bad Problem that is just going to show up tomorrow.  
    The only way I can go through life is by setting all of my hope, all of my expectation, all of my sight on Him.  Joying in Him.  Loving Him.  I am finding that it's so true: all of my streams come from Him.  And if I let that fellowship between me and my Father get plugged up somewhere along the way, the streams flowing from my life trickle to a slow stream .. and eventually, they die. 
    So my purpose in sharing that is to encourage myself - and you - to keep our hearts set on Jesus.  It doesn't matter as much if we haven't read a book for six months, or if our desks are piled high with unanswered letters, account statements, and unfinished study projects.  That stuff isn't going to matter in eternity. But what does matter is how buried we are in Him.  We know the difference if we aren't.  And so does the world around us.  I want a life that sings about Him, unconsciously and effortlessly, because I know Him.  

The Unreasonableness of Love

    I was impressed lately by a little book, written by Richard Wurmbrand, during his time in prison in solitary confinement.  He was shut up with God, and the rats, and the stark realities of prison life.  And the sweetness of his communion with God in that place shines out of his writings.  I thought I'd share a portion that really blessed me today, about love.
    "Reason will tell you about the foolishness of the cross.  Jesus was young, handsome, vigorous.  He could have made a good living as a carpenter, or as a doctor of the law.  He could have married and enjoyed life.  Why die to save people who do not want to be saved?  Why start something which will not be accepted, or even heard of, by the overwhelming majority of mankind, and which will be practised only by a few isolated saints?
    Who would conceive such an unreasonable project? Only Paul dared to answer this question.  A chill runs down your spine when you hear the answer.  The Bible is the only religious book to contain such an expression, which must surely be considered a blasphemy by all the religions of the world, including Christianity - "the foolishness of God!"
    Love must submit to being condemned by reason.  I told my missionary friend: "Just follow the promptings of love. Don't try to justify your actions by arguments."
    We in prison use the same unreasonableness.  When we hear the cries of someone being beaten, all the others begin to bang on their doors, "Help! Help! Stop beating!"  There is nobody to hear us, except those who are beating and who now, instead of beating only one, beat us all up, one after the other.
    What is the sense of a collective protest here?  What is the sense of expressing your solidarity with those who are beaten?  It is non-sense, which means that it is pure love.  Love does not think about what it will achieve, what it will gain.  Love does not think at all.  Love does not care about reason.  Why should it?"

    I was challenged by those words.  I long to love like that.  I long to see love like that, lived out in the church and among God's people.  Not just rational, count-the-cost-first love, but unreasonable, irrational love.  Love like Jesus loves us with.  

Richard Wurmbrand

  

أهلاً وسهلاً Greetings from the Land of Language! :)

    Just checking in from the land of language learning ... :) Alot of my time this week has been spent on that - language learning.  Verbs and tense, learning the correct greeting for each situation, learning to read a language that is not based on English characters, and all of the other wonderful challenges. 
    It's been difficult, frustrating, and really exciting, all at once.  Learning a language is not easy, but I am enjoying it immensely! It has given me a new perspective on what it's like to be a missionary among a people who do not speak English.  That feeling of desperately wanting to understand, of stretching brain and ear to grasp even a idea of what is being said, and yet coming away with that awful feeling of missing it all - in spite of those hours of study! 
    I've also been brokenhearted to feel what the illiterate, or those who do not have the Word of God in their own language, feel.  I have a lovely little Arabic Injeel.  (New Testament)  It has a nice black leather cover, and a silk bookmark, and a really neat little zipper around it, and the pages look so crisp - but as I open that precious book, so full of words that could change my life, I come away feeling frustrated.  Because I can read most of the words.  I can sound out those characters.  But what on earth does it mean?!?  Words, sounds, but absolutely no heart understanding.  Arabic is not my heart language.  It means basically nothing to me.
    But all in all, I think this extremely challenging language is finally beginning to make some sense to me.  It's exciting when words keep popping out at me; when after the thousandth time of hearing that word, I can actually pronounce it.  Language learning is hard business.  But so worth the time put into it!  So worth the reward of talking with a native speaker and really being understood; of being able to share the treasures I have found, in somebody's own heart-language.  It's great.  It's thrilling.  I love it!
   
    

Life ... and my thoughts on it

    I've been thinking alot about life these days.  The shortness of life, the sheer joy of it, the tangles and pain of it ... and what my purpose is, while I have that thing called life.  My life has been impacted the most by people who were willing to sell out to God.  They were irrationally reckless, by the world's standards.  They loved radically, served radically, and some of them died radically glorious deaths.  So glorious that it seems strange to call it death.  
    And so I look at these people's lives, and I wonder: what makes somebody like that?  Whatever it is, I want it!  And as my heart has been seeking God, He has continually spoken a single passion into my heart: to live in such a way that everything I do is for His glory.  I don't believe in this separation business - this compartmentalization of walking with God.  If I'm going to live for God, I'm going to do everything for Him, and that includes the laundry and dishes!
    That's been the longing of my heart, especially the past month.  I'm a real person.  I have bad days. And I have really bad days.  I get migraines.  And people annoy me.  Church issues bother me.  Too often my heart gets all wrapped up, and I find myself just living, and plodding along. 
    I don't want to plod along in life! I don't want to waste a second of the life God has given me!  Who knows but that tomorrow I'll die - do I want to come to the end of my life and realize too late that God gave me life so that I could joy in Him, and make Him great? 
    I'm not talking about a plastic life that is all joy and happiness and high spirituality.  Not at all! I'm just longing for a life that is real .. that in pain, joy, or weeping; in school or university or study; whether I spend my life planting potatoes in a field or doing the most spiritual work, my life would radiate the delight and treasure of knowing God.  And that all the people I come in contact with would turn and praise Him. 
    Isn't that what life is about?  I'm becoming increasingly convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt that it's not about my particular doctrinal stance; it's not about whether I read Calvin or Menno Simons; it's not about making money or earning people's approval.  Life has been given to me so that I can love God, and delight myself in Him, and make Him known to the farthest reaches of this world - so that they also can know the Treasure I have come to know. 
    And that's what I long to live for.  That's what I want to be about.  That's what I want people to see in my life.  I want to love God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength.  And I want everyone around me to know Him like that, too. With William Duma, my heart burns with the cry: "Take Your glory, Lord! You become ultimate in my life!" 

Day out with my class in Lebanon...

The above photos are of our class' day out.  We took a vanload of children to Hershey Chocolate Factory, then out to lunch at the park.  It's one of the most rewarding things I've ever been a part of, to pour into these dear children's lives for the Lord! I love it!

Camping in the White Mountains of New Hampshire

    Hey folks! Just back from a week-long camping/sightseeing trip out in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  That entire area is absolutely gorgeous, and I don't think I'll ever forget the view from below the mountains - surrounded on all sides by rocky, towering mountains that make one feel very, very insignificant.  
    I loved to stand in the center of one of the few open fields, and watch the sun rise over the pointy, rocky summit.  Sunsets were just as majestic, and seemed even dramatic as the sun went behind the mountain and the shadows took over.  Nightfall was always so peaceful ... the sun went down, the night birds took up their song, and the roar of the Pemigewasset River continued.  
    Of course we did have our exciting experiences as well.  Two bears, one of which climbed the side of our vehicle at night, and then climbed a tree in our camp site and hissed down at us.  Hiking on a trail that had been fairly destroyed by the recent hurricane, to a elevation of 3,500ft.  Swimming in a crystal-clear lake in the cold mountain air and shivering uncontrollably. Getting a look at the Old Man of the Mountain - New Hampshire's state symbol. 
    All in all, we had a great vacation week.  I marvel at all of the beauty that God has created.  But even more so, that He actively sustains and upholds every detail of it.  I had to laugh to myself, actually, as I gazed up at those mountains, so unmovable and unchangeable.  My God thinks nothing of moving those mountains into the sea.  That's nothing to Him! What a mighty God I serve!  I delight to be so small, so insignificant, so absolutely loved by a God like that. 
    

The Love of God...Romans eight

    I have confidence in the depths of my heart that I will be conqueror in all of the difficulties of life, because Jesus IS.  At the present moment, in fact, He is at the right hand of God, interceding for little, tiny me.  It doesn't matter at all if the whole world is against me, if the God of heaven is for me.  If God loved me so much that He actually gave His Son, and didn't even consider sparing anything for my redemption, I have nothing to fear.
    Even if I face death head on, or whether I live a life of painful, agonizing daily dying to what is most precious to me, that very thing that seems the darkest in my life right now is not capable of separating me from the love of God.  God has ordained that this very thing is working for my good. 
    If all of the angels or all of the powers of hell attempt to come against me and rip me from the power and love of God, and if God allows Satan to touch my life, my health, my family, my church - even those things in all of their power and wrath are incapable of separating me from the love of God.  Somehow, though I cannot see it, and though all of hell is coming against me, God has ordained that this very thing is working for my good.
    Though the present circumstances seem totally against the will of God, He is still sovereign.  Though wrong may seem to dominate, and seem to be capable of clouding my vision and dulling my joy, it is absolutely incapable of separating me from the love of God. 
    The future may very well hold things fearful and joyful.  Things gloriously full of gladness, and things terrifyingly difficult and painful.  It may look as dark as hell or as bright as the sun, but regardless of what it is, the future is in the hands of the Lord.  And God has ordained that whether it be dark or bright, it is good - intensely good - and it is incapable of separating me from the love of God.
    Even though there seem to be frighteningly powerful forces in this world, and I feel very small in comparison, God is still reigning over all.  The powers of darkness and the powers of light are totally under His control, and He has ordained that they cannot cross His boundaries - and even they are incapable of separating me from the love of God. 
    If I were to fly into space, and soar past the sun, the moon, and our galaxy, and if I were to travel to the farthest reaches of outer space, even there His right hand will lead me.  I may be totally out of the reach of human hands, but the hands of my God are not confined to human capabilities.  The distances that cut me off from the reach of man, and the reach of telephone and internet and emergency personnel, are still totally incapable of separating me from the love of God.
     If I take the greatest submarine ever invented, and dive to the deepest depth of the ocean that man has ever dove to, and if I hike to the deepest cave of the earth and make my home there, God's hand is still leading me.  The darkest cave cannot hide me from the all-seeing eyes of my Father.  Though there is no discernible light in the depths of the earth, to God it is as light as day.  And nothing - not the depths of the ocean or of the earth; not the darkness of hell - is capable of separating me from the love of my God.
    In fact, there is absolutely not a thing upon the face of the earth, or in heaven, or in hell, or in the deepest, darkest cave of the earth, or in the depths of the ocean, or in the farthest reaches of the universe ... or in my present circumstances and life ... that can in the smallest way, separate me from the boundless, unstoppable, everlasting love of God. 
    So, what should I say to all of these things?  If God is for us, who in all of creation can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?  Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.  Who is to condemn?  Christ Jesus is the one who died - more than that, who was raised - who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 
    Who is even capable of separating us from the love of Christ? Is tribulation or distress? Persecution or famine? Lack of clothing or danger, or death?  Not a thing - you name everything you face today - nothing in all of creation is able or capable of separating us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.