Dying Out Loud

This weekend I picked up a book called “Dying Out Loud: No Guilt in Life, No Fear in Death” about the death of missionary Stan Steward in the Muslim country of Turkey.  Normally I would have flown through an easy read like this, but I ran out of kleenexes and had to slow down.  This book is tearing my heart out!

I’ve written about this family before, and though they insist there is nothing remarkable about them- I am in awe of their strength of commitment to sharing the gospel with the lost.  They determined to live among the remote villages along the ancient Silk Road in the area between the border of Turkey and Iran.  They integrated their lives as completely as possible with the people and they were accepted as one of them.

Photo credit: jessleecuizon / Foter / CC BY

This alone is admirable.  As a missionary I know what that kind of a decision costs.  I make those small decisions a million times a day- will I chose my own personal comfort or will I empty myself for others?  I’m ashamed to say that too many times I chose my own preferences because I am still working in my own strength and not God’s.  I say, I’m tired.  I don’t want to speak Spanish anymore today.  I just need to get into my house where things are familiar and comfortable and within my control so I can decompress with my family tonight.  I make those choices for myself all the time.  I am convicted.

Not only did they integrate into the culture, but prayed a risky prayer.  They asked God to use them to reach the Turkish people… whatever the cost.  Always a risky prayer.  We talk a lot in our denomination about why the Muslims haven’t responded to the gospel like other groups have.  Many believe that because we revolt from the idea of watering the hard soil with our martyr’s blood, the Muslims have not been won.  We have not counted the cost.  We have not cried for their souls because our fears and hatred mingle too freely with our determination and passion to make any kind of a combustable concoction.  We have watered down the message of the cross to make it more acceptable to the world and this weak message is powerless to save now.  I am challenged.

Photo credit: NYCandre / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

So their risky prayer lead them to heart break.  Stan was diagnosed with colon cancer that filled his body in a short amount of time.  Stan and his wife Ann felt the Lord asking them to “Live this dying out loud” in order to show their Muslim brothers and sisters how Christians die with peace and assurance of their salvation.  A Muslim has no such assurance in death.  He can only hope that he’s done enough good to counterbalance the bad in his life.  He only has a sad, dark form of hope to cling to.  God was asking Stan to show them how to live and die in the vibrant, confident hope in Jesus Christ.  It was an intensely difficult price to pay.  I am humbled by their Yes when so often I’ve said No.

It is this story of commitment and sacrifice that is tearing me apart.  I am being challenged and called all over again.  If I had other lives to live and give I would go and replace Stan in Turkey.  I am challenged to pray more.  I see how pathetic my own strength is in comparison with all that God can do when I am completely at his disposal. I am hungry for that kind of love for the lost that says “At Any Cost”.  Have I ever loved like that?  This book is challenging me to the roots of my commitment.  And I am Called all over again.

Even on my worst day…

Even on my worst day, I have so much to be thankful for.  My complaints are pathetic and selfish in comparison with real life for a huge portion of the world.  Look at this post that a fellow missionary in Nicaragua posted earlier this week.

“Please pray for precious Keyling. She has a high fever and an infection in her chest. You can only imagine the struggle to remain healthy living in these conditions. 8 people trying to sleep on this one piece of plywood to keep off the cold, muddy, wet ground because of the heavy rains. We were able to get Keyling the antibiotic she needs. As we told her mother to make sure she takes the meds 3x a day with a small piece of bread or something in her stomach the mother humbly told us that wouldn’t be possible. They cook a small pot of yucca (like a potato) every morning. Each person in the family gets one small piece. Please pray for Keyling today. That God would supernaturally touch her body, keep her safe, warm and provide this families every need.”

Pictures by Kendra Dout, missionary to Nicaragua

 I am so blessed, and so are you.  We see this kind of poverty where we live too.  I often wonder how those people live day by day in those kinds of conditions.  I complain that there are too many ants on my counter tops in the mornings… and her counter top is a log.  I complain that my washing machine is making a funny noise and not draining properly.  Look at how they must do their washing by hand and hang things out to dry. I complain that my wardrobe is getting thread bare after 5 years of use.  Look at her one shirt and how the family’s clothes are doubling as pillows and blankets.  I complain that the store didn’t restock my coffee creamer for the 3rd week in a row, and this family eats one piece of potato a day.  I am a selfish, spoiled person.  I have so many blessings for which I forget to thank God.

Kendra told me that she found this girl on the streets 2 years ago.  She was probably 4 or 5 years old.  The mother was living with all 6 kids in this shack.  She was selling the older 2 children (ages 11 and 14) for sex in the market.  Lack of money leads to desperation.  But lack of Jesus leads to sin and death.  You know the saying, “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a life time.”  Well there is a Spiritual extension to that proverb.

You can come into a poor community and just pour money into the gap, but the people are still spiritually poor and headed for an eternity without hope.  However, when a missionary brings Jesus to the poor, he brings an eternal change to the situation.  There is now hope where there was once despair.  With Jesus in their lives, the family makes better decisions… like not selling their children for sex because that’s wrong… like not drinking alcohol because that deprives the family of food.  Economics can change when there is a heart change.

We don’t feed people in exchange for them becoming Christians.  We feed people so that they can hear the message of Jesus’s love instead of being distracted by the rumble of their stomachs.  It is unjust and morally wrong to just say, “Jesus bless you” and not actually feed the hungry or give a cup of water to the thirsty.  The message isn’t the cup or the plate.  The message is always “Jesus”, the food and water are just vehicles for the message- tangible expressions of the abstract concept of love.  Plus it’s just what Jesus told us to do.

 

Jesus had boundaries too

Our Savior Jesus, walked in a human body with human limitations.  If the Son of God had to draw boundaries, then so do I.  In Mark 6 we have two stories back to back that show the stress and strain placed on Jesus in the ministry.  First we see him preparing to send out his disciples for some hands-on ministry training time.  He gives them instructions, forms little teams, and sends them out.  In the meantime, Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist is beheaded.  John’s own disciples go to collect the body and bury him.  (A couple of Jesus’ own disciples HAD been followers of John before Jesus started his public ministry, so this news would have come as a shock to them as well.)  So the disciples come back to Jesus to report on what they did on their mini missions trip around the area and they receive the bad news of John’s death.  This is what we read in Mark 6:30-32.

The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught.  Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”  So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.

Have you ever been so busy that you haven’t had time to even EAT let alone talk with your family… or worse, you haven’t been able to grieve for a loss or celebrate a victory!  We need times of retreat to do both, to heal and to savor life.  When the pace is rapid fire, go-go-go that is a time when we need to pull in the boundary lines.  It’s not always possible to slow down and take a weekend away RIGHT NOW.  But you still need it, soon.  Put it on the calendar.  Say No to some lesser obligations to carve out space for rest and retreat.

Also, don’t forget your Sabbath Rest.  This is a commandment!  You need one day per week to stop working and to honor God.  On the Sabbath we honor God with our Rest.  For most people it is Sunday- but for ministers this is a work day, so they need to take a different day for rest.  This is a commandment!  “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”  For the 6 days of creation, the Lord worked, and on the 7th day he rested… not because he was tired.  God rested to give us the example of HOW TO STOP WORKING and to honor Him.  God has ordered us to rest.  (I love rest!  I could take a nap every day!! So why is this such a hard commandment to obey?)

So back to the passage in Mark 6.  Jesus wanted his disciples to rest and retreat for a while.  But when they arrived at their retreat destination, there was a crowd of several THOUSAND people waiting for Jesus.  Rest would have to wait a while longer.  Jesus had compassion on the multitudes of “shepherdless” people, so he stayed to teach them and then feed them with miraculous provisions.  After the 5,000 were fed, we read this:

Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd.  After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray alone.

Jesus needed a break.  And the disciples needed a break too.  They needed it badly enough for Jesus to send them ahead while he dismissed the crowd.  It’s like saying, “Honey, take the kids out to the car and wait for me,” when you see your children having an exhaustion fueled melt-down on the floor in the church lobby.  I think Jesus knew his disciples had reached their limits.  He knew where HIS limits were too, and he knew it was time to recharge the batteries with some quiet, alone time with the Father.  Even the Son of God needed to pull away for a while and rest.  I love that.  It helps me accept and embrace my own need for rest and retreat.

Bad News, Good News

Good Morning fellow blog readers.  Sorry I’m a little late this morning.  I had fully intended to wake up and write you a lovely blog about my weekend in the cloud forest, then I opened my email and the sky fell on my head.  Bad news.  I got sick to my stomach.  My hands started shaking.  I lost my appetite for my breakfast.  I hate bad news.

My husband commiserated with me for a moment, then patted my arm and said, “It will all work out, you’ll see.”  And he was out the door.  Me, I shot off two messages asking for prayer from dear friends and family, and I ran off to find Jesus.  I felt like a little girl running off in tears to find her Father.  I needed to bury my head in his chest, feel his strong arms around my shoulders, and just cry.  Jesus, I breathed his name.

Opening my devotional and asking him to speak to me, I read this:

“Expect to encounter adversity in your life… stop trying to find a way that circumvents difficulties (and wasn’t my mind just spinning as I grasped for a solution to my bad news?  Wasn’t I just doing this?!)  The main problem with an easy life is that it masks your need for Me… Anticipate coming face to face with impossibilities:  situations totally beyond your ability to handle (at this I smiled as a tear eeked out of the corner of my eyes). This awareness of your inadequacy is not something you should try to evade.  It is precisely where I want you- the best place to encounter Me in My Glory and Power.  When you see armies of problems marching toward you, cry out to Me!  Allow Me to fight for you.  Watch Me working on your behalf, as you rest in the shadow of My Almighty Presence.”

Ok, God.  I throw up my hands, powerless to fix this problem.  I got nuthin’.  I trust that you have a plan for this, that you saw this coming before I woke up this morning and opened my email.  I’m going to trust you.  I don’t have any other options.  I’ve used up all my resources in this area, and I’m broke. I come to you empty handed.  I can offer nothing to fix this problem.  It’s all on You.  I need a miracle.

All we like Shrek the Sheep have gone astray

Occasionally I find something really great on Facebook and I want to share it with my non-fb blog readers.  I have no idea who originally wrote this or where the credits for the picture can be found.  I don’t claim any of this content as my own.  I just thought it was a great illustration.  Enjoy your weekend!

I don’t know who owns the rights to this picture. I found it on Facebook. It’s not mine though.

This is Shrek the sheep. He became famous several years ago when he was found after hiding out in caves for six years. Of course, during this time his fleece grew without anyone there to shorn (shave) it. When he was finally found and shaved, his fleece weighed an amazing sixty pounds. Most sheep have a fleece weighing just under ten pounds, with the exception usually reaching fifteen pounds, maximum. For six years, Shrek carried six times the regular weight of his fleece. Simply because he was away from his shepherd.

This reminds me of John 10 when Jesus compares Himself to a shepherd, and His followers are His sheep. Maybe it’s a stretch, but I think Shrek is much like a person who knows Jesus Christ but has wandered. If we avoid Christ’s constant refining of our character, we’re going to accumulate extra weight in this world—a weight we don’t have to bear.

When Shrek was found, a professional sheep shearer took care of Shrek’s fleece in twenty-eight minutes. Shrek’s sixty pound fleece was finally removed. All it took was coming home to his shepherd.
I believe Christ can lift the burdens we carry, if only we stop hiding. He can shave off our ‘fleece’—that is, our self-imposed burdens brought about by wandering from our Good Shepherd.

“Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

This is perfect

100 years of Walking with Jesus

Just a reminder that today’s story is a repost from my Facebook page from last Sunday.  If you don’t want to read it again, just come back on Thursday.  I’m cooking up a good one!

Sunday in church there was a woman who was 106 years old. I didn’t notice this tiny little white haired woman until the pastor drew our attention to her.  He asked her to tell about when she met Jesus. I couldn’t hear the first part very well since she didn’t have a microphone, but basically when she was a preschooler someone taught her the verse about Jesus saying, “I stand at the door and knock…” and told her that she needed to forgive her enemies. Those are deep concepts for a preschooler.  But she asked Jesus to come in to her heart and has been walking with Jesus for over 100 years!

I wanted to scoop her up and hug her.  My husband asked me, “Do you really think she is over 100?  She doesn’t look like it.”  I reminded him that his own grandma had turned 100 last summer and she still looks the same as ever.

I think this was a wonderful inspiration for all the children’s pastors and Sunday School teachers and nursery workers out there. Those little ears are listening!  You might not see the fruit of your labors, but your reward in Heaven will be great.

Hold You?

Every morning when my alarm goes off at 5 a.m. I breathe these words before my feet roll out of bed, “Lord give me strength for today.”  I wake up in pain and there’s nothing I can do about it.  So it’s best to forget about it and get on with my day.  But I ask for help from my Father God.  He slowly infuses me with the energy and strength I need to make it through today.  He has taught me to be thankful for my weaknesses because they force me to rely on Him more.  

He has promised to help me when I call on Him.  And He’s glad to do it!   He is drawn to weakness because it is the white canvas on which He paints His beautiful pictures of mercy, grace and bounty.  With Jesus, I have enough.  With Jesus, I can do today.  Tomorrow I will ask for more, but today He will give me enough of what I need right now.

A friend of a friend posted this on FB the other day.  I liked it because it is how I view my walk with the Lord.  I grow weary as my little legs pump twice as hard as His long strides.  I ask him to hold me.

Hold You?
The other day I was watching a friend’s little 2 year old daughter. We went for a walk down to a nearby swing set so we could play. As we walked down the street, this little gal’s chubby fingers clasped my hand as she took two steps for every one step I took. She trotted along like this for sometime, chattering on about “swing” and “mommy” and “mammie and papa” and “birdies”.

Then she inquisitively said these two sweet words, “Hold you?”

She was tired. She was weary. The sun was shining, she had exerted all the energy her little legs could muster.

Her question was simple.

“Hold you?”

“Do you want me to pick you up?” I asked her.

“Yes.”

I picked her up and began to carry her on to our destination.

Today Jesus will do that for me. I am tired, I am weary. The sun is shining, I have exerted all the energy my little heart can muster.

My need is simple.

“Hold You?”

And He picks me up and carries me to our destination.

“. . . in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.” Deut 1:31

Photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/hanaan/1243333807/”>hanaan</a&gt; / <a href=”http://foter.com/Kids/”>Foter.com</a&gt; / <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>CC BY</a>

Photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/asam/432194779/”>ArloMagicMan</a&gt; / <a href=”http://foter.com/Kids/”>Foter.com</a&gt; / <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/”>CC BY-NC</a>

 

The Living Dead

What does the enemy do with people who aren’t afraid to die?  How do you fight something like that?  If the enemy says, “I’m going to kill you,” and you respond with a shrug, “To live is Christ and to die is gain.”  How does he stop you?  The ultimate threat of Satan is death, but Jesus holds the keys to death.  Death has lost its sting in the Resurrection of the Son of God.

Christians who live like they are going to benefit in death are NOT like the suicide bombers of Radical Islam.  Christians do not actively court death.  We embrace life, but we do not FEAR death.  We don’t seek to destroy others through our deaths.  We don’t die for the sake of hatred.  We seek to SAVE as many as possible.  We die for the sake of LOVE, when we must be killed.  It is completely different when a Christian lives like he’s already dead.  It simply means he’s willing to take risks without fear for the sake of saving as many as possible.

All die, but not all really live.  Jesus Christ told his disciples not to fear the one who can kill the body but can do nothing to the soul, but to fear the one that can both kill the body and then throw the soul into hell to experience eternal death.  So who are you going to fear?  Satan can kill the body, but if you belong to Christ, he can never touch your soul.  What is to fear about that?

A Prize for the Best Bad Guy

But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust, wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over the truth.  Open your eyes and there it is!  By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see…  So nobody has a good excuse.

What happened was this:  People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives.  They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life.  They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.

So God said, in effect, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.”  It wasn’t long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out.  And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshipped the god they made instead of the God who made them…

Worse followed.  Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either- women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men.  Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men- full of lust.  And they paid for it, oh how they paid for it- emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.

Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose.  And then all hell broke loose:  rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing.  They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating.  Look at them:  mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-haters, bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags!  They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives…   And it’s not as if they don’t know any better.  They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face.  And they don’t care- worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!

Sound familiar?  If Romans 1:18-32 doesn’t describe our modern era, then I don’t know what does.  We applaud those who behave the worst.  We turn our world upside down to accommodate deviance and perversion.  We shame and scold traditional values.  We tolerate what God has called intolerable.  And we are surprised when all hell breaks loose.

We need to repent as a nation and come back to God.  Only through repentance will we ever find satisfaction with this life.  This is why we needed a Savior.  We needed to be saved from our own wretched, filth.  We needed to be saved from the bad choices we made.  It is because we CHOSE SIN that we are destined for hell.  And Jesus died to rescue us from that horrible consequence.  

Thank you Jesus for dying for our sins.  We are astonished at our own sinfulness.  We are astonished that you would still love us.  We honor you as God and put you in your rightful place above all.  We crown you with thanks and worship!  Good Friday is indeed good… for us.  

Pause, Young Wannabe-Leader, Pause

“I had coffee with a guy this week who just graduated college and wanted to know how he could prepare himself for being in ministry and becoming a better leader. He could feel the tension between the raw gifts and ambitions God had given him to lead and how he should refine them. The derailment of many young leaders is impatience, a premature demand to take the reins before the character or gifts are ready.”

I read this opening paragraph in an article “What’s Your Next Move, Young Leader?” on line last week.  The article continues with 5-6 points of advice that I myself have given young people who are eager to find what God has planned for their lives.  However, I would like to revise my advice from all those years ago.

Today if this young person who just graduated from college were sitting across from me, sipping coffee and asking for advice; I would say something quite different.  I would say “Pause.”  How can you prepare yourself for ministry and becoming a leader?  Pause.  How about 40 days in the wilderness fasting.  How about 40 YEARS in the wilderness leading stupid sheep.  How about loads of silence, and how about a crushing sense of being forgotten in a prison cell.  How about being a servant when God has given you the vision of being a great leader.

“Pause your life.”  You aren’t ready to begin yet.

Young people are always eager for their purpose to appear and for their life to start having meaning.  I remember I was eager at that age too.  “Just tell me what I’m going to do and I’ll be happy to get on with it!”  was how I thought back then.  But over and over in the Bible we see God preparing men for greatness by isolating them and breaking them down FIRST.  Those are steps that NO college graduate wants to take.

Think about it.  David didn’t become King over night.  He spent years running for his life from a jealous King Saul.  Moses was super eager to begin leading the Israelites.  So eager, in fact, that he jumped the gun and killed a guy.  Then he spent the next 40 years hiding on the back side of the desert with a bunch of sheep.  Joseph had dreams and visions of his future greatness at a very early age.  But when his brothers sold him into slavery and his slave master threw him in jail, I’m sure Joseph wondered if his dreams would ever come true.  Jesus himself fasted in the wilderness for 40 days before beginning his public ministry.  But there were 30 years behind those 40 days!

God plants the seeds of greatness in Isolation.  Young Wannabe-Leader, get alone with God.  Let God isolate you and break you open before he impregnates your heart with vision.  In the quiet, in the dark, all alone a seed dies in the dirt before it grows up into the sunshine.

My advice for young leaders is to Pause before you rush out into the spotlight with your ears full of your own voice, and your eyes full of your own visions, and your mind full of your own ideas.  Pause.  Wait on God.  Wait a long, long time if you have to.  Great men of God are made in isolation.