Your Kingdom Come--By a Worker in a Difficult Place

"Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." When we don't know how to pray, these words from our Lord’s prayer express our longing to see the glory of God fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.

My husband and I have lived and served in a few different countries—each with its unique beauty and unique brokenness. In each place, it has become more and more apparent that though God answers our prayers in different ways, the one prayer he always answers "yes" to is the heartfelt cry, "Give me Jesus."

In one country, it was difficult to keep a positive outlook when we looked out our window each day to the same trash, the same poverty and the same deeply ingrained societal problems. One day, as I visited a local orphanage, a young mother tearfully dropped off a small child, the youngest of eight. They could not feed all of their children and hoped that at least here, at the orphanage, their youngest child would have enough to eat.

I returned home completely disheartened by the severity of the needs around me and my own limitations as a mother of small children (what good would a bag of tangerines and a box of oatmeal cookies do in face of such great need?). Not knowing what else to do, I wrote down a prayer full of requests that seemed impossible unless the Lord were to intervene in a miraculous way.

I wrote, "Lord, I pray for M, who knows the truth but is wobbling on the fence. Please help her to sink her roots deep in you. Help her not to be drawn in to the lifestyle of her boyfriend (who, at the time, was in prison for dealing drugs)."

I continued to write. "Father, please help N's husband to be drawn to you. She loves you so much. And Lord, please help there to be a Christian school here, so some of these kids can grow up learning your ways. I prayed for an orphanage where they can hear about you from their very earliest days. And Father, please help some of these children to be adopted into Christian homes." And my list went on. Finally, when it was finished, I felt a bit better, folded up the paper and went on with our busy lives.

Ten years later, then living in another place, I came across that old prayer list, and realized to my amazement that each request had been answered in specific and tangible ways. There was a school and an orphanage there and several of those very orphans had been adopted into Christian families, some in locally and some abroad; M was working in another country among a minority population there, sharing the gospel; N's husband had come to Christ. Tears came to my eyes as I thanked God for answering every single one of those requests, each of which only God could have done.

It struck me then that most of the things that really matter—the salvation of a soul, the return of a prodigal are things only God can do. Sometimes we are blessed, as we were then, to see specific, positive answers to prayer. But sometimes he says no. Sometimes as sure as we are that God is able to bring the dead to life, we also live in a broken world with its reality that some pain might never go away this side of eternity. Whether it is chronic physical pain, a broken relationship, a discouraging brain scan or silence where we hoped to hear a heartbeat, in those instances we must depend even more on the promise that he will never leave us and one day will make all things right.

Currently, we live in a place where many people are anxious and fearful. We live in a place where followers of Christ are in prison. We also have the privilege to live alongside people from many countries, some who have trusted Jesus, and all from people groups we prayed for when our kids were small.

Every day, at least five times a day, I am reminder of why we are here, and we pray. We pray that people will be delivered from their bondage to fear, and experience God's perfect love in Jesus. We pray for believers in prison, that their hearts will be encouraged as they wait, and that the God who holds the hearts of kings in his hands will also put mercy in their hearts. Only God's perfect love can cast out the fear, lies and darkness that cause people in power to mistreat perceived enemies as they do.

There is one thing we can pray with confidence. In the final reckoning, God's justice will prevail, so we pray for his kingdom to come and set things right. Meanwhile, in the waiting, we thank him for his mercy, because there are still many, even many we know and love, who have not turned to him yet. And he is patient with us, "not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance."

In the waiting, God has taught me that although we may seem and certainly feel rather vulnerable and even powerless, Jesus has made a way for us to draw near to him. He gives us full access to the One who is over all, who knows our names and hears our prayers.

So we keep praying.

Walking Toward the Furnace by Wil Triggs

This week our small group looked at Daniel 3 and it was quite a time.

The lesson encouraged us to consider ourselves in light of King Nebuchadnezzar. This is something I have never really done. Nebuchadnezzar is the bad guy, the crazy guy, the anger–filled, worship–me pagan polytheistic despot. He’s inconsistent and a flip-flopper. I don’t like to consider how I might be like him. I’m not asking people to worship me, and I’m not throwing people into the fire.

To my surprise, the group didn’t have any problems identifying with him. In the discussion, people animatedly talked of the kind of structures we build for ourselves, how we want to be in control and worshiped (or at least obeyed) by those over whom we have control.

When we are confronted with someone who doesn’t go along with our ways, sometimes we get angry. Maybe it’s not seven-times-the-heat angry, but we aren’t welcoming to people who disagree, who dare to worship and think about God or church or life differently—perhaps even more rightly—than we do. Why don’t they do things our way? The way we want. Don’t they know that we know best Nebuchadnezzar’s judgment found them guilty, defiant lawbreakers who needed to be thrown into the fire.

I had never really considered myself to be a little Neb, so now, I stand corrected, and a little humbled, and not a little embarrassed at the smallness of the realms we hold on to.

Yet the real humility comes when I compare myself to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

So then our talk turned toward the furnace, and how the three young people defiantly and steadfastly stood strong and walked toward the furnace. Those taking them to the furnace perished in the heat. That was one hot fire. Still, they walked to the furnace and stepped into it.

What we face is not the literal furnace fire that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego faced. Instead, it’s the challenge of life itself answering the prayer of Jesus, “not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.” (John 17:15). To be steadfast and trust that God himself is protecting us along the way even when it doesn’t go our way.

And I think about how much easier, more organically me it is to stoke the furnace in judgment of those not like me than it is to step into the furnace of faith itself.

So then I think about people I know or know of who are in their own kind of furnaces.

How do Yousaf and Ruth stand firm? After enduring persecution in their homeland, moving here and now facing the mystery and pain of their daughter’s condition?

Or Ash and Katrina enduring the multiple surgeries of their young son?

Or Nancy who faced a surgery for her daughter and a devastating house fire at the very same time. (You can read that story here.)

What about pastors and other church leaders in Sudan who were arrested for not submitting to a government directive to hand over their churches to government control.

Then there’s Andrew Brunson who has been held in a Turkish prison for nearly a year and appears to be held as a bargaining chip by Turkey in their desire for the U. S. to extradite a Muslim cleric they don’t like who’s living in Pennsylvania. NPR reported the president of Turkey saying just a couple days ago, "You have a pastor, too. You give us that one and we'll work with our judiciary and give back yours."

How can it be that someone so devoted to the care of a people not his own is imprisoned and treated like chattel in some kind of global trade?

I know that God is sovereign, that none of this happens without his knowledge. We haven’t reached the end of the story. I believe that God’s power is made manifest in our weaknesses. When Nebuchadnezzar saw the miraculous preservation of the three young people in the fiery furnace, he saw himself and God in a new light. He was amazed.

How can people see God in such things? Somehow, I think it’s God doing stuff in us that we can’t possibly do ourselves that speaks in ways we can’t. 

So whatever paths we walk today, let’s pray for the fortitude to be faithful as we walk toward the furnace and look forward to when we emerge from it impossibly and miraculously unsinged.

In Case of Emergency by Lorraine Triggs

I never had pennies in my penny loafers. My mother insisted that my sisters and I used dimes or quarters instead of pennies, that way we always would have change to call her from a pay phone in case of an emergency. 

That worked in theory, but practice was another thing. Was it our fault that the bus stop home from school was right across the street from the bakery? Were we to blame that our after school club ran late that wintry afternoon, and we were hungry? Was it our fault that the bus rumbled by as we spent both bus fare and emergency money on warm cookies, and then ended up walking home in a snow storm. Apparently it was our fault, as we found out when we arrived home an hour or so later than expected.

My fast and free spending of emergency money caught up with me on my first short-term missions trip. It was with Operation Mobilization (OM). During the pre-trip conference in Belgium, OM staff emphasized the need to always have emergency money on our persons. Oh-oh, emergency money? How did the venerable George Verwer discover my checkered past with emergency money and cookies? I was doomed even before my summer service in Italy began.

Providentially, my teammates shared similar spending habits, and as the summer progressed, our emergency money became gelato money. It was good to have such team unity.

The truth about emergency money—whether you use it responsibly for emergencies only or for cookies and gelatos—it is a finite resource.

I remember clutching coins in my hands as a child, and once that meager finite resource was gone, I thought my hands smelled like money. This makes me wonder about other finite resources I latch on to, relying on them as if my life is dependent on them—totally unaware of any residue they might leave behind on the fingers my soul.

From what I can tell, the best way to remove any sticky, unwanted residue from my soul is a good soaking in humble dependence on God, who has met my greatest need for salvation, and who is prone to using words such as lavish, immeasurable, far more abundantly, unsearchable riches and filled with all the fullness.

He is more than enough for every emergency I encounter and every gelato I enjoy.

Listening by Shelly Wildman

I’m not always the best listener. Just ask my three daughters. As they were growing up, my girls used to tell me stories that were, well, long. Important parts of their day, to be sure, but after a while my eyes would glaze over and eventually they’d wave their hands in front of my face saying, “Mom, you’re not listening!”

I’ve tried to improve my listening skills over the years, and last spring, God gave me a strange and wonderful opportunity to practice . . . right in the Target parking lot. Looking back, I know this situation was God-ordained, because of several unusual circumstances. 

First, my list—I had ventured into Target needing only three things. Who does that? I usually wait until I need at least ten items before I will walk the miles of aisles in Target. But on this day, I needed only three. 

The second unusual circumstance was that I used the self–checkout, which, again, I hardly ever do. But since I only had three items, I figured, why not?  

And since I was standing at self-checkout, I decided to grab a cup of coffee at Starbucks—another rarity for me. The whole day was getting weird. Yet, stranger still, was the fact that there was nobody to wait on me at the Starbucks. I waited for a minute, yet nobody came to take my order.

Impatient person that I am, I gave up and headed out the door. And here’s how I know my trip to Target was God–ordained. At the precise moment that I walked out the front door, an SUV pulled up at the stop sign to my right and the woman who was driving rolled down her window, looking straight at me, and said, “Could someone please help me? I’m desperate! Please help me!”

I walked over to the passenger side where she had rolled down the window and said, “What’s going on? What do you need?”  

“I need money for gas to get to my mother’s house,” she replied. “I’m in a terrible situation with a man, and I need to get away from here today.” 

“OK,” I tried to be calm. “Where does your mother live?”

She told me the name of a town about two hours from here. I glanced at her gas gauge, just to be sure. It was on empty.

At that moment, I realized I had been given a divine assignment. I reached for my wallet and leafed through some bills (another strange occurrence that day, since I rarely have cash on me), and it was as if God said, “That one. I want you to give her that one.” It would be enough to get her to her mother’s house. 

I handed her the money and something inside me said, “Pray with her.” So I asked, “Can I pray for you?”

“Oh yes, please!” she said.

I reached inside the car to touch her arm, but she grabbed my hand and held on for dear life, agreeing and “amen”-ing with every word I said. When I finished, she said, “Thank you, thank you. You have no idea what this means.”

 I looked down at the seat in front of me and noticed, for the first time, a baby bottle lying right there. “Do you have a child?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied, pointing to the car seat in the back that I had not even noticed.

I encouraged her to get herself and her child to safety. I asked her name. I told her I would be praying for her. And then I walked away in complete peace. Not shaking. Not crying. Just feeling completely peaceful and calm.

As I drove away I thought about all the unusual circumstances about that Target trip, even down to the fact that not one single car had pulled up to the stop sign during the five minutes that I talked and prayed with this woman. (Have you ever not seen a car at that stop sign?)

I realized that without a doubt God had a job for me to do that day, and I felt grateful, so humbled, that I was able to help her in some small way.

All it took was for me pay attention and to listen.

Sufficient Grace by Wallace Alcorn

At an especially dark moment in what was otherwise a momentous life, the Apostle Paul recognized he was at the end of his usual resources—no answers, no solutions. Just this word from his Creator Redeemer: My grace is all you need at a time like this, because your present weakness allows me the opportunity to apply my omnipotence to its fullest in your present situation (note 2 Corinthians 12:9).

Grace—God's all-sufficient grace—is so beyond our understanding, I cannot define it precisely. We must experience it to understand. It seems to me that grace is when God accomplishes something with no necessary connection between cause and effect, because he is himself the "Sufficient Cause."

Grace is

to be confident in doubt
and secure in turmoil,

to have joy in sorrow
and peace in battle,

to be loved without a lover
and helped without a helper,

to be nourished without food
and assuaged without water,

to believe when doubtful
and trust when suspicious,

to see in the dark
and hear in the din,

to walk straight on a crooked path
and firmly on shifting sand.

Eclipses and Sparrows by Rachel Rim

The universe is vast beyond the stars/But You are mindful when a sparrow falls.
—Fernando Ortega, "Jesus King of Angels"

Six days ago, on August 21, along with millions of other Americans spread across 2,530 miles from coast to coast, I donned funky sunglasses and squinted up. The sky, unnaturally dark for one o’clock in the afternoon, revealed an orange sliver—not the moon, but the sun blocked by the moon. Even though it was a partial and not a full eclipse, it was still an eerily strange phenomenon. As I stared up at the sky (not directly at the eclipse, of course), I thought about the universe—its vastness, how little I understand about it, how small I am by comparison.

Less than twenty-four hours before the solar eclipse, I was walking out of Target with my mom and sister. They paused ahead of me and crouched down beside a parked car. When I reached them, I saw what they were staring at: a tiny sparrow, wings injured, fluttering around in a panic. Its desperation was palpable. Though we tried to coax the bird out from beneath the car (my mom even called over two teenage boys collecting carts to convince them to help), we could do nothing to help. Every time one of us got near the sparrow, it would frantically hop-fly to the other side of the car, staying just out of reach, mistaking our desire to help for malicious intent. There was something profoundly frustrating about wanting to help—being so much bigger, smaller and wiser than the tiny bird—and yet still thwarted by its frantic fear.

The universe is vast beyond the stars/But You are mindful when a sparrow falls.

With every day I wake up in the morning, I grow increasingly convinced that this is one of the central struggles of the Christian—to recognize both our smallness and our significance, to trust not just God’s power but his tenderness. We, too, are sparrows—wounded in our way, trapped beneath hard asphalt and an often frightening world. Sometimes hands meant to heal come too close, and we flit away because vulnerability is just as terrifying as suffering. Sometimes we would rather stay trapped beneath the car because the universe is vast beyond the stars, and hurricanes hit and racism seems to have an infinite number of lives and our own selfishness is as formidable a trap as the underbelly of a car is to a sparrow. Solar eclipses and solar engines; dark skies and darker selves. It’s difficult to know where to turn, where to look in the sky, which direction to run.

Yet we run to him. To the one who owns the vastness of the universe and yet condescends to know the pain of the sparrow. To the one whose power is beyond our understanding, but so also is his tenderness, and as the philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff writes, “perhaps his sorrow is splendor.” The Christ who bridges polarities, who reconciles paradoxes, whose sorrow is splendor, is a Christ we can trust.

He creates eclipses and sparrows, and we are safe in his hands.   

With Both a Whimper and a Bang by Lois Krogh

While many of you were enjoying neighborhood fireworks or lighting sparklers with your kids over the very long Fourth of July weekend, I was sitting with Brynn, our seven-year-old, 70 pound, Norwegian Elkhound, who just happens to be afraid of fireworks. Terrified really.

At the first sound, she goes into a frightened panic mode. Her tail, that usually is curled with its tip resting on her back, flattens out and drops between her legs. She then begins to pant heavily.

Probably like I would if I were to run down the street chasing after a child’s school bus with forgotten homework in hand. At the next boom, she will bolt. Anywhere. Under anything. Tables, chairs, desks. Places that are really not comfortable for a 70 pound dog. Including my lap. Without warning, she’ll be on my lap. And off at the next bang. Somewhere in there her instinctive warning system ramps up and the barking and whining commence.  

And yes, we’ve tried the “Thunder Blanket," lavender oil and doggy sedatives. What seems to work best is going to the basement with her and turning on the dehumidifier and the TV. I know more than enough about the stars on home improvement shows.   

It has been a long week. Please tell me when we began shooting off fireworks for the whole month of July? The rest of my family has been backpacking this week. I was supposed to be having a quiet time at home to myself. It has been anything but. Brynn doesn't calm down before one or two in the morning; then is awake at 5 a.m. hungry, because she wouldn't eat her dinner because she was afraid. And me? I’ve not really been all that rested either.

It’s almost midnight of the fourth night after the Fourth, and I can tell I won’t be asleep for a while. If only I could reason with this dog. I’ve tried. And failed. She doesn’t realize how good she has it. All her meals provided. A great backyard to run in, lots of people to fuss over her. If only she could trust me.  

Ah. Do you see where this illustration is going? How like Brynn I am. How foolish it is of me not to trust my heavenly Father. Something goes wrong in my world or I feel like I have lost control over something and what do I do? I drop my shoulders and panic. How often have I run from one thing to another trying to solve the problem? How often have I overburdened those around me, making sure everyone knows that something is wrong and they had better help me? I, too, have been guilty of not accepting the help they give. Sometimes I know I hide from a fear by increasing activity and noise around me.  

I am sure it grieves my heavenly Father. I have it so good. I have a great Savior who is a good shepherd and a strong and victorious king. He is wise and loving and powerful. And he has promised to care for me.  

Maybe this week home alone wasn’t about resting or checking things off my to-do list. Maybe it was about being in the middle of an object lesson about the foolishness of fear. Dear Lord, the next time I hear a bang, crackle, sputter or boom, would you give me ears to hear the reassurances of your Word? 

Brynn is under the desk as I write. I think she might have fallen asleep. So while my God holds the universe together, I’m going to get some rest as well. 

Tributes to Jim Reapsome: A Good and Faithful Servant

College Church members John Maust and Stan Guthrie posted tributes to Jim Reapsome, who joined the cloud of witnesses on June 27. Jim and his wife, Martha, mentored and influenced many of us at College Church.

John's Tribute

In the few days since James W. Reapsome’s passing . . ., I’ve been impressed by how many people have described him as their “mentor.”

He was certainly that to me.

In the early 1980s, when Jim was managing editor at Christianity Today magazine and my boss, he knew about my interest in missions and Latin America and encouraged me to explore and take next steps toward cross-cultural ministry.

“Why don’t you go to Costa Rica and study Spanish for three months, and then you can come back and work with Spanish-speaking writers,” Jim proposed, and then helped make it happen.

This became the first step in a journey that would ultimately lead me years later to Media Associates International (MAI). Jim would even become an MAI Board member and provide continued guidance and encouragement.

Early in his career, Jim planned to go out as a missionary before circumstances prevented him. Then, as a journalist and editor of The Evangelical Missions Quarterly for 33 years, he arguably did more to advance the cause of world missions than any other communicator of his time.

Pastor, author, teacher, beloved husband and father, one-time sportswriter, champion of clear and concise prose, avid golfer and gardener, friend, mentor. Jim was, and did, lots of things. But you always knew that Jesus was his first love and priority.

When it came to faith, Jim always kept things real. He was a godly man, but not a holier-than-thou personality. When he talked or wrote about Jesus, evangelism or world missions, he avoided all the clichés and abstract jargon. He sprinkled his writings with a liberal dose of humor, pithy language and pertinent examples. In the process, he gave you the desire to know God and Scripture better.

Please remember Jim’s beloved wife, Martha, and family in your prayers as they mourn his loss and find comfort that Jim is in his Lord’s presence. And, if you’ve never read any of Jim’s work, I encourage you to do so.

“It’s hard to say good-bye to these men and women who have meant so much to us,” a friend commented about Jim. “May their example continue to spur us on as we run the race.”

Stan's Tribute

My friend and professional mentor, Jim Reapsome, has died at the age of 88. I worked with Jim for about a decade at World Pulse and Evangelical Missions Quarterly. Jim was patient and kind with me. His management style was to throw me into the deep waters and see if I could swim. (I'm still here, so I guess I passed the test.) He hired me from a distance, after I had freelanced for him during grad school.

His "Final Analysis" column on the back page of every Pulse newsletter was required reading in the evangelical missions community. . . I learned much from his down-to-earth, practical, take-no-prisoners style. Jim always remembered that missions was about God and about people. He had little patience for theories and practices that lacked foundation in the real world, but he always made his points with humor and grace.

Besides his pivotal work in missions journalism, Jim played key roles at the Sunday School Times, at Christianity Today, and as a writer of many IVP Bible study guides, often with his beloved, refined, and accomplished wife, Martha. . . . Besides Martha and missions, Jim's other main passions were his children and grandchildren ... and golf.

Jim took an interest in all his employees, inviting us over to his and Martha's home on Washington Street time and again, all the while complaining good-naturedly about the varmints raiding their cornucopian garden.

Jim's was a life lived flat out for the kingdom. I fear that few such men--with warm hearts and a burning passion for the glory of Jesus around the world--are left in our day. May those of us who follow you remember your example.

Well done, Jim. Enjoy your crown. RIP.