Monthly Archives: January 2011

Patience Right Now

Posted on by
1

The fruit of the Spirit is . . . patience.

My children were small, and I was impatient and irritable. So much so that I didn’t like myself sometimes. So of course I prayed for patience. That’s what you do, right? Ha ha.

Years went by before I finally learned that “being patient” doesn’t mean letting the children disobey and disobey while you stand by, smiling placidly and speaking gently. Instead, those gentle words should accompany a swift correction.

So I came to find out that I didn’t even really understand what patience was.

Our modern way of thinking about patience always embodies two attributes: Calmness, and Passive Inactivity. But that’s not how it is in the Bible.

One day my dear friend Heidi described how she had importuned God for six months to topple an idol in her heart. The day finally came when He smashed it and fully delivered her. Afterwards, she read Psalm 40, which begins, “I waited patiently for the Lord.”

She said, “That whole psalm is true about me, except the first verse. I did not wait patiently. I wanted Him to change me NOW.”

But many psalms say something like, “How long, O Lord?” So I looked and found that the Hebrew word in that verse was the same as the one before it: “wait.” So David is saying something like, “I waited and waited.”

“Oh, I definitely waited and waited!” said Heidi. “It was excruciating at times. But I kept asking, because I knew God would respond. And He did it. He did it.”

My soul, wait only on God, for my expectation is from Him.

Even in the New Testament, none of the words for patience imply inaction, and some don’t even imply calmness. They imply determined resolve, based on a rugged confidence, like Heidi’s. A blazing hope that God will do what we know we cannot do ourselves.

The seed on the good ground are those who, with an excellent and good heart, hear the Word and hold fast to it, bearing fruit with patience.

Romans 5 reminds me that because of Jesus Christ and His grace and glory, I can rejoice even in the very hard times of life. I will wait for Him, hope in Him, trust in Him, with determined resolve, because I have nowhere else to turn.

If we confidently hope for that which we cannot see, then we wait for it with patience.

And Romans 5 says that I will most surely see Him accomplish great things in me and for me, which gives me a fierce hope for His continued work, by His love in me through the power of the Holy Spirit.

If I pray for patience, because, well, I really just want to be a nicer person, I want to have an easier life, am I not failing to see the big picture? Isn’t this just one more way of focusing on the Screen?

When I look beyond, when I rejoice in the midst of the tribulations of life, because I expect God to do a mighty work for His glory, won’t I find that the determined resolve I need, based on a strong confidence, will be mine?

A woman like me complained about her need for patience with her children. “Oh, madam,” said Watchman Nee, “it is not patience that you need. It is Christ.”

Don’t focus on the patience you don’t have. Focus on the Savior you do have. And find that the Biblical patience to trust Him with determined resolve springs naturally, like fruit, out of your life.

Eyes to See

Posted on by
1

One reason I quit wearing contact lenses was that I was always losing them.

But in one of those days when my absent-mindedness was still propelling me toward the inevitable decision, I stood at the window. One eye had a contact lens. The other was legally blind.

I looked out with first one eye closed, and then the other. The near-sighted eye could clearly see the screen, the dust, the cobwebs. Obviously I needed to clean. Beyond the screen was only a hazy blur of green, too indistinct to give more than a passing glance.

Then I looked through the corrected eye and found that the screen faded almost completely from view. I knew it was there, but what I saw, what my eye was able to focus on, was the beauty of the vista beyond the screen: flower and trees, even individual blades of grass. I marvelled as if I had never looked outside before.

I played the game for a minute. Bad eye, screen. Good eye, beauty. Thank God for corrective lenses, to look beyond the screen.

What was David thinking when he looked at Goliath and said, “I’m going to feed you to the buzzards”? What did he see beyond the giant?

How was it that Hudson Taylor could come to the end of his life, after losing a wife and child in China, after multiple hardships and broken health, and in the spirit of Hebrews 10:34 say, “I never made a sacrifice”? What could he see beyond those hardships? What had happened to his spiritual eyes?

How could Moses turn his back on the riches and pleasures of Egypt? How could he, as Hebrews 11 says, turn his gaze away and fix his attention on something no one else could perceive with physical eyes?  What could he see beyond those physical attractions?

What did Paul mean when he told the Ephesians in chapter 1 that he wanted the eyes of their perception to be filled with light? Can spiritual eyes, even the eyes of Christians, be legally blind? What are those things he talks about, those things we’re supposed to see? Are they worth begging God for corrective lenses?

Lord, fix our vision to fix our gaze—beyond the Cares of this World and the Deceitfulness of Riches. Fill our eyes with light to see beyond the Giants.

Spirit of Christ, give us eyes to see your Beauty. Your Power.

Beyond the Screen.

A Tribute to Dr. John Dreisbach, chapter 2

Posted on by
Reply

A little over a year ago, Dr. John Dreisbach, veteran missionary to western Africa and other places, founder of the Gospel Fellowship Association, passed away. When he died, I was in the middle of working on a book about his work for the “Hidden Heroes” series of missionary books. After his death I published the first chapter of that book on my blog. But you may be interested in Chapter 2 as well–it tells a story I love: the true salvation of a boy growing up in a Christian home.

CHAPTER 2

Chocolate-Covered Marshmallow Cookies

“Johnny, have you finished your chores?” Mother’s voice called from the kitchen.

“Yes’m! I mean, no’m! But I’ll do ’em right now.” Twelve-year-old Johnny slapped his book closed and jumped from his chair.

“Goodness sakes, Johnny, what were you reading?” Mother wiped her brow with the back of her hand as she slid the bread out of the oven.

Johnny looked at the floor, his face turning pink so that his freckles stood out almost like polka-dots. “Mary Slessor.”

Mother let out a low chuckle as she slid the knife around the edge of the bread pan. “Don’t you have that book memorized by now?”

“Yes’m,” Johnny replied. “Pretty much.”

“So what’s your favorite part?”

Johnny paused to consider. “I guess the adventures.”

“The adventures? That’s the whole book!”

Johnny looked up and smiled. “I guess that’s why I keep reading it!”

“Well,” Mother went on as she sliced the steaming bread and slathered one piece with butter. “Here, have some of this before you run out. I’m grateful to God that you still want to be a missionary like Mary Slessor and those others.”

“Yes’m,” Johnny replied, his cheeks bulging like a chipmunk.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, son. I do pray, though, that before you go to Africa, God will do some work in your own heart.”

As Mother turned back to her work, Johnny’s face blushed scarlet. He grabbed the water pail and ran out the door to the pump. He pumped vigorously, angrily. “Do some work in my own heart? Didn’t I learn all the catechism? Don’t I want to be a missionary? Isn’t that enough?”

But way in the back corner of his mind he thought about the cookies. But then he didn’t think about the cookies. He wouldn’t think about the cookies.

“Johnny!” Mother called again. “Don’t forget to get back from the store right on time tonight. We got meetings at church.”

“Yes’m,” Johnny mumbled. When his chores were finished he ran down the block and around the corner to his uncle’s grocery store. Quickly he tied on his apron and slid behind the counter. Just this summer he had finally grown tall enough to no longer need a stool to stand on in order to weigh out the customers’ orders.

“Well, hello there, Johnny.” A smiling lady walked through the door.

“Hello, Mrs. Turner,” Johnny answered in his most polite voice. This lady would be his teacher in the fall at Findley Junior High School, and he wanted to make a good impression. “What can I get for you today?”

“Five pounds of sugar, first,” she answered.

Johnny grabbed an empty bag and expertly began to fill it from the large sugar bin. There it was, right next to the chocolate-covered marshmallow cookies. The ones he’d been snitching when nobody was looking. I won’t take one today. We got meetings at church tonight.

Setting the sugar bag on the scale, Johnny said, “Looks like five and a quarter, ma’am. Will that be all right?”

“Oh, certainly,” Mrs. Turner chuckled. “We can always use a little extra sugar. More cookies!”

Johnny nodded as he tied the bag, but he felt his face becoming hot again.

Three hours later, with his starched collar and bow tie and slicked hair, Johnny sat in a straight-backed pew next to his mother. The preacher hollered about sin.

What did he say? Johnny couldn’t even sort out the words. All he could see was the cookies.

How many were there? Dozens? He couldn’t count them. Every chocolate-covered marshmallow cookie he had ever stolen from his uncle’s store, all of them lumped together to make one big mountain of a chocolate-covered marshmallow cookie.

All he could hear was Mrs. Turner’s voice crying, “More cookies! More cookies!”

Johnny choked back a lump in his throat and hid his face from his mother’s view.

Finally he heard some different words, words he had been waiting for. “Won’t you come?” He jumped up from the pew and almost ran to the front, crying and crying.

“Please, oh God! I’m so sorry! Do some work in my heart!” He closed his eyes tight as he felt a gentle arm around his shoulders. It was the preacher, ready to pray with him.

“Lord Jesus,” Johnny sobbed, “forgive my sin and save me!”

The chocolate-covered marshmallow cookie mountain melted in the light of the love of Jesus Christ. Johnny Dreisbach stood before the cross, a saved sinner.

Ready now, to learn how to take the gospel he had finally received.

Thirsty yet?

Posted on by
6

Ho! Every one that thirsts! Come to the waters . . . Drink!

New Year’s Resolution #2,011: Drink more water.

Have you ever noticed that you can systematically drink less and less water, way less than your body needs, without feeling thirsty? Counterintuitive, I know. But that thirst mechanism behind your throat sort of atrophies or something.

And lots of people, when they do feel any thirst, go to coffee or soda to try to assuage it. Of course those beverages actually drain water from your system.

And as that thirst mechanism shrivels up, sometimes when people are thirsty they think they’re hungry, and then they eat . . . and eat . . . and eat . . . while they’re actually dying of dehydration.

Thirsty yet?

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God? . . . O God, You are my God; I earnestly seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You, as in a dry and weary land without water.

At eleven years old, I developed a life-threatening kidney condition that hospitalized me for two weeks. My parents made me drink two quarts of water a day, and I became the healthiest I had ever been in my life.

Did I mention that I was a very sickly child? Besides asthma and stomach problems, I had this weird skin disease all over my hands and feet that made me become unable to walk normally or do pretty much anything. I dropped out of sixth grade. My mother took me to one doctor after another. I suffered much at the hands of these physicians, and rather than growing better, I actually grew worse.

But then I got the kidney disease and got well.

It was only as an adult, married to a man who knew the importance of water, that I understood what had really happened. Throughout my childhood, I never drank water. I mean I never drank water. Since I was almost never thirsty, I drank one or two cups of milk a day, and that was it. I was dying, and my skin was trying to let me know. Finally my kidneys gave the red alert.

None of those wise skin doctors, with their pills and potions and lotions and creams and plastic bags and soaking solutions ever asked my mother, “How much does she drink?” Never. Nope. Not once. Even though probably every last one of them knew that the skin is called the third kidney.

Thirsty yet?

As an adult, when I drank more and more water, I found myself becoming thirsty more often. Drinking even more. And becoming more healthy.

Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. . . . Everyone drinking of this water will thirst again; but whoever will drink of the water that I will give him will never ever thirst, because the water that I will give to him will become a fountain of water in him, springing up into everlasting life.

Oh, my soul, be Thirsty. Be very Thirsty. Don’t forsake the Living Water to hew out broken wells that can hold no water. Drink the Water. Long and deep.

Through the written Word, drink long and deep of Jesus Christ. You’ll find your Thirst Mechanism kicking in. And your Thirst can continuously be satisfied, because the Water will always be there. The Living Water. Drink, and find that you become a river.

Ho, everyone! Are you Thirsty yet?