I really enjoyed reading this post of C.S. Lewis’ attitude toward attending church. It’s interesting to read in his own words how his attitude changed over time. He was still the same recluse by nature, but the Spirit worked in his heart to change him.
Archive for the 'Thoughts' Category
John Piper says that we cannot know what prayer is for, until we understand that life is war.
He explains further:
Life is war. That’s not all it is. But it is always that. Our weakness in prayer is owing largely to our neglect of this truth. Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie-talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against the powers of darkness and unbelief. It is not surprising that prayer malfunctions when we try to make it a domestic intercom to call upstairs for more comforts in the den. (John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad, page 45).
I’ve been thinking about Piper’s words as we have prepared for today. The entire staff and associates of Campus Crusade will be gathering at many scattered sites for a Worldwide Day of Prayer.
Kay and I always look to this time. The theme for this Day of Prayer is “Our Strength and Our Shield”.
Psalm 28:7
The LORD is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
My heart leaps for joy
And I will give thanks to him in song.
Another portion of Scripture on this theme is found in Psalm 46:1
God is our refuge and strength,
An ever-present help in trouble.
He is our strength and our shield, our refuge and our strength.
Because life is war, and prayer is our wartime walkie-talkie.
Thai Air
Thai Airways flight TG325 was roaring down the runway in Bangkok, Thailand. It was after 1 am and I was sleepily waiting for takeoff of our flight from Thailand to Bangalore, India. I remember thinking, “We’re taking longer than usual to take-off. It seems like we should have rotated nose up by now. Maybe the engines on this Airbus A300 are not as powerful as other planes and the take-off run is longer.”
About that time, the pilot slammed on the brakes. Hard. The seat belt tugged. Kay and I were both wide awake now.
It takes a while to get 19 tons traveling at 170 miles per hour slowed down. Three hundred people on flight TG325 were hoping there was enough runway left.
There was. The Thai pilot was a professional. He did all the right things and we were always safe.
As we turned around to taxi back towards the terminal, Kay commented that she had prayed twice during the evening for our flight to India. She had felt an unusual prompting to pray. The Lord was preparing the pilot, the flight crew, and us for an aborted take-off experience. Kay’s prayers were a part of that preparation.
That is why your prayers are important. Air travel is pretty routine. Except when it isn’t! We do it all the time. It’s amazing how regularly flights take off and land safely. Baggage arrives as expected most of the time.
God allows things to happen “normally” most of the time. Most things are so “normal” that we forget to “pray without ceasing.” But sometimes, he has special opportunities to trust him built into our daily schedule. I don’t know whether it’s special faith-building opportunities, or whether the always-present-but-rarely-seen spiritual warfare breaks out in a skirmish in our part of reality.
But prayer is a very important part of both faith-building and war-fighting. I wrote a few months ago about an amazing thought from John Piper (click here to view Piper video clip):
God, the sovereign ruler of the universe, has ordained that prayers cause things to happen that would not happen if we do not pray. When James 4:2 says ‘you do not have because you do not ask’, it doesn’t mean ‘you would have anyway even if you did not ask because I’ve got a plan’.
This was a difficult trip from the perspective of airlines and travel. Long flights. Missed connections. Delays. Missing bags.
But in the end, we had one of the most profitable meetings of our global technology leadership that we’ve had. Ever. And we trained 30 leaders in India how to use our measurement system to capture statistics and stories of the amazing things God is doing in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal. They will soon train their hundreds of staff. We will soon be even better able to publish abroad the amazing things God is doing throughout that entire region of the world.
And prayer is a major a part. Prayers were part of getting us to Thailand and to India. Prayers were part of the effectiveness of the training. And prayers will help Sam and Robin and Bibisho and others as they lead in helping everyone know someone who truly follows Jesus.
“Prayers cause things to happen that would not happen if we do not pray.”
I read a good article this morning: Good Followership by Janie B. Cheaney (World Magazine). I appreciated her insight, near the end, “good followership relies on trust – in the Head, not the man.”
This has been an important lesson throughout my life. I know it’s important because God keeps helping me learn it, and relearn it, and relearn it, and relearn it… This lesson, which I’ve never seemed to learn, has names associated with it – Jim, Don, Yemi, Tim, Stan, Mike, Roger. I can recall the hard parts of followership associated with each of these leaders I’ve had.
You’d think that I’d catch on and finally pass the application test. Must be something about a hard Seabourn head.
God wants me to look through the difficulties I’m having with _____ (fill in the blank with your personal adversary in a leadership role). God wants me to not even see _____, but to see Him — the sovereign, in charge, never confused Creator King whose #1 purpose in my life is to help me conform to the image of Jesus Christ. He knows that the greatest good to Keith comes when Keith is most like Jesus Christ. And the best way to become more like Jesus Christ is to allow the difficulties in life to chip away at anything that doesn’t look like Jesus Christ. I wouldn’t know of some of those un-Christlike areas unless I had leaders I have difficulty following. Unless I have experiences that I’d rather not have.
As the author of the article puts it, “If our leaders take a wrong turn, God can correct them with useful lessons learned. If we throw away some good years following the wrong man, God can restore those years. An infinitely creative Father can even create good from evil. In fact, it’s His specialty—if we trust Him, and continually ask, what would He have us do?”
There are specific answers that we have to wrestle with – do I change to a different ministry? Do I move to a different church?
But I think the first answer to “What would He have us do?” is to look through the leader to the Lord who is using the leader to help me become more like Jesus Christ. I think that once we’ve answered this correctly, then the specific answers have a more appropriate, seemingly-lesser urgency. Like the Scott Krippayne song says:
Sometimes He calms the storm
And other times He calms His child
Kay and I sat on the runway in Orlando for an hour then entered a holding pattern near Atlanta. We missed our Seoul flight. We tried standby on a later flight but failed to get on. We are trying to get to Thailand.
Kay and I sat next to P_____. God gave us extra runway time today so we could have a good conversation with him. I gave him a Four Spiritual Laws booklet (a version appropriate for young professionals). I gave him a business card. Perhaps he’ll contact me to talk further. I’ve always appreciated the description of an effective witness: “Success in witnessing is taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results with God.”
God had a plan for us to be a blessing to two hard-working Delta ticket agents in Atlanta who together spent about 3 hours re-ticketing us and trying to find our bags. B____ and K____ commented on how relaxed Kay and I seemed even though we’d missed our flight. I was reminded of a Henry Brandt story and said, “Well, we’re going to be standing here at this ticket counter while you re-ticket us. We have no choice about that. The only choice we have is whether we stand here mad and fuming or calm and peaceful. We think calm is better.”
So we are over-nighting in Atlanta and flying tomorrow. We pray that our bags get found wherever they are in the Atlanta airport and re-tagged Atlanta-Tokyo-Bangkok tomorrow rather than Atlanta-Inchon-Bangkok today!
I had asked friends to pray these things for us. I thought it was a prayer request focused on Thailand and India. But God is giving us a chance to reap the benefit of prayers here in Atlanta.
- Pray that our hearts will be spiritual hearts.
- Please pray for all of us to lift our eyes to see things from God’s perspective, in the light of eternity.
- Pray that we will be adventurous believers, stepping out if faith to trust God to do far beyond what we think we are able to do.
I’ve added two more prayer requests:
- Oumar from Mali wrote today that he has a visa, but he does not have a seat on the plane to Thailand until after the conference begins. He will try again tomorrow to get a seat to arrive in time for the start of the conference. Please pray for Oumar’s plane seat.
- Kay and I have a plane seat but no confirmation that they have located our luggage. Pray that overnight the luggage will be found and re-tagged. It contains conference materials as well as clothes (and deodorant!).
And Atlanta is having tornados tonight! Ahh, the joys of travel. The privileges of trusting God.
A friend sent this message. I thought it was worthy of sharing with you also. So, with permission of Bob MacLeod, here is some very appropriate thoughts from God’s word about our economy today.
As I read the newspaper and all of the economic ‘highlights’ every day, I thought of headlines I don’t think we’ll ever see…
- Fed Adopts Biblical Prinicples; Pays Off National Debt
- President Leads Nation in Fasting and Prayer / Calls on People To Change Their Wrong Habits
- IRS Agent Confesses to Bilking Taxpayers / Promises to Pay Back Every Dollar Fourfold.
That may seem humorous at this moment, but all three of those are direct from the Bible.
In Deuteronomy 28, God promised that if the nation followed him, they would be debt free and lend to other nations.
In Jonah 3, the king of Nineveh heard Jonah’s proclamation of doom and immediately fell to his knees in prayer and repentance, calling on all the people to do the same.
And in Luke 19:8, Zaccheus-a tax collector-met Christ personally and promised to restore 4x over anyone he defrauded.
It can be hard to filter out truth from the news, especially because the news media seems to thrive on the bad news more than the good news.
In light of that, here’s another headline:
- God announces global stimulus package: Follow Me and have all you need.
The great news is that God is still in charge. His portfolio has not changed. The challenge with following God is that He doesn’t always provide what we want, and He doesn’t always provide what we think we need-on our timetable.
In the last week four Campus Crusade staff members have come to me with personal financial questions on debt, budgets, and taxes. Two by-products I have seen of this economic uncertainty are:
1. People are looking to God for answers. People are praying more, like they do in any times of uncertainty. The Bible recommends praying always-but more so when we’re in distress.
2. People are re-evaluating their spending and changing their habits. I love chocolate, and I’d eat a lot of it everyday-if my body would let me. But even when I cut back, I sometimes find myself eating too much. So periodically I have to step back and change my habits… again.
As a financial counselor, I encourage you to re-evaluate your spending and savings. You should do this often, but now especially.
And if you are struggling with economic uncertainty, or worse-actual job loss, I encourage you to bring that before the Lord. Just pour your heart out to Him and wait on Him.
Here’s a final word of encouragement from Habakkuk 3:17-19 regardless of your financial situation:
Though the fig tree should not blossom
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
GOD, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer’s;
he makes me tread on my high places.
God is sovereign. His goodness and mercy never goes into recession!
As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God
Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa’s biggest problem – the crushing passivity of the people’s mindset.
Wow! A friend sent this link to me. I read this insightful article with deep interest. Having lived 15 of my 57 years in Africa, I have seen the same thing.
Another amazing observation:
We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world – a directness in their dealings with others – that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.
In talking about a secular conference about development aid in Africa, he relates a meeting with Zimbabwean aid leaders who were Christians although their development work was secular. He says,
It would suit me to believe that their honesty, diligence and optimism in their work was unconnected with personal faith. Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were. What they were was, in turn, influenced by a conception of man’s place in the Universe that Christianity had taught. [emphasis mine]
Understanding that their is a God, he is the author of a grand story, and I have a place in that story changes the way people think. It changes they way they look you in the eye and the way they engage in owning their responsibility to address their problems under God’s divine leadership.
He concludes his article with this acknowledgement of the limitation of simply educating Africans and providing modern tools and technologies and commerce:
Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.
And I’m afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.
My friend and our Vice President for Africa Dela Adadevoh calls this perspective transformational leadership. Leading in a different way. Leading from the heart. Leading from a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
Africa needs transformation. And only Christianity can provide transformation.
I was ticketed yesterday while driving in South Carolina. “Improper lane change”. The officer said I had changed lanes in an improper manner. I feel like screaming, “Did you not see my traffic indicator blinking before I changed lanes?” And “Did anyone have to swerve or stomp on their brakes to avoid a collision?” He felt that I pulled between two cars with insufficient space.
Part of me has to acknowledge that he is right. It was a little tight. The traffic was heavy and the only way to get around the 18-wheeler I was following in the right lane was to move into a pretty full left lane. I wondered why he didn’t ticket people for not using the left lane for passing-only rather than camping out there.
I also felt like pointing out his own improper driving. I mean, who is he to call my action improper when he had just committed an improper action. When we passed this officer, he was just finishing ticketing someone else. This offender was parked on the right shoulder. The officer pulled around the car on the right, on the grass, and rejoined the highway. He wasn’t chasing anyone, just rejoining. I thought policemen were supposed to stay behind the vehicle as it rejoined traffic, using their flashing lights to make sure cars safely rejoined the highway.
Self-righteousness welled up. Other cars were doing wrong things, why pick me? You, Mr. Officer, are not a paragon of proper driving so how can you pick on me?
Other thoughts swirled.
God is sovereign. Nothing happens to me by chance, it is all part of God’s shaping me into the image of Jesus Christ.
Give thanks in all things. Rejoice always. I even preached on this back in July, calling it 10 Words to Live By.
I remember what long-time friend Don Myers taught me once about the Spirit-filled life, “It only works when you work it.” It doesn’t help to only know to give thanks in all things. It is beneficial in my life when I obey, when I follow God’s principles and actually give thanks in the midst of an unpleasant circumstance.
This morning, I read some thoughts from another friend, Judy Douglass. She wrote yesterday in a private message:
I believe thanking God does many things. Here are three:
The first is that it expresses my trust that God is God and God is good. Even when it doesn’t feel like it or look like it.
Second it gives me a more peaceful heart–sometimes just a little, sometime a great deal.
Third, I believe my saying Thank You opens a door for God to work in amazing and unexpected ways.
So, after a long night of laying awake thinking of smart remarks to make to Mr. Officer, I am writing this post as part of my saying to God this morning, “Thank you for the ticket. Thank you for what you want to do in my life through this ticket. Thank you for Mr. Officer who is participating in your plan to mold me into the image of Jesus Christ.”
After all, it is Thanksgiving and Kay and I drove to North Carolina to participate in thanking God with Jennifer, and with Daniel and Michelle and Abby and Lucy. It’s just a part of giving thanks that I was unprepared for, but I’m now getting around this giving of thanks also.
The news is full of horrible economic information. This morning, I was writing to a friend who is in a period of great apprehension and confusion. I wrote a little, but then I started recalling that God is God, all the time. I found this page of the names of God very insightful.
He is El (sovereign, in control), all the time. (250 times in the Bible)
He is El Roi, the God who sees me, all the time. (Gen. 16:13)
He is El Hanne’eman (faithful), all the time. (Deut. 7:9)
He is El-Kanno (lovingly and jealously watching over us), all the time. (Exod. 20:5)
He is El Shaddai (all sufficient), all the time. (Gen. 28:3, and many other places)
He is El Chaiyai, the God of my life, all the time. (Ps. 42:8)
He is El-Channun, the gracious God, all the time. (Jonah 4:2)
He is El Rachum, the God of compassion, all the time. (Deut. 4:31)
And perhaps my very favorite, He is Immanuel, God with us, all the time. (Isa. 7:14)
John Piper wrote a very intriguing post today: Bad times are good for missions. He lists some reasons:
1. During an economic downturn we are more dependent on God. That is the most fertile soil for creating missionaries.
2. During an economic downturn unreached people around the world do not expect you to come, but to look out for yourself. So they may more likely see your risk as love rather than exploitation.
3. During an economic downturn those who need Christ around the world may be less secure in earthly things and more ready to hear about eternal life.
4. During an economic downturn people at home may be wakened to the brevity of life and the fragility of material things, and so may become more generous not less. And when they give under these circumstances, it will make Christ look all the more like the all-satisfying Treasure that he is.
God did not wake up some morning and say, “Look how big a mess these folks are in. I better sort this out.” It’s all part of his plan, even the difficult or confusing circumstances.
He is El (sovereign, in control) and He is Immanuel (God with us), all the time.
In my work in technology, we are implementing a global identity tool so that all staff and non-staff affiliated with our organization are known uniquely and individually. It’s a huge project. It’s the foundation of providing greatly-increased participation in helping launch spiritual movements around the world. So, I’ve been thinking about “identity” a lot lately.
Today, Steve Addison introduced me to John Wesely’s Covenant Prayer. Read Wesley’s covenant prayer through the eyes of our identity, of who we are as people.
I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing, put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you or laid aside for you,
exalted for you or brought low for you;
let me be full, let me be empty;
let me have all things, let me have nothing;
I freely and heartily yield all things to your pleasure and disposalAnd now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine, and I am yours.
So be it.And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
Talk about an identity exchange! Wesley was empowered by his identity in Christ. Identity with Christ energized him with boldness and perseverance.