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.
Thoughts
Worldwide Day of Prayer
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.
Aborted take-off
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.”
Good followership
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
Runway time
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.