More Than a Story

Did you ever take notes during the pastor’s opening prayer because his words were so profound? That just happened to me a couple of weeks ago.

As the service began, the pastor prayed: “We don’t want to leave You on the pages of the Bible.” Wow! I peeked and found a pen and jotted it down. Actually, my writing could stop right there.   His words are a GOAD to stir my thinking as a Christian.

Are we leaving God “only in the pages of the Bible”? Do we sometimes treat God’s Word as though it is a story about Jesus and His life and miracles and yet those miracles and His life do not show through us?

That is a question to consider even if we are daily in God’s Word - and have been for years. Maybe you have been saved a long time and have just not “gotten the hang of it” as far as a meaningful, daily Bible time with the Lord. It is time to start!

Psalm 119:130 - “The entrance of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.” So there is hope for ALL of us...even the “simple.” J

So is it busyness, fear, pride, unconcern that keeps us from focusing on this important part of our Christian lives?  Our priority must be getting God’s words into our hearts and Jesus off the pages of the Bible. When He is so alive in us, we will not hesitate in offering this gift to others.

Now, I also believe that most of us do not have hearts that are unconcerned for others. Life just gets so full of “important” tasks and responsibilities that we do not focus consciously on sharing the Lord Jesus with others.

We can do that by following Galatians 6:2 that exhorts us to “bear one another’s burdens.” Many times, through our helping to bear a person’s grief or troubles, that person has come to know Christ. This takes time!

Our words can show Christ to others as in Proverbs 15:23 that reminds us “how good is a timely word.” This “timely word” can be face-to-face or in a lovely card with God's Word to remind them of His love. This takes time!

Do we feel that the outcome of our sharing is our responsibility? Remember, with Jesus and you, there are two people in that relationship. Only ONE is enough. He is “never depleted.” The Holy Spirit has all the creativity we need to help us in any conversation or situation.

LET’S NOT LEAVE JESUS ON THE PAGES OF THE BIBLE. We want to get Him into our lives and share Him with others.

--Maylou Holladay

Taste and See

In a  book about London midwifery in the 1950s, “Farewell to the East End,” Jennifer Worth
has a chapter on the “Lost Babies.” It’s a heartbreaking chapter about women smothering or
purposefully neglecting their babies due to abject poverty or scandal. Domestic abuse plays a
role as does cultural expectations. This part especially hurt my heart:
“Traffic in children has been going on for as long as mankind has been sinning and suffering
Josephine Butler (1828-1907) writes in her journals, pamphlets, and diaries of the second half
of the nineteenth century about seeing thousands (yes, thousands) of little girls, some as
young as four or five, in the illegal brothels of London, Paris, Brussels and Geneva....
The children had a life expectancy of two years, yet the brothel owners , frequently women,
seemed to have an unlimited supply of little girls for their rich clients.”

When I visited the Dominican Republic with the ladies from Grace Baptist, I was profoundly
changed. The experiences of the women and children in the DR are not so far removed from
what the women and children in those cities experienced all those years ago. (I shudder to
think how many women and children are trafficked in our own city.) Many women prostitute to
put food in their children’s mouths; they are used and abused and thrown away like trash. I
cannot fathom that level of desperation. Humbled after that trip to the DR, I sat on my porch
giving thanks to God for all that He had given me and for all that I had not experienced. I am
nobody special, so why did God bless and protect me and not these women? I don’t know.
People question God’s goodness in the midst of suffering. They wonder if He is able to deal
with these problems and if He is, why doesn’t He? No doubt we live in a fallen world, and
there’s the issue of free will. But that doesn’t bring much comfort, does it?

Sometimes we have to choose to trust God even when we don’t understand His plan:

“I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.

I will glory in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice.

Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together.

I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.

Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.

This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles.

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

Fear the Lord, you his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing.

The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing...

The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry;

but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to blot out their name from the earth.

The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all; he
protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.” (From Psalm 34, NIV)

Where the gospel is preached and received, life is better. I am blessed to be in a part of the
world where this is true. I am very rich. We don’t have the fanciest of homes, but it’s more than
adequate. We are never too cold or too hot and always have running water and electricity.
Not once have I considered prostitution for myself or my daughters as a career path. I should
never complain about anything again. God is good, but in ways I don’t always understand..
With these thoughts I begin the season of Thanksgiving. What about you?

joyce hague

Mission Week is Here!

I love Missions Conference week! There is nothing as encouraging as hearing how God is working all over the world, and it has already been so good to hear how He is using different people with a variety of personalities and giftings in other countries as well as our own. I treasure my own experiences in mission trips to various part of the US, Canada, Hungary, and India. Here are just a few of my favorite lessons:

1.    God’s orchestration of getting me to the mission field was perfect. One Sunday morning, I felt Him tell me that He wanted me to go on a mission trip, and that night, I ‘happened’ to talk to an acquaintance who was going on a mission trip that was right up my alley. Then, there was the matter of getting my parents to agree to a year-long mission trip that interrupted college – that was a miracle! The biggest faith builder for me was support raising. I came on to the team very late in March, and we had to raise $25,000 by August. I was the kid that didn’t like doing fundraisers partly because I was so shy and partly because I didn’t like imposing on people. But God was, as always, the perfect provider. I learned that He built this team of supporters to help send me, and that they were just as crucial to His great work. I loved seeing support come in from some truly random places like my dentist or a family that I had never met but that had previously gone to my church. Perhaps the most precious supporters were three kids from a family who were my adopted college family – they secretly saved money for me and then gave me about $15 in change – what a sweet sacrifice!

2.    “God doesn’t call the equipped. He equips the called.” This is a great quote and so true. We may never feel worthy or ready for something God calls us to like missions, but that is exactly His plan. When we are weak, then He is strong and is most glorified. If you are nervous about something God is calling you to, don’t let that stop you. Step out in faith and watch God work!

3.    God does not need us, but He graciously uses us anyway! After spending a year in Hungary and investing in the lives of some teenagers, I felt strange going back home to finish college. I worried about what would happen to some of the girls I had witnessed to, but God quickly showed me that He was in control. Petra, one of the dearest girls I had grown close to, believed in Jesus within a few months after I left. God showed me that He is the one who does the work of salvation, but that we get the joy of partnering with Him and seeing Him accomplish it. Conversely, one of my teammates had been very nervous about leaving his dad who was alcoholic and had been suicidal, but amazingly, God helped his dad to get sober that year while we were gone. We are certainly important to the work of God, but I think we need reminding that He is the one in control.

4.    As Reba Bowman talked about Sunday evening, it can be easy to look at the need in some of these countries and feel overwhelmed, but that is just a reminder that our God is bigger than all the pain and difficulties in this world. He has us all in His hands, and I remember that was one of the most amazing lessons from traveling and doing missions. Our God is omniscient and omnipresent. He is working in every country to reach all peoples with His gospel, and while I would have said that was true, it was really brought to reality when I could see it and hear stories of what He was doing.

I hope that you will all go to as many events as you can during missions week, and that you will be equally inspired and encouraged in your walk of faith with the Lord. I also pray that our hearts will be open to any new step of faith He is calling each of us to, whether it is a ministry in the US or to another country!

Blessings, 

Judith Graham

Rethinking Miracles

The well-loved children’s classic Charlotte’s Web opens with a young girl named Fern saving a little runt pig from being killed. At first she takes care of this pig whom she has named Wilbur, but then he gets too big and he has to move to her uncle’s barn. There in the barn a host of other animals live, and Fern spends much time there. Among these animals is Charlotte, a gentle and kind spider who weaves words into her web to save Wilbur from being slaughtered and turned into bacon. At one point in the book, Fern’s mother speaks to the family doctor about her concern for Fern, who claims to speak with animals, and about the appearance of words in the web.

“Have you heard about the words that appeared in the spider’s web?” asked Mrs. Arable nervously.

“Yes,” replied the doctor.

“Well, do you understand it?” asked Mrs. Arable.

“Understand what?”

“Do you understand how there could be any writing in a spider’s web?”

“Oh no,” said Dr. Dorian. “I don’t understand it. But for that matter I don’t understand how a spider learned to spin a web in the first place. When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle.”

Our idea of miracles is that miracles are something that can’t be explained or observed regularly. We don’t consider a spider weaving a web a miracle, but why not? Have you looked at a web lately? Seen the intricacies in it? Have you wondered how that tiny spider has the ability to create that thread and weave it carefully so that even strong winds often do not tear it?  But because science can to an extent explain how it happens, we discount it as a miracle. We lose our wonder for the awesomeness in creation that points to its Creator.

I recently read a book in which the author Sarah Mackenzie tells about a time she took her children to the zoo. On this day they would see a walrus for the first time, and they eagerly settled themselves before the glass and waited for the walrus to appear. She just knew it would be a magical moment for her young kids. All of a sudden the walrus appeared, and her daughter cried out “Oh Mommy, look!” Sarah writes, “I turned to her in expectation, eager to watch her first impression of the walrus’s size and grace, but instead saw that she wasn’t looking through the glass at all. She was on her hands and knees, nose inches from the sidewalk and eyes open wide in amazement, watching an ant skitter across the ground as it carried a piece of food bigger than itself.”

Sarah writes that so often in life we miss the little miraculous moments because we’re waiting for the “walruses,” the big moments, to appear. But just as the spider weaving its web is a miracle, so the ant who carries food twice his size is a miracle. Yet somewhere along the way, we’ve lost our sense of the wonder of those seemingly small moments.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to miss those “little” moments this week – the daily miracles that point to a Creator and His love for His creation. That I have breath to breathe when I wake up in the morning. The sunrise and sunset each day. The laughter of my children. The changing colors in the leaves outside. The balm of a soothing word spoken at the right time. The Word of God that I can hold in my hand. The ability to pray to the Lord of the universe.  And yes, the spider weaving his large web outside my kitchen window.

Oh Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom, you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Psalm 104:24

--Amy O'Rear