Cultivating a Soldier Soul

“The evangelization of the world is a desperate struggle with the Prince of Darkness and with everything his rage can stir up in the shape of obstacles, vexations, oppositions, and hatred, whether by circumstances or by the hand of man. It is a serious task. Oh, it should mean a life of consecration.”     -Francois Coillard, missionary of the Zambesi in Africa

“He made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant.” Phi. 2:7  “Pray that we may get down to the bottom of that verse,” Amy Carmichael wrote home to some of her prayer warriors back home.  Then we shall be in a position to ask our India brethren to come down and join us for Jesus’ sake.  Pray that we are who are His sworn soldiers abroad may throw our kid gloves to the winds and FIGHT!”  

This is indeed my prayer, our team’s prayer, as we begin facilitating a bush training for African church planters.  It is going to be an exciting time as God has orchestrated exactly who He wants to participate.  It will be a time of hard work.  Even the past month as we have prepared to leave South Sudan for almost 4 months has been difficult.  Knowing that we will not see these precious young believers and churches for that duration of time is difficult.  In fact, it seems like Satan has attacked one particular church, the mother church the most right now.  Although we have spent countless hours discipling and praying with the individuals involved it will not be resolved before we leave.  Many of the people involved are refusing to express humility and forgiveness toward one another. The senior pastor is in the city getting some medical issues taken care of and we are praying for him to return.  Then he will be able to address this issue in full and we are positive that God will use him to bring resolution and restore the peace in the church. Pastor Moses, the senior pastor, is a man of God and is gifted in discernment as well as conflict resolution by using scripture and the Dinka culture to relate to the people. We are praying that this will happen even in our absence.   

Dear Lord, it is so difficult to see the destruction the Prince of Darkness causes when Your children give him a foothold.  Yet, I know You are indeed more powerful.  Please help these young believers to swallow their pride and clothe themselves in love and grace and forgiveness.  In a country that has always known violence and destruction, let Your people rise up in Your Spirit so you may bring healing and restoration.  Nothing is impossible for You!

The South Sudanese people, especially the Dinka pride themselves on being soldiers.  In a matter of days they can put together a 10,000 men army.  We have been told a Dinka man will most likely not rob you but he will kill you.  Our first expat friend here warned us that a Sudanese man had no qualms about this.  During the history of decades of war, countless men and especially kids have seen untold horrors.  It makes me think what this people could do for Jesus if they only followed him completely.  If they allowed Jesus to totally and completely permeate their culture.  This is the hardest part of discipleship here-for the young believers to have the courage to turn away from generations of culture and instead FIRST follow Jesus and demonstrate Biblical culture. 

My prayer is like Amy’s years and years ago-Oh my God, please help us to truly be You to the believers here.  Only then can we ask the Dinka to come down and join us for Your sake.  Help us as your soldiers to throw off anything that hinders us and FIGHT for You!  Dear Lord, help us to lay aside our agendas and instead be servants for You.  In a culture where formality and “big men” and status are so important, give us courage, boldness, and discernment to love like You love Jesus-as we learn to speak their heart language sounding like a child most of the time.  As we often have to ask forgiveness of them as we commit some culture taboo we had no idea existed or there is some kind of language miscommunication that occurs.  I really, truly want to get to the bottom of Philippians 2:7, to serve like You serve so that the Dinka are transformed by Your power.  I consecrate my life to You dear Jesus, I pour out myself as a drink offering to You.  Fill me with Your presence, cultivate a soldier soul in me that I may not grow weary in doing good.  That I may press on towards the prize for which You have called me.  Oh Captain, my Captain lead me on and I will follow.

Viewing Our World Through the Lens of God’s Word

“Only the Word is the answer to rightly reading the world, because The Word has nail-scarred hands that cup our face close, wipe away the tears running down, has eyes to look deep into our brimming ache, and whisper, “I know.  I know.”  The passion on the page is a Person, and the lens I wear of the Word is not abstract idea but the eyes of the God-Man who came and knows the pain.  How does the Word read the world?”  -One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp

Isaiah 14:24:  “Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand.”

God is in everything.  He is in control of everything.  Everything on heaven and on earth is ultimately under his authority.  Yes, we live in a world torn apart, bleeding, dripping in agony because of sin.  The war happening unseen in the heavenlies even as we speak, is very real, for Satan comes only to steal, kill and destroy.  To steal our joy, to kill our hope, to destroy our faith in God.  Satan does roam around like a lion, mouth open for the kill-seeing who he can devour.  Yet, he is still under the submission of God.  And the Word promises us that God’s eyes search the earth-looking for those who are faithful to Him.  And there is nothing, absolutely nothing that can snatch us out of His hands.

Colossians 1:17-18:  “We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen.  We look at this son and see God’s original purpose in everything created.  For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank of angels-everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him.  He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment.  And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.”  

How quickly I get caught up in my day-to-day things that aren’t going as planned and I lash out at God.  How I often fear what future loss could look like in the building up of my faith-I hear stories of moms thrown in prison for their faith-leaving their families behind.  I shudder.  I read stories of parents who lose a child.  Of children who are born not whole and with short life expectancies.  Of husbands being persecuted for their faith.  I hear stories of innocent children who were abused, of precious girls who were raped-an 11 year old girl raped by her father (here in the town where we live).  Despicable! Prostitutes who sell their bodies because they feel they have nothing else to offer to survive.  In South Sudan, 50,000 children are expected to die of hunger or disease by the end of the year.  I shout at God, WHY?  This is not FAIR!  It’s not their fault.  Don’t you see them?  Don’t you hear their cries?  My heart breaks in two for them. What if that were me?  How can our good God allow such bad things to happen to us?  

“Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has planned it?”  Amos 3:6

Job 1:21:  “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

The Lord whispers to my heart and I gasp.  I feel like God owes me only good things.  I have such an entitlement spirit.  This perspective does not lend to me having a grateful heart and focusing on God’s grace.  Instead, I quickly get mad at God when things don’t go the way I want them too.  I live in fear when I think about the things that could happen to hurt in the future.  Where is my trust in God?  Where is my eternal perspective?  I am a sinner.  I am broken, ugly, fallen from God.  Jesus has saved me-washed me clean by grace.  I need to be thankful that I have been given this day to live.  I don’t deserve it.  I am not good.  The saying “why do bad things happen to good people?”  is simply untrue.  There is nothing good in me.  I am a sinner whose little attempt at holiness on my own is nothing but filthy rags in the sight of our holy God.  The I am.  The God who simple spoke and His WORDS brought life into this world in the beginning-creating the unseen and the seen.  

“See now that I, I am He, and there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life.  I have wounded and it is I who heal.”  Deuteronomy 32:39. Yes, this is true.  I know it deep down-in the very depths of my soul.  I know it but I often forget it.  I know it but often don’t want to remember because it hurts.   For we do live in a battle every day.  Because we live in a world fallen by sin, we will struggle and just as in any war, we will be wounded.  We will sometimes be maimed.  We will sometimes lose family members, close friends.  But we must have the eternal perspective.  Our time here on earth is but a fleeting moment compared to eternity.  

“The spirit-to-spirit combat I endlessly wage with Satan is this ferocious thrash for joy.  He sneers at all the things that seem to have gone hideously mad in this sin-drunk world, and I gasp to say God is good.  The liar defiantly scrawls his graffiti across God’s glory, and I heave to enjoy God...and Satan strangles, and I whiten knuckles to grasp real Truth and fix that beast to the floor.” 

-One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp

My eyes must wear the lens of God’s Word.  To see that our lives here on earth are but a part of the bigger story of God’s redemption plan for the world.  Ephesians 5:20 calls us to “always give thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  

ALL things. 

The good things and the bad things.  

The beautiful and the horrendous.  

For God can work good out of EVERY situation.  

These are hard words to swallow and even harder to live by.  I don’t claim to do this like I should. It is my desire to.  For my faith to be like Job’s-when everything, everybody, even his own body was ripped away and left bleeding-He still chose to praise God.  Oh my God, I want a faith like that!  Help me to view the World through Your Word, through Your precious son.

Children Tie the Mother’s Feet

There is a Tamil (South Indian) proverb that says “Children tie the mother’s feet.”  I find there is a lot of truth in this saying.  Mothering is indeed a full-time job involving much personal sacrifice.  Honestly, when I answered the call to missions I did not have mothering on my mind.  Back in the states before having a baby, I was always by my husband’s side doing ministry and I LOVED it.  I thrived in it and I knew without a doubt that I was being obedient to the Lord.  Then we had our first child and I realized that things would have to change some.  I was working full-time outside of the home and in order to spend time with our daughter I had to cut back my hours of ministry in the church.  I could no longer be by Selvin’s side in every ministry endeavor, I was needed at home to take care of our baby.  This was indeed difficult, though I loved spending time with Abigail.  Nevertheless, it was still a big life change for me.  But we adjusted and found a rhythm. Then we got to the mission field and we had our second daughter and things had to shift again.  I was no longer working outside of the home and it was a big adjustment for me to be at home all the time with the girls.  Like I said before, I didn’t realize the priority and time involved in mothering and how it would impact my life.

I confess that there are many days here in South Sudan where I feel limited to what I can do as far as ministry goes because of all the work that mothering involves.  There are so many times I long to go out into the villages more and be with the women-talking, visiting, building relationships, sharing Bible stories.  But I often cannot because I need to take care of my children.  I need to bear my weight of caring for them so I can free up Selvin to go out and do the work he needs to as well. It is a continual learning process as we try different things to give each other time to minister but as we also learn how to minister together as a family.  For our calling to the mission field is a family calling.

I am indeed learning, as Amy Carmichael did as the Lord began to give her Indian children (former child temple prostitutes and orphans) “that if the Lord of Glory took a towel and knelt on the floor to wash the dusty feet of His disciples (the job of the lowest slave in an Eastern household), then no work, even the relentless and often messy routine of caring for squalling babies, is demeaning.  To offer it up to the Lord of Glory transforms it into a holy task.  It is not the business of the servant to decide which work is great, which is small, which important or unimportant-he is not greater than his master.  If by doing some work which the undiscerning consider ‘not spiritual work’ I can best help others, and I inwardly rebel, thinking it is the spiritual for which I crave, when in truth it is the interesting and exciting, then I know nothing of Calvary love.”  

It is my prayer that I’m able to be obedient to the Lord in this every day.  I want to rejoice that I am enlisted in the sacred job of mothering and though my children tie my feet, I want them to be tied-I must allow them to be tied during this season of my life, for the sake of Jesus whose feet were once nailed to the cross for me.

Lord, I pray that every act of service I do for my children, for my teammates’ children, for children here in Dinka land, that I would view it as an act of worship unto You.  For you have called me to my task for such a time as this.  You are my master and you have seen fit to bless us with children. This job of parenting is indeed sacred-You show me this every day and I want to honor and follow you with my whole heart in this mission field.  

As my feet are tied to my girls I pray that I would be tied to you. As I offer my body as a sacrifice every day to You please give me the grace, strength and mercy that I need.  Help me not to inwardly rebel in disobedience or to wrongly view motherhood as a hindrance-instead by the power of your Holy Spirit keep my eyes open to follow You.  To follow Your will in teaching my children, sharing Your stories with the women I have relationships with in the villages, in knowing when to bring the girls along and when to leave them at home.  It is such a struggle sometimes to know what You desire of me in this area of my life as I strive to balance my job as a mother and as a missionary.  Help me to see how they are indeed one in many ways and to seek your perfect wisdom each day, even moment by moment.  Tie me to You my God and never let me go.