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.

The Uninteresting, Unromantic Truth of Missions

Some thoughts upon my continued reading of Amy Carmichael’s biography:

Because missionary reports generally included more about successes than failures, Amy tried to shift the weight to the other side.  “More important that you should know about the reverses than about the successes of the war.  We shall have all eternity to celebrate the victories, but we have only the few hours before sunset in which to win them.  We are not winning them as we should, because the fact of the reverses is so little realized, and the needed reinforcements are not forthcoming, as they would be if the position were thoroughly understood…So we have tried to tell you the truth-the uninteresting, unromantic truth.”

Many people have quite a romantic view of missions.  I confess that I did as we were going through the process of getting on the field.  In my mind I thought we would arrive and everything would just neatly fall into place-we would live in a quaint little hut among the people.  They would gather around us and be ever so eager to hear the Gospel as it spilt beautifully from our lips.  I would gather the orphans and take them in and they would find a home.  Although other missionaries tried to prepare us for the realities we would face nothing really could until we were living in Africa.  

The stark reality hit us in the face like a ton of bricks.  In giving you updates through our newsletter or Facebook page we try very hard to share our successes and our failures so you can pray for us.  We strive to be transparent with you and I ask for your forgiveness if we have ever portrayed an image of ourselves that is inaccurate.  Each day is a spiritual battle-we lose when we are not constantly seeking the Lord’s help and instead or trying to do it in our own strength.  (That NEVER works.)  For indeed we cannot remain here without you locking arms with us and lifting us up before the throne.  

Living like Jesus, modeling our Christian theology with skin on to the Dinka is difficult. More often than not our failures far outweigh our successes.  There are many days when we are just weary-bone tired from just living out in the bush-house work, cooking meals, learning language, raising children, discipling.  Or the cultural weariness that comes from trying to understand the Dinka’s ways and customs that haven’t been permeated with the practical knowledge of Christian living.  It seems we are constantly stumbling and committing cultural taboos and having to ask for forgiveness from our Dinka friends.  

Our compound (where our house is surrounded by concrete walls) is always filled with locals and it is EXHAUSTING to feel as if you live in a glass house-people are ALWAYS watching (I mean the village children are literally peering in through our windows-faces pressed to the glass to see what these crazy white people are doing).  I feel the burden of setting a consistent, Christian example CONSTANTLY.  Even when I go for a run in the mornings, there is the constant staring at me because I am foreigner and the expectations that come with that-“You give me money” or “You give me clothes”.  People are always wanting something.  

When we go out to a community event, the masses stare at us and there is this constant, unspoken pressure to do things in a culturally appropriate way so as not to offend the unbelievers and be a hindrance to them hearing the Gospel-this unreached people with their centuries old way of doing things-the Dinka believing they are the elite of the human race-they have a very specific protocol of doing things (they literally have a “protocol officer” at events to show people where they are to sit-there is pomp and circumstance in everything). 

  And believe me, EVERY DAY I am humbled in some way.  While at a community meeting the other day, the new Vice President of South Sudan just stepped up to the podium to speak and Daniella started screaming her little lungs out.  EVERY eye in the place turned to me and a big Muslim man started fussing at me in Arabic, “You make that baby be quiet.  Nurse her or something.” Talk about having to take a humility pill.  In a society where men are the authorities, it was quite difficult as a Western woman to bite my tongue and not retort back to him that I knew how to take care of my baby-I’m her Mama after all! 

My words echo those of Elisabeth Elliott in her biography about Amy Carmichael:  “If it were possible to poll all the missionaries who have worked all the world in all of Christian history, it would be seen that missionary work, most of the time, offers little that could be called glamour.  What it does offer, as Amy wrote to prospective candidates in later years, is “a chance to die”-or, as Winston Churchill put his challenge during WW II, blood, sweat, and tears.  It offers a great deal of plodding and ploughing, with now and then a little planting.  It is the promise of rejoicing, given to those who “go forth weeping, bearing precious seed” that gives heart.”

Yes, by the Lord’s grace we have been privileged to see many people baptized into the faith in the bush where we live with the Dinka. But the actual sanctification and discipleship of these new believers is indeed soul rendering and exhausting.  A new believer just recently tried to commit suicide because she was overwhelmed with the her seemingly bleak future-no job, no husband, 4 kids, her ex-husband had hired someone to try and kill her, she believed she just couldn’t do life anymore.  By the power of God He preserved her life and we were able to counsel and pray with her.  

But these new Dinka believers must know the POWER and STRENGTH of God-not the American, toned down version so many people unfortunately say they follow-but the God who has power over demons, death, sickness, famine.  It is my daily prayer that as they see us rely on the Lord and surrender everything that they too will do the same.  Please pray for us as we toil through every day life here and be Jesus with skin on to the Dinka!

Highways in Our Hearts

“Blessed are those whose strength is in You,

in whose heart are the highways to Zion.

As they go through the Valley of Baca

they make it a place of springs;

the early rain also covers it with pools.  

They go from strength to strength;

each one appears before God in Zion.”

-Ps. 84:5-7

Lord, how perfect are these words for me, for us right now.  Help me to draw my strength from you-sustain me with it on this journey in South Sudan.  How beautiful are the words “highways” in our hearts to “Zion”.  As we go through this journey you are paving new highways in my heart-which is often painful as you tear down old ones in my heart or repair ones that were destroyed.  Often I don’t want this-I want to keep using the same road, despite how bad it is-doing the same thing, regardless of how much time it wastes going that way or how it batters and bruises others along the way.  Give me the courage to let You alone be the builder and in control of all the highways in my heart.  Let all of them lead me in your perfect way-in your perfect peace.  Put up any necessary roadblocks that you want to thwart my destructive way.  For your ways are so much higher than mine.  You alone know what’s best.  

I want to be on this pilgrimage with you-when my walk becomes mechanical renew my heart.  When it becomes burdensome, lighten my load because you promised your load is easy when I rely on you.  I want the highways in my heart to lead to heaven-to your kingdom, eternal things.  In times of my life like now-when I feel I’m in a dry, difficult “Valley of Baca” (which also means “weeping”, I’ve done a lot of this lately) may I be a faithful pilgrim who by your strength makes it a place of springs-trusting and seeking you to bring victory and grow me in my faith.  

Help me to go from strength to strength, finding new levels of strength along the way on this journey.  Each season you provide something beautiful and unique and just what my soul needs at that time to sustain and strengthen me-through Your Word, songs, words from my husband or a friend, book or blog- ....it truly amazes me how You know and love me. Thank you for always providing.  Give me joy in this journey oh Lord my God! You never fail me God!  You never fail!  Keep burning these highways so I may become closer to Your heart.

Failure To Thrive

The words Failure to Thrive are written across the top of the lab work sheet-they threaten to nag at me, looming at the back of my mind, telling of my failing as a mother, at our defeat as parents.  Lord, what is happening?  We have loved this baby and worked so hard to give her the best we have.  Please give us Your guidance.  Comfort us with Your perfect peace and we pray You would cause Daniella to grow!

Over the past almost month and a half, we have been in Nairobi as we have visited doctors to investigate Daniella’s struggle to keep weight on.  She is petite and that alone certainly didn’t bother us, but our company’s medical care wanted us to do all the precautionary work while we were in the city with access to good medical care versus out in the bush with none.  We could not be medically cleared until Daniella put on some weight for 2 consecutive weeks.  While we are very thankful to have this medical care, oh how our hearts ache to be back among the Dinka.  We have struggled greatly with knowing there is still so much work to be done in Kuajok, while we had to remain away longer than expected to have things sorted out.  

While this issue of weight gain seems to be a pretty common problem among children, even back in America, it is nonetheless disheartening to have your child diagnosed with this.  It hurts this mama’s heart as Satan tries to use it to discourage me from my task as a mother. As I mother two littles, the Lord has been teaching me how great and sacred my calling is and I want to please Him in all aspects of raising our children. And this current issue, this has been more difficult than I expected it to be.  Oh how my heart has been heavy and burdened by the weight of it.

God understands when I hurt.   And I recognize that even this is a part of spiritual warfare-I can either let Satan discourage me or cling to the Lord-in His mighty strength and power.  Ann Voskamp’s words ring true in my soul,  “I won’t shield God from my anguish by claiming He’s not involved in the ache of this world and Satan prowls but he’s a lion on a leash and the God who governs all can be shouted at when I bruise, and I can cry and I can howl and He embraces the David-hearts who pound hard on His heart with their grief and I can moan deep that He did this-and He did.”  (One Thousand Gifts) I just have to trust that God has had a plan in all of this.  I JUST. HAVE. TO.  He loves me. He loves my baby and He wants His best for her.

Ultimately I know that the Lord is the only one who can make my baby grow.  And yet I know it’s my job as Daniella’s mother to honor my calling.  I have spent countless hours pouring over recipes of how to pack in extra fat in her food, painstakingly making her food by hand, striving to make every bite count.  And throughout this process the Lord has begun teaching me something else- of the even greater spiritual calling on the lives of our children.  Imagine if due to our lack of spiritual nourishment as parents, Failure to Thrive could be stamped across the lives of our children.  How often have I lived out the words true of Lamentations 2:19 ….. “Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord.  Lift your hands toward him for the life of your young children.”

Dear Jesus, please let me be faithful to teaching Your Gospel to our children every day.  In my daily walk with You-giving grace to them, especially when I don’t feel like it.  I am at a complete loss on my own-help me to cling to You as You pour out love and grace like a river, rushing over my tired body, cleansing my weary soul.  You give me rest and hope.  Help me show Your Gospel of redemption to them in the way I love on people-especially the ones who are difficult to love.  In the way I forgive, especially when it hurts.  Let me faithful in showing Your compassion to those in need.  In pouring out Your love in extra measure when they hurt. And in relying on You to be my strength and shield, in becoming like Jesus with skin on, I know You will enable my girls to thrive.  To thrive in the very ways that matter the most, their eternal walks with the King.

Perspective: Missions is a Privilege not a Sacrifice

David Livingstone, Speech at Cambridge University on Having an Eternal Perspective and role as a missionary

“For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office.  People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa..Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter?  Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought!  It is emphatically no sacrifice.  Say rather it is a privilege.  Anxiety, sickness, suffering or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment.  All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us.  I never made a sacrifice.”

How these words echo in my heart!  How they convict my soul.  How I long for this to be my perspective.  All too often I catch myself deflating my pride by thinking about things I’ve given up on the mission field.  I think about missing modern day conveniences like washing machines, fast food restaurants, high speed Internet, electricity 24/7.  Because the truth is-all of these things are fleeting. 

Those material things are nice to have but it is by far most difficult to be away from my family- knowing that we are missing huge milestones in each other’s lives-they are missing the baby learning how to walk, first days of school, I am missing graduations, new job offers, birth of my friends’ babies, and weddings.  And then there’s just the daily doing of life together-to be able to share in the joys of a great day, rejoicing over victories or venting about the bad ones-for these are the times when souls are knit together.…..It is hard to be away from dear friends back home who I could call without a moment’s hesitation for anything, those who know me inside and out.  When I dwell on these things I get discouraged, I lose my joy. Certainly I feel like I’ve made huge sacrifices. Some days more than others I feel this-when I lose my eternal perspective.   Yet, for all the things I have momentarily given up, the Lord has provided again and again in His unfailing love in His eternal riches.  He has provided friends who are like family here on the mission field (though they could never replace the ones back in America), He has bound my heart to them and they encourage and inspire me always-to spur me on in love and deed to the high calling of serving Jesus on the field.

The only thing that is eternal is building up the kingdom of God and the only way that happens is by being obedient to the Lord.  

Dear Jesus, may my mindset and my heart change it’s perspective to grow so much in love with You that I consider my life nothing that I may run the race that is set before me.  That I remember your suffering on the cross-how you gave up everything so a lost and dying world would have the hope of you.  Though my spirit may waver, though my flesh fails, though my soul  may sink-let these all be but for moment as I set my eyes on your eternal truth.  May my life shout “I never made a sacrifice”.

What is Your Costing Point? Part 2 of 2

Many people ask us how we got here to Africa.  We didn’t just wake up one day with God’s calling as clear as a bell to go transplant our lives to this third world country (if that were the case we probably would have run away screaming!)  It began with a series of small steps of obedience to Him-when He provided us with ministry opportunities while we were in college: leading Bible studies, discipling other believers, being mentored ourselves by older, mature believers in the way of the Lord.  Allow me to share with you some of our journey of obedience to God…..

In the midst of our daily “yeses” to God, He also called us to local missions in the downtown soup kitchen, public schools, nursing homes….to state missions throughout Georgia in youth detention centers, pet therapy in children’s homes, aiding orphans and widows.  

We followed Him in obedience to national missions throughout the US-to New Orleans to help rebuild houses after Hurricane Katrina, to Alabama with World Changers, to Florida with M-Fuge.  

We served Him in obedience internationally through mission trips to Thailand to serve the people affected by the tsunami, to India to minister to school students, orphans, and encourage pastors in churches, to Haiti to help strengthen churches after the earthquake. 

If you say yes to God in the small acts of obedience, the opportunities to minister to a hurting, bleeding world are absolutely endless. Along the way, the Lord grew us in our faith and because we were actively involved in serving others, I truly believe we were able to be in tune to the Lord’s leading when He did indeed call us to Africa.  And while we are currently serving in South Sudan, it is a daily process of taking up our cross and being obedient to God.  This is by no means the end-we didn’t figure everything out in our arriving on the field here, we don’t know how long the Lord will have us serve here before He leads us elsewhere.  But today, right now, we are seeking to live surrendered to His will alone in our lives so we can be faithful servants.  To say yes to God and no to our selfish desires that get in the way of serving Him with all our heart, soul, and mind.

 It is through these faithful acts of love and obedience to the Lord that He will build up Your faith.  And what is so beautiful is that all of our callings of service are so unique-there is no certain way to serve the Lord.  “God does not call the equipped, He equips the called.” If you are able to give your costing point over to the Lord what He gives you in return is of far more worth-it is eternal, forever.  You Will. Not. Regret. It.