Power or Authority?

Power isn’t the answer to overcoming the evil one. Jesus gave His disciples authority over the power of the enemy, not power over the enemy’s power. What’s the difference?

Power is the ability to get things done. It involves strength and force. God sustains everything by His Word. All power is authorized or allowed by God, even Satan’s.

Authority, on the other hand, is the legalized right to use someone else’s power—but you must use it as told and prescribed. An ambassador doesn’t come to a foreign country with an army. He might even be a twit. But he has all the power of the country he represents behind him. As long as he’s authorized and walking in obedience to that authority, he has complete access to the power even though, on his own, he has no power at all.

We have been authorized to speak and to invite with the full backing of heaven. The kingdom will come through our obedience but we must walk in authority, not power. Jesus always did what His Father told Him to do. So must we. God’s strength is perfect in our weakness.

Why Are Some Healed and Others Aren’t?

In Acts 19:11-12, the simple passing around of a handkerchief that had touched Paul’s skin was sufficient to heal sick people and those with evil spirits and yet, where was that hanky—or even Paul’s skin—when Epaphroditus nearly died? Why didn’t Paul heal him?

John Wimber says we’re in a time where the kingdom of God is here but not yet. The speaker gave an example of this. D-day was the sign of the end for World War II in Europe. After D-day, everyone knew the war was over. Germany was defeated. All that was left to do was the mopping up. Another 11 months passed before VE (Victory in Europe) Day but the there was no doubt to the end once D-day had occurred. Amazingly, in those last 11 months there were more lives lost than in all the years of the war before then.

We’re living in those 11 months, so to speak. Victory is here but it’s not quite yet. It’s a time of disillusionment but also of victory. Some will be healed and others will be buried and we don’t get to pick. We’d rather for healing to happen all the time or not at all. It’s too painful to have a bit of both and yet there will be seasons of great power and seasons of nothing. Through it all, we’re called to persevere as servants of God, doing what He’s called us to do—heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprousy and drive out demons (Matthew 10).

I Have an Idea How

The speaker said that we should be doing this prophesying/encouragement (see previous post) every day. Our Father is always at work and all we have to do is join him. And here I had my insight regarding my husband, marriage and how to solve the problem described in the post “Alas! I don’t Know How to Get There.”

I had been grieving over the state of my marriage—not only does the brokenness of my marriage harm my husband, myself and our kids, I had begin to realize that week that it harms those who walk through our door and it harms those who we might have brought through our doors but can’t or won’t because this isn’t a healthy place to be. We are harming the advancement of the Gospel. But how can we change that? How do we break down the barriers? The wife of the seminar speaker (on the persecuted church) told me to pray that we would be united in Christ and promised to pray for this herself. But how in the world could this happen? How could we become united? It seemed impossible.

But what if I began to do what the speaker for the conference on living supernaturally was saying and what, in fact, I have done for others? What if I began to speak words of encouragement and life into my husband? What if tried to see in my husband what God sees. What He sees is a great invitation. What if I stopped looking for what isn’t there—what’s lacking, what’s wrong—but rather look for the plans God has for him and what He wants to call forward, to get outside myself, look at my husband and ask, “Lord, what do you see that you love and how can I say that so my husband will know its from you?” What if I started doing this on a daily basis?

I’m thinking that it just might begin to change everything. Do you see what’s happened? I saw what’s possible. I’ve known of God’s promise to heal my marriage but I haven’t seen HOW this could happen. Now I do. It’s kind of scary to contemplate and I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to do this but as the speaker pointed out, we often don’t know what God wants to say through us to someone until we open our mouths in obedience and start talking so I’m going to step out in risk (faith = risk) and begin to be obedient in this. I’m really quite excited!

Mail Deliverers for God

The next session I attended was about prophecy or, to put it another way, speaking into people’s lives. I don’t know about you, but I’ve often been wakened in the night with an urgency to pray for someone. Sometimes I’ve been lead to pray for someone for days or weeks. One such time was many years ago. Back in junior high school, there was a girl with whom I was alternately best friends with and worst enemies. We were probably enemies more often than friends but I think I also spent more sleep-overs in her home than in anyone else’s—I wasn’t a very popular kid. Our animosity grew so great that, in frustration, the principal gave us each the strap and, in her parents’ frustration, they withdrew her from the school. Sad legacy I have, eh?

More than 25 years after any contact with this family, this girl’s mother came to mind and wouldn’t leave me. I prayed for her daily, with urgent passion, for over a month and then the urgency passed and I stopped. I had felt pressured to phone her at that time but I didn’t have the courage. “How ridiculous!” I thought, though I did pray. A year later I saw her at a funeral and went to talk to her. I had to find out what had happened a year before. Turns out she had been so sick she nearly died. Wow!

There have been other times when God’s shown me a need I could not have known about any other way, I prayed and He answered. It’s been really cool.

This is the sort of thing that was discussed at the conference--about giving a word to others. God’s thoughts are for us and His thoughts for us are thoughts of love. The speaker compared the gifts of the Holy Spirit as a toolbox. We can reach into that toolbox and pull out the tool we need for the moment as the Holy Spirit urges. It takes risk to use one of these tools. It is risky to pray for someone’s leg to become longer (an example and story given the first night) or to speak into a person’s life and give them words from God. But when the leg is lengthened before our very eyes, when the words we speak to someone turns out to be exactly what they needed to hear, our faith is reinforced. “I got lucky!” we might declare. But then it happens again and again and our faith grows and as we reach into the toolbox, we might choose more selectively, choosing the tool with which we’ve become familiar.

But of all the gifts from the Holy Spirit, is there one that will help unpack the others? In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul said to eagerly desire all the gifts but especially the gift of prophecy. I always thought prophecy was foretelling the future but apparently not. Basically, a prophet is a mail deliverer from God. It is used to encourage, comfort and strengthen others. Often we don’t even know when we’re prophesying. He compared it to pulling on a little thread. You don’t know if it’s short or if it’s the beginning of the whole sweater.

God has placed each of us sovereignly where we can touch the most lives. Try to see in the people around you what God sees. What He sees is a great invitation. Don’t look for what isn’t there. God has plans for them (Jeremiah 29) and that’s what he wants to call forward. We need to get outside ourselves, look at others and ask, “Lord, what do you see that you love and how can I say that so this person will know its from you?”

And so we got to practice this. He gave a certain criterion of people he wanted to stand (I can’t remember what it was). He had three assistants who are experienced in speaking God’s word over people and so he asked each of them to pick one person from those standing as someone they felt called to speak over. The three came to the front and the others sat down. He selected one of the three and asked all of us to look at her. Was God saying or showing anything to us for or about that person? Those who put up their hands were asked to form a line down an aisle and one by one we were asked to give that word or picture (no more than a sentence or two, please) to the woman. Afterwards, she was asked how the words she received fit—and much of it did!

Those who had stood up before and then told to sit down were now asked to stand again and find a place in the room to stand so others could come to speak over them. As they stood, we in the audience were to look at them and choose one we thought God might want us to speak to. As I moved towards the one I had chosen, I saw another, kind of in the way, who had no one gathered around while the one I had chosen had several so, after checking with the Holy Spirit, I decided to stick with him—a complete stranger. Three others joined me.

It was amazing! There were so many things God showed me that I was able to speak. After I had done so, he opened up and began to share a few things—one being an anger he wished he didn’t have. He held his abdomen as though the anger was lodged in there and refused to budge and so I put my hand on his and called the anger out. I’ve never done anything like this before. He started heaving. You could actually see the anger leaving. Afterwards, he said it was like God did the Heimlich Maneouvre on him. After lunch, the speaker asked if any of those who had been prayed for would like to share what happened and the man I (and three others) had prayed for went forward. He said it was as if we had “read his mail” and then he talked about what God had done for him. Wow! What a confirmation!

"You Didn’t Tell Me it was THIS Good!"

The seminar on the Suffering Church ended at 5:00 p.m. on a Thursday. Two hours later I was in a different location with different people for a different conference. It was hard to switch gears from the seminar to the conference, from one topic to another, from a small intimate group to a large crowd and I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay. In fact, because of tremendous tiredness, I missed the second night’s session.

The speaker told the story of a man who, as a ten-year-old, was made a sex slave and drug runner by a biker gang. When the boy was 16, he finally told someone—his uncle—but when that uncle turns up dead shortly thereafter, the boy knew he had to run. He got married and lived life, somehow completely forgetting/blocking those six years of his youth until one day he heard a voice from those years and it all came back to him. He wound up in the psychiatric ward and several days after his release, he called the speaker to pray for him.

The speaker didn’t want to pray for him. He didn’t know how to pray for him and yet the man was persistent and so the speaker went. Amazingly, the man fell to his knees and then flat out on his face. His body began to bounce up and down and the speaker looked at this, wondering what in the world was going on and how in the world a body could even manage to bounce like that. The bouncing didn’t stop and so finally the speaker left.

The next day he got a call from the man. “You didn’t tell me it was THIS good,” he said.

How did Jesus demonstrate the Good News? By going to people and delivering them from spiritual bondage. Have you ever thought of this? Every person healed means a family restored. It is God’s invitation, expectation and plan that the Good News will go through His followers each day, every day for the rest of their lives. Anyone can receive this Good News and anyone can give it away.

But how? How do we do this? We start now—just the way we are. In John 5:17, Jesus said, “My Father never stops working, so why should I?” (NLT) The kingdom of God is always expanding—with or without us. Jesus said, “I do what He’s doing.” Basically, Jesus wandered around the day, looking for what His Dad was doing and then joined in.

The speaker told the story of how he witnessed and then participated in his first healing. It was scary stuff. He and his friends were praying for a woman’s leg to grow two inches. What if it didn’t work? But it did! All he had to do was be willing to stretch out his short little arm.

How willing am I to do this?

How to Pray in the Face of Evil and Pain

There are five responses in the face of evil:

1. God, save us!
2. God, judge them!
3. God, forgive them!
4. God forgive us as we forgive others!
5. God, glorify Yourself.

All five are biblical.

How do you respond to the suffering and evil that comes to your life?

Alas! I Don’t Know How to Get There

I love the model of living and witnessing discussed in a previous post. We don’t have to be missionaries in a foreign land to do this. All we need to do is learn how to be a family that worships, prays and celebrates God together and who extends hospitality to those they know—from the kingdom or from without.

Alas! I can’t do this. My marriage is so broken that my husband and I can’t even eat together. Oh, we do at times but I’ve noticed that I avoid it as much as I can. I don’t want to eat with him. Eating is a time of sharing and I can’t share. I don’t trust him with my heart. And if we’re unable to eat together in harmony, how in the WORLD can we worship together? We can’t. There are too many barriers. And with this kind of tension in our home, how can we invite others to join us? Join us in what? We certainly wouldn’t be able to invite them to share in the joy we have because, as a couple, we have none. You can sense the climate of a home when you enter it and it would be no witness to others to bring them to a place of tension.

This was a matter of great grief to me—a grief that continued through the seminar as I saw more and more how practical, useful and incredibly full of blessing this model of witnessing can be. My witness is not as effective when my home and marriage are broken. Please hear me on this. I’m not saying I can’t witness because I do. I’m not saying that witnessing can’t be effective outside the walls of a healthy home because of course it can be but I’m beginning to see how much MORE effective a healthy family can be the milieu in which witnessing occurs and I don’t have that.

I would find a clue that weekend at a different conference.

Church is Community

Persecutors don’t really care about the mode of church or about theology. All they care about is that the person was once one of them and now is one of us and baptism seems to be the dividing line for them.

The speaker at the seminar said, “Every Baptism in the New Testament took place within and was witnessed by the local believing community.” Baptism means, “I belong. I’m part of the community.”

Church is the place that, when I don’t go, they come looking for me because they have angst over my absence.

An interesting thing about church is that it will look just like the person who’s planting it. This is a note of caution and warning to sending agencies. If you send dysfunctional missionaries to plant churches, they will plant dysfunctional churches. And the more a church is defined by buildings, property and denomination, the easier it is for the persecutors to control faith. This is what happened in the Soviet Union. Survival mode and evangelism are seldom partners.

If church is community and if community is needed for faith to grow and be maintained, what about those thrown in jail? Often Christians are jailed together. If not, they evangelize as quickly as possible in jail to create community. The worst situation is isolation. It kills. In isolation, persecutors can drive a person crazy so when you’re praying for the persecuted church, pray for those in prison that they’ll have fellowship.

Interestingly, two weeks after the seminar, I read a story about when Richard Wurmbrand was thrown into isolation. Did that keep him disconnected? No! He discovered that when he tapped the wall, someone tapped back. So he tried it on the other wall and it worked too. He taught both sides Morse Code and then, using Morse Code, was able to develop relationship and bring his neighbours to Christ. Apparently, his neighbours passed on the means of communication and developed further community. Richard was no longer alone.

Are you part of a Christian community that notices when you’re absent? If not, why not? How are you “doing church” in your life?

Building the Church as Families

On the mission field, and especially in mission fields in areas of persecution, there are two things of importance the seminar speaker has discovered. They are both connected to family.

First of all, in persecuted countries, association by the locals with the outsider, the Westerner, is enough to get them jailed or killed. They don’t have to be a Christian for this to happen. They are guilty by association. As a result, the Westerner, the missionary, has to be very careful how he handles this matter of associating with the locals and it is highly recommended (there was tons of teaching leading up to this, explaining it and giving it logic and sense) that missionaries do NOT join local churches—even those (especially those) they’ve helped create. Instead, they need to find other ways to provide their needs for worship and fellowship with Christians. They can worship with other expatriates, they can create church with their team and/or they can worship together as a family—mom, dad and kids. The ability to come before the throne of God as a family is vital but many missionaries going overseas don’t have a clue how to do this because they never did it at home.

Secondly, the old missionary style is that the wife stays home with the kids, homeschooling them, running the home, etc., and the husband is the one who goes out and works with the local people. However, in many countries and cultures, and especially in those where persecution is rife, men don’t have access to the women of the local culture and so only men come to Christ. But Christianity is a religion where community is vital and, the speaker argued, you don’t have real community when only one gender is present. You need men and women (and children and varying ages, etc.).

So how does one “fix” this problem? The missionary family does a paradigm shift and, through hospitality in their home, inviting whole families over for a meal or whatever, they relate together as families. In cultures where the wife and kids are kept separate from the husband, where the women are less than nothing, the local family visiting the missionary family begins to see Christianity working out in family and community. They see how a Christian man treats his wife, how a wife is honoured, what healthy interaction is like between husband and wife, parents and children and it draws them into community.

In this style of witnessing, the missionary’s home because almost an open house. People come for dinner and stay to talk—often about spiritual matters. People come when it’s time to put the kids to bed and Dad says, “I’m going to have to help my wife put the kids to bed.” The visitors are shocked because they’ve never heard of such a thing and are even more shocked when they learn the bedtime “ritual” is a time of family worship—coming before the throne of God to worship, share His stories and pray. The visitor watches all this and, simply through the regular rhythm of the missionaries’ lives, is witnessed to.

I know a family in my city that lives like this. It’s simply the way they function as a natural course of events. They’ve developed a ministry to international students who stay a few days with them or who are invited to come have a meal and the family simply carries on its life of prayer and worship with the guests present.

Interestingly, I read the following on an anti-Christian, pro-gay site that focuses on “recovery from Bible abuse”:

Informal home small group study and dialogue may be the most viable replacement for contemporary church type religion, which is based primarily in medieval points of view and methods. Small group home study allows individuals to be open and accepting of each other and themselves and to be non-judgmental and willing to share and learn from each other.

Perhaps we have failed large segments of our North American population by the way we do church.

What is Church? Part Two

Most definitions of church leave out the following:

1. It chooses its own leader and governs itself. This won’t happen when missionaries stay instead of leaving. It’s also something that doesn’t happen much in the West. Instead, strangers come from Bible colleges and other churches, appointed by denominational leaders.

2. It cares for its members and supports and finances itself. Persecutors want churches to be dependent on outside funds because they can stop them at a moment’s notice. Missionaries must not keep churches dependent on themselves. This is something that churches in North America need to consider as well. I know of churches who apply for government grants. When the time comes that we don’t have a Christian-friendly government, if we’re dependent on these funds, we could be faced with some hard choices.

3. It reproduces itself into new communities.

4. It’s defined by community and not by doctrine. In North America, we’re really caught up in doctrinal battles. What is community? The speaker proposed that community involves family—-not just men or just women but families meeting together. This is church and is a revolutionary concept in Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist cultures.

What is Church? Part One

In the past, the typical way of missionaries was to come into a country, begin to witness to people and as they turned to Christ, the missionaries would create church for them. They’d build a building, they’d be the pastors, they hired workers, etc. and all would be great until the missionaries went home on furlough. Then the church would cease to meet. Why? Did they really have church while the missionary was there? What is church?

The definition of church is controversial but if you don’t know what it is, how do you know when you have one? We tend to think of church as including a building but for persecuted Christians, this can be problematic.

Compare persecution under Communism in the Soviet Union with that in China. Through the entire course of the Soviet Union, there was no growth in number of Christians or churches whereas in China, when Communism and persecution arrived, the number of Christians exploded and continues to do so. Why?

In the Soviet Union, churches, their buildings and pastors were initially allowed to continue but they had a government “handler”. At the beginning, the handlers told the pastors to give a report each week. Pastors saw no problem with this so they complied. Six years later, the handlers told the pastors that they had to check with them first before deciding who could sing or preach on Sunday. The pastors complied. Six years after that, the handlers said, “Don’t you dare have anyone sing or preach outside the church.” The pastors complied. Piece by piece, inch by inch, the Church was swallowed. They had buildings and denominations they were trying to protect and so their focus was there and on preserving themselves, rather than on evangelism.

In China, persecution arrived in one fell-swoop and so the Chinese Christians weren’t tricked into thinking that the government might be on their side. Right from the start they had to find ways to deal with persecution. Rather than being led by clergy, the churches were led by lay people; the churches were secret—they had no buildings to hold on to and in fact, whenever they reached 30, the congregation split in two; they had no denominations but were purely Chinese and they focused on evangelism rather than on themselves.

Muslims Dreaming about Jesus

What does God do when He wants to reach people who have no access to the Good News of Christ? He sends them dreams. Hundreds, maybe hundreds of thousands, of Muslims are encountering Jesus or something that points them to Jesus in their dreams—such as the 17-year-old girl in one of the stories of the previous post. Muslims put great stock in dreams and so it’s a natural medium for God to use. Often, once they’ve had such a dream, they never return to the mosque.

Once such man was having a hard time. He was always sick. His family was sick. They were poor, their animals weren’t reproducing and everything was going bad for them. He went to the sheikh of the mosque and asked what to do. The sheikh told him to fast and pray for three days and at the end of the three days he’d be told what to do. So he did.

At the end of the three days he had a vision. In the vision, he was told to seek Jesus. He didn’t have a clue what a Jesus was—a food, a tree, a person. But he was told how to find out about Jesus. He was to walk to a certain city that was seven hours away. The first two people he saw when he came to the city, he was to ask where a certain street was. When he got to that street, he was to find a particular building with a certain sign on the door. He was to ask the person who opened the door about Jesus.

He followed the instructions, not even telling his wife what he was doing. When he arrived at the door and asked his question, he was pulled inside the house quickly. He had no idea that asking about Jesus in a loud voice was dangerous. Who had he connected with? One of only three Christians in a country of a quarter million Muslims. Now, is that God or what?

He went home after staying a week, studying with this man, and everything changed for him. He and his family became healthy, their animals started reproducing and everything that had gone bad for them started going well. Their neighbours wanted to know why and in his answer, he led three families to Christ and they began to worship together.

Stories of Victorious Christians

Some of these stories I wanted to use as examples in the previous post but they would have made the post too long.

They Know How to Pray

The speaker at the seminar I attended travels the world interviewing persecuted Christians. The interviews each take three hours and he tries to pack as many into a day as possible. When he goes to a country to interview (and he’ll interview many there), he’s busy. While he was in one such South-East Asian country, he received an e-mail from a German doctor in another persecuted country further west. “Please! I need you to come here NOW!” He wrote to say he couldn’t come; he had solid interviews for many, many days. He did some interviewing in the back country where he was and when he returned to the city, he found two things—a chunk of interviews had been cancelled and another e-mail from the German doctor saying, “You must come now!” He wrote to say he couldn’t come; he had no time. But then another chunk of interviews got cancelled because a pack of pastors had been arrested and he received a third e-mail from the German doctor, urging him to come.

He left the first country and traveled to where the German was, a country which was bristling with danger—not just for Christians but for everyone. He got off the plane and was met by the German doctor who had with him three men who looked rather dangerous themselves. “Who are these men,” he asked. The doctor replied, “Don’t you know? They’ve been asking for you.” Then the doctor walked away, leaving him alone with the strange, dangerous-looking men who begin to tell him why he had come to their country.

Several weeks or months before, these men prayed, “We don’t know how to be Christians in this environment. Please help us!” One morning they pray this and God told them, “Go to the airport. The man who can answer your question is coming today.” Can you imagine being the answer to such a prayer? Can you imagine praying like that?

They Know How to Listen

Another time, the speaker was being driven to the airport in one country after he had finished some interviews there. Something happened along the way and they couldn’t get to the airport so they stopped, unexpectedly, at someone’s apartment. The person whose home they had stopped at had the table set for breakfast for four. The Holy Spirit had told him he would have three guests that morning. Can you imagine having such a connection with God?

They Know their Bible

Back in the days of the Soviet Union, there were hundreds of little house churches consisting of three or four families and most didn’t know that the others existed. Three pastors decided to gather up the teens from these various churches and bring them to Moscow so they could see each other and be strengthened in faith. The pastors were arrested and imprisoned for three years for doing this but said they’d do it again.

While the kids were together, they were challenged to gather their corporate knowledge together. They were able to collectively amass 1600 songs and all the gospels from memory with only 6 mistakes.

They’ve Claimed Their Freedom

One the imprisoned Christian had to be guarded 24 hours a day for reasons I can’t remember. The guards were not allowed to leave him. There was a problem, however. The man loved to sing songs about Jesus and the guards kept being converted. One pair of guards finally told him they didn’t want him to sing anymore because they were afraid of being converted. They had a solution. They would take him up to the rooftop every day. They would stand in one corner and he could stand in the other corner and sing in such a way that the wind would carry his voice away from the guards.

They’ve Lost Their Fear

A 17-year-old Muslim girl had a vision in which she saw a Bible. The Bible said to her, “Find me! Find Jesus!” She hunted and hunted until she found one under her brother’s bed. She read it every chance she got. One night, falling asleep with the Bible on her chest, she had another dream in which a light came to her and she accepted Jesus. Fifteen minutes later she went to tell her Muslim dad that she’s a Christian and that Mohammed was demon-possessed. As you can imagine, her father was rather irate. He beat her and broke her nose.

They Know Their Songs of Faith

Here in North America, a family was heartbroken because the dad, deteriorating with Alzheimer’s, didn’t know them. The son especially, wracked his brain wondering how he could connect with his dad. As he sat in the room, puzzling this out, he began, not even knowing what he was doing, to sing quietly one of the songs he had learned on his father’s knee. To his amazement, his father began to join in. When he was done, he tried another song and his father remembered that too. He rushed to the phone and called the man’s family back to the nursing home where they all gathered around the old man for several hours, joining him in singing songs of faith from when the man was young. The man still didn’t remember them but what a wonderful time of communion they had with him! We don’t forget the songs we sing.

Victorious Faith

What enables a Christian to have the kind of victorious faith that 17-year prisoner of Soviet Union had? How can we live so victoriously? The speaker at the seminar gave several common denominators of such Christians.

1. They know Jesus. He said he could tell in 15 minutes whether the person he was interviewing truly knew Jesus or not.

2. They know how to pray and fast. The speaker told many stories of prayer among the persecuted. In some countries, the safest way to interview someone is to act the tourist and walk the city streets with the one being interviewed as they talk. Several times he would be walking along with such a person and the other would be talking and he’d turn to them and ask, “What did you say?” “Oh, I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to God.” Victorious Christians are never out of touch with God.

3. Large portions of the Bible can be recreated by memory. Far too many of us haven’t even read it cover to cover once but what do we do when someone wants to know what we believe and why? Even if we have our Bible nearby and reach for it, it takes time to find what we’re looking for. I know. I’ve been there. We need to become so familiar with God’s Word that we can share what’s in it even when we don’t have it with us. We need this for our own encouragement as well as for sharing with others.

4. Large amounts of indigenous Christian music has been committed to memory. In North America, churches squabble over what kind of music to use, not realizing that every generation needs and deserves its own heart music. This is serious. If you take away a generation’s music, you strip them.

In his interviews, the speaker asks, “What’s your verse? What’s your song? What bubbles up when things are hard?” How would you answer those questions?

5. The persecuted know they are prayed for. In a gathering of 150 pastors in China, the speaker was asked, “Has Jesus come to any other countries?” And so he told them about all the rest of us. They asked if others are persecuted like them and so he told them about the two most restricted countries in the world. They were completely silent and he didn’t know why.

The next morning, 150 pastors were shrieking at his door. When he stepped out, he found them on their faces. “What are they saying?” he asked his interpreter. “Just listen,” he was told. As he walked among them, he heard the names of the two persecuted countries he had talked about. They were so moved for places where the persecution was worse than they knew that they, as a group, had determined to get up an hour early every day to pray for these two countries. A year later he asked the Christians in one of these countries what had happened the year before. They said, “You wouldn’t believe it! We’ve had a complete outbreak of the gospel!” They are so grateful to China for praying for them.

6. The Local Believing Community cares for their families. One woman, whose husband was in prison, had food thrust upon her so much in the marketplace that she sewed a large cape with huge pockets on the inside. People would surreptitiously give her food as she walked through the market place and she’d hide it away. When the coat was full, she’d go home until in need again. Another woman found what she needed on her doorstep—food, bicycle, whatever.

7. Victorious Christians know that their suffering is for Jesus’ sake. One sending agency, when two of their young women missionaries were thrown in jail, wanted to send a press release apologizing for the witnessing the girls had done. The speaker, brought in to give advice, told them to rip it up. The girls were being accused of loving Jesus and helping the poor. When this is true, say, “I’m guilty!” When those we love are sent to jail or worse, tell them “I’m so proud of you! You’re here for Jesus’ sake!”

8. Victorious Christians know their persecution is normal. The number one cause of people being persecuted is people coming to Jesus. The number one result of people being persecuted is people coming to Jesus.

9. Victorious Christians have claimed their freedom. In the West, our laws say we have the right to be happy and laws are put in place to help govern this, telling us what we can’t do. In the 10-40 window, the laws tell a person what they can do. If there’s no law, they can’t do it. So in some persecuted countries, the Christians there are waiting for the government to give them permission to gather as churches or to evangelize, etc.

What gives us our freedom? Israel had just spent 400 years as slaves in Egypt. A slave has no rights and no freedoms. She works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. She has no days off and no choices. When they reached Mount Sinai and heard Moses read the Ten Commandments for the first time, when he got to the one that reads, “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy,” they would have heard, “My people are free!” and they would have cried because only free people can take a day off. Our freedom comes from God, not from governments or any other source.

10. Victorious Christians have lost their fear. The Chinese church knows their possessions belong to Jesus. Whatever the government threatens to take away, they cry, “Take! Then I’ll be free to….”

Fear of persecution is more debilitating that persecution itself. Fear makes us irrational. We have the freedom to choose joy and Satan can’t take that away from us. This is a truth I need to spend much time pondering for myself. Ask someone, “What are you afraid of?” When they tell you, ask, “Who’s had that happen to them in the last 20 years?” No one. “So then, why are you afraid?

Who or what are YOU afraid of when it comes to living your faith?

11. Victorious Christians have a genealogy of faith. There was much persecution in the Ukraine during the time of the Soviet Union. The speaker asked one man, “Where did you learn to live and die like this?” “In my father’s lap.”

When the man was a boy, his father sat him on his lap with the family gathered around and said, “Tomorrow I will be arrested. Everyone in this area who refuses to deny their faith will be hanged. So, when I hear in prison that my wife and children were hanged, I’ll be the happiest man because I’ll know you kept the faith.”

Time after time the speaker has asked, “Where did you learn victorious living?” and he’s been told, “From my father, my mother, grandmother, uncle, aunt.” But Christians coming out of Islam don’t have this, nor do other new believers, so what can we do? We can create for them a genealogy of faith—showing them the history of faith from the Bible and since and also being an example and standing in the gap for those who don’t have their own genealogy of faith.

What if you are a new believer and you don’t have family to model for you? You can begin to create your own by finding godly men and women who can be examples of faith for you. You can also begin finding and reading the stories of victorious Christians who have held on to their faith despite all odds. You will be encouraged.

SHUT UP!

What is the goal of persecution? Is it to jail, torture and kill Christians? No! The goal is simply to get them to be quiet. If they can do that, they’re happy. It’s only when Christians won’t comply that more pressure is brought to bear. It’s hard to hide a death. It’s real easy to hide, “Don’t talk about that!”

If we don’t speak about Christ, if we don’t speak about what God has done in our lives, we’ve given in to persecution and given victory to the enemy. We think of persecution happening only overseas in closed countries but it happens here and often those who are the worst persecutors are those within the church. I think of the times I’ve been told that I’m not allowed to tell my story or chastised when I did.

In what ways do you feel silenced—either overtly or covertly? What would happen if you began to share Christ the way you believe you should? Would you lose your job? Your popularity? Your prestige in the community? Is Jesus worth it?

In China, when warned to keep quiet or their land and home will be taken from them, they say, “Take it! It’s not mine anyway. It’s God’s.” When the ante is upped and they’re told to keep quiet or their children will be taken from them they say, “Take them! They’re not mine anyway. They belong to God.” When their lives are in danger if they don’t keep quiet they say, “Take my life. It isn’t mine but God’s.” Is Jesus worth it?

During the time of the Soviet Union, there weren’t many churches and often these churches were a three-day walk from home, one way. Many Christians couldn’t afford the time to go more than a couple times a year. One family solved this problem by having church in their home. They didn’t call it church and wouldn’t have considered it church because they simply sat together as a family, singing songs of praise to God, praying and sharing stories from the Bible. A couple neighbouring families saw what they were doing and asked if they could join them.

When the group grew to 25, the father of this family was threatened. When they grew to 50, the man lost his job and the kids were kicked out of school. They continued and people brought them food and helped teach the kids trades. When it grew to 75 (they were still meeting in a very small house), the government showed up, slapped the man back and forth and told him to stop. An old grandma confronted the police who had done this, telling the man he’d mishandled the man of God and would die as a result. He dropped dead several days later. Fear of God swept the community and the next week 150 showed up.

The man was sent 1000 miles to a prison full of 1500 hardened criminals where he stayed for the next 17 years. The prison was the sort where there were no walls, only bars and so you could see the entire place in a glance. There was no privacy, the lights were always on, it was always noisy and always damp.

His first morning there he did as he always did. He stood by his bed, faced east (apparently this is a common thing amongst Christians in certain areas), stretched out his arms to the side and began to sing his heart song to Jesus. The 1500 criminals jeered, laughed and threw food at him. But he continued every morning for years. The officials couldn’t break him, though they tried. Every time he was taken out of his cell, he made a practice of watching for bits of paper and anything with which to write. He’d pick them up, hide them in his clothes and take them back to his cell where he’d write out Bible verses and stories as an offering to Jesus and attach them to the pillars that formed the corners of his cell. This really angered his jailers who would rip them off and beat him. He continued.

One day, they travelled the 1000 miles to his home, broke in, took some of his wife’s clothing that he would recognize, found a prisoner with a similar appearance to his wife and dressed the woman in the wife’s clothes. Then they made sure the man saw the woman without seeing her face. The woman was taken and tortured for three days within earshot of the man and then killed. For him, this was the last straw. He was sure it was his wife and was in utter despair of soul. He told the guards to bring him the necessary papers. He would sign whatever they wanted. In glee they told him they’d bring them in the morning.

That night, back home, sensing the man’s despair, various family members gathered together in his home and began to pray for him. In his prison cell, 1000 miles away, aided by the Holy Spirit wafting the sounds of their voices to him, the man heard these voices, including those of his wife and children. He knew now that his wife was alive and when the guards brought the papers in the morning, he refused to sign them.

Later that week, he thought Christmas had come. He found an whole piece of paper and a pencil lying beside it. He wrote all over it and put it up on his pillar. When the jailers saw this, they went berserk and decided to kill him. As they reached his cell door, dragging him with them, all 1500 criminals stood by their beds, faced the east, raised their arms and sang his heart song. The jailers dropped the man in astonishment and asked him, “Who are you?” “I am the son of the Living God whose name is Jesus.”

Ask this man, “Was Jesus worth it?” and he’ll say, “YES!”

What are you willing to risk in order to not only be faithful but to speak out and share your faith with others? Is Jesus worth it?

Surprising Statistics

You’ve probably heard them before, things like “There have been more Christian martyrs in this century than in all the centuries before, combined.” Or “150,000 Christians are being martyred every year. Where do these statistics come from and are they true?

I was at a seminar recently, led by a missionary commissioned to interview persecuted Christians around the world to find the answer to the question, “How does one plant churches in areas where Christians are (or would be if there were any) persecuted?” In the quest for the answer, he has interviewed 600 persecuted Christians in 60 countries. He’s been in the countries where persecution is worst and hasn’t found anything to substantiate the statistics bandied about so how have these numbers been determined? We need to look at definitions.

First of all, what is a Christian? Some definitions are:

1. Anyone who calls herself a Christian—they don’t necessarily know anything about Jesus, and have never been to church. This might be 80% of North America (don’t quote me on that percentage).

2. Someone who describes herself as Catholic, Orthodox, Baptist but still doesn’t know much about Jesus and probably hasn’t ever been to church.

3. One who has actually been to church and participated in some function such as a baptism, communion, etc.

4. One who is “born again” and for whom faith determines how they live their life. This might be only 4% of North America (again, don’t quote me on the number).

5. A “crypto” or secret believer who hasn’t yet declared his faith within a church.

Secondly, what is a Christian martyr? Is it any Christian who is killed? What definition of Christian are you using? Is a person a martyr because of who he works for? Many people are killed simply because they work for a Westerner. The speaker lived in a country where a hit list of 150 Christians was created. The problem was that some of the men on that list were committed Muslims who prayed 5 times a day and went to the mosque as often as required. Their crime? They were security guards for a western Christian. If they were killed, were they martyrs?

If someone hands an illiterate person a Bible and, because it was a gift, that person carries it around with him and, because he carries it with him he’s killed, is he a martyr even though he hasn’t a clue what’s in the book he carries?

In many countries, the Christians in that country belong to a particular ethnic group (majority or minority—doesn’t matter). Perhaps they hold the power in that country or they live in an area rich in some natural resource and the other ethnic group(s) is jealous and begins to kill the Christians. Ask one of the persecuted in some of these countries, “What would change if you weren’t Christian?” and they’ll tell you, “Nothing.” Are they killed because they are Christians or is there another reason such as trying to gain the power and wealth the Christians hold? Amazingly, time after time, when the speaker has gone to such Christian people groups and asked them about sharing the gospel with the other ethnic groups in their country, especially the persecuting group, they unanimously have asked, “Why would we?” Are they martyrs for their faith or victims of some other cruel purpose?

In one Muslim country, a Christian man was violently murdered. The news services and Christian watchdogs proclaimed the man a martyr. When more of his story was uncovered, it was learned that he had been embezzling funds and sleeping with a Muslim woman who wasn’t his wife. Was he a martyr?

In another Muslim country, an entire Christian family were slaughtered in their homes, their necks cut open. Again, the news services, Christian watchdogs and Christian nations around the world reported, condemned and lobbied against the government in this country because of what appeared to be the act of Muslim extremists. But no one in that country had ever been martyred that way so why now? The speaker of the seminar was sent in to investigate and after much digging, learned that the son of this family had been sent to another country for some purpose. When he returned, he learned that his sisters had been prostituted out by his father. He killed his family. Surely this was not martyrdom.

Disagreement about definitions can change the statistics. If we define Christians by the last two definitions above, and if we consider as martyrs only those who are killed because of the testimony of their words and lives—those who, if given a choice, would choose violence and death rather than relinquish Christ, we find the numbers decrease radically. Violent death at the hands of angry murderers is never right but it doesn’t necessarily make a martyr.

What kind of Christian are you? If someone wanted you dead, would it be because of your testimony and witness of Christ or would it be for some other reason?

The Greatest of These is Love

Today is Valentine’s Day—a day of love; a day of romantic love. The biggest romancer of all time is God. If you take the time to read the Bible from cover to cover, you find a God passionately in love with His people, giving them gifts and wooing them when they turn away. He compares His relationship with His people to a love affair. His most valuable Valentine to us is His Son, Jesus.

As followers of Jesus, we are to pass on the love God has given us—to our fellow Christians, to our neighbours, to the poor, to the disenfranchised, to the ugly, even to our enemies. Sadly, we seem to pick and choose who we will love. Consider this statement by Rembert Truluck:

“At a recent home spiritual growth group, the question was asked, "How is Christianity different from all other world religions?" My answer was that Christianity is the only world religion that does not do what it claims to do. All other religions basically do what they claim to do, whether it is honoring ancestors, respecting nature, accepting all religions, or learning the teachings of a great teacher like the Buddha. Christianity claims to follow Jesus in giving and demonstrating God's unconditional love for all people. Christianity, however, does not carry out that claim and denies it in countless churches, councils, denominations, radio and television preachers, and a steady flow of books, magazines, and web sites.”

What a sad indictment! Is it true? One blogger tells the story of a Christian school that received an application for a kindergarten student. When the principal realized that the child is being raised by a gay couple he told the child’s parents, “his [the child’s] home life is an abomination against God and that if [the child] was to attend DCA, he would be taught that he comes from a sinful family and subject to the ultimate punishment from God.” The blogger asks, “Whatever happened to ‘let the little children come to me?’” What indeed?

In another blog entry the same blogger writes,

“When a friend of mine at a ultra-conservative college in Southern California was discovered to be gay (they read his email), they hauled him on stage in chapel and demanded he admit it, apologize and repent. (He opted for instant, public expulsion.)

“When my Beau came out to his parents, they paraded the fact in front of every family member; forcing him out of the closet with a hot firebrand rather than letting him tell his story appropriately and timely. It set off a three week marathon of every family member coming over to tell him how selfish and wrong and cruel he was being and that he was going to hell.”

Where is the love that’s supposed to be the hallmark of Christianity? Why is it that by some people, Christianity is seen as a religion of hate, anger and judgment? Why is it that some who call themselves Christian see persecution of a certain group of people justifiable and righteous? May God forgive us!

If a gay couple came into your church and openly held hands through the service, how would YOU respond? How would the rest of the congregation? The church elders? The pastor? Would they be welcome or would you expect them to be “cleaned up” before they walked through your doors? Do you expect the same of other sinners?

There are three things that will endure – faith, hope, and love – and the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13

An Improbable Bible Study

Once my church took on new leadership and the congregation had completely changed except for one family and two others of us, it was decided we should begin small groups. My small group has been poorly attended and lacked direction or function. Finally, a few weeks ago, our very young hostess took the bull by the horns, took over and led us in a very good Bible study. Up until then, we'd just kind of sat around and talked. Just sitting around socializing was dissatisfying but the Bible study was awesome.

And then, on a Friday, she asked me if I would lead a Bible study the following Monday. I wasn't sure if I could have something prepared in time but she would be out of town and if I didn't lead it, those of us who went would wind up just hanging out--again. I decided to give it some serious thought.

I would have liked to have done something along the lines of the last study we had, to stay in a theme of sorts but when it came right down to it, I didn't have time. However, there WAS the study on gluttony I had done for myself the previous week. I had everything (Bible verses, word definitions, etc.) typed up and ready. All I had to do was review it and make sure I knew how I would present it but how would a topic like that be received? I wasn't sure. Still, it was all I had so that's what I went with.

So who showed up besides me? Two skinny 20-something guys. And this 50-year-old, much-too-large woman is going to lead them on a study about gluttony? Get serious! And yet an amazing thing happened. For one thing, as I introduced the whole idea of using bible.crosswalk.com to search and find the meanings for the Hebrew and Greek words used in the Bible, they were intrigued.

In the King James Version, the only words close to gluttony are glutton, the Hebrew word for which appears 8 times in the Old Testament, and gluttonous, which appears twice in the New. The word that's translated "gluttony" in Hebrew, salal, actually has nothing to do with food and in fact, is used twice in Isaiah to describe the action of mountains. Basically, it means worthless, insignificant, vile, to make light of, squander or be lavish with. I've shortened it in my mind to mean "lavish squanderers in worthless pursuits".

In Deuteronomy 21:20, parents could bring their son to the elders of the city to have him stoned to death because he was stubborn, rebellious, disobedient, a drunkard and a worthless and lavish squanderer.

In Proverbs 23:20,21, we are warned to avoid drunkards and lavish squanderers because such people will become poor and sleepy.

Proverbs 28:7 warns us that the companion of lavish squanderers disgraces his father.

If one keeps with that same translation of meaning, in Isaiah 64:1-3, God is addressed. If only God would come down, the mountains would lavishly squander themselves before Him. In fact, when God has come down in the past, that's exactly what the mountains did.

Jeremiah 15:19, God is telling Jeremiah that He wants him to be His mouth, but only if he utters words of worth instead of lavishly squandering his words. Then he will be His spokesman.

Lamentations 1:11 The people are under seige and so hungry that they are selling their treasures for food but Jeremiah's words to them are considered worthless and lavish squandering.

Nothing about these passages are about eating. So what does it mean to lavishly squander? Do we do this with our time? Our interests? Our money?

The two passages in the New Testament are parallel stories from Matthew 11:19 and Luke 7:34 where Jesus compares the people's reactions to John the Baptist and Himself. John came, neither eating and drinking, and they say he has a demon. Jesus came eating and drinking and they call him a drunkard and a glutton.

Now here, in the Greek, the word used for glutton (phagos) really does refer to food. And "glutton" is the dictionary translation of the word. But the only time this word appears is in this accusation against Jesus.

In my personal study I did a google search for the word "glutton" and shared some of my findings.

Dictionary.com says it's excessive eating or drinking; habitual eating to excess.

whitestonejournal.com in a discussion of the "seven deadly sins" of which gluttony is apparently one, says that "The chief error about gluttony is to think it only pertains to food. Some people can't have enough toys, television, entertainment, sex or company. It is about an excess of anything." The article gives three forms of gluttony and we discussed each form:

1. Wanting more pleasure from something than it was made for.

"It is possible to become so caught up in a pleasure, whether food or fun, that we can no longer enjoy other things, and would be willing to sacrifice other pleasures for the one."

An example is given of how, in Roman days, people would feast and feast and feast and when they'd had too much to eat, they'd go vomit and then return to feast some more. Today we have bulimics who do the same thing, though it's not just food and drink that this is done with.

2. Wanting it exactly our way.

"In 'The Screwtape Letters', C.S. Lewis describes delicacy as a desire to have things exactly our way. He gives the example of food having to be prepared just right...but it isnt't limited to food. We might complain about unimportant defects in a product, the temperature in the room or the colour of a laundry basket. There is a certain amount of discomfort to be expected in life, but the Glutton will have none of it. Intead of becoming strong by suffering the minor inconveniences of life, the Glutton insists on being pampered."

I know when I've been on diets, I've been guilty of this and my current love of decaf Earl Grey tea could easily turn into this sort of delicacy if, when going to a friend's place, for example, I showed disappointment if they didn't serve me my favourite beverage.

3. Demanding Too Much From People. I've been guilty of this one. It's being so needy of someone else that one gets jealous when that someone else doesn't provide the attention one needs.

"It is said that St. Thomas More was an exceptionally fun person to be around, so much so that King Henry VIII of England kept calling for him, preventing Thomas from going home to his family. Thomas eventually began to curtail his merrymaking so that he was more dull company. This strategy worked, and he was able to live at home more often.

"The cure for Gluttony lies in deliberately reducing our use of pleasurable things, not in eliminating them. When eating, quit before feeling stuffed. When snacking, don't just keep stuffing, but quit after a while. With people, allow some quiet time together, and also get some time alone. Of course, if time alone is very pleasurable, get out more often. And if the toast is a bit too brown, eat it anyway."

At this point we got so caught up in discussion that we never did the second half of what I had prepared. We talked about things like pain and suffering. If gluttony is lavish squandering or, as one fellow put it, self-centred and self-serving, then the act of reducing pleasurable things could mean pain and suffering. One of them asked, "So what IS suffering for Jesus?"

This is a favourite topic of mine. An extreme example of suffering for Jesus comes from a book I keep in my washroom called Extreme Devotion by Voice of the Martyrs. It contains 365 one-page stories of persecuted Christians from the beginning of Christendom to today. I read it through in a year and at the end of the year I start again. I'm getting close to beginning it for the third time. It keeps me in touch with what devotion to Christ really is. The story I read the day before the study was about a thief who wound up in a Russian jail during the Communist era. Because of his contact with Christians, he became one himself. Once he was released he became a powerful force for Christ. Then his pastor was arrested and the pastor's captors brought the former thief before him and told him to renounce Jesus or they'd gouge out the former thief's eyes. What a decision for the pastor! It's one thing to relinquish your own eyes, but someone else's? The former thief told him to not renounce his faith. He'd give up his eyes and he did. Then the captors brought the former thief in front of the pastor again and told him to renounce Jesus or they'd cut out the former thief's tongue. Piece by piece that man's body was cut away until he died. But Jesus was not renounced. That's an extreme form of suffering for Christ.

But there are many ways. Whenever we choose to give up something that matters to us, no matter how seemingly insignificant, and we're giving it up (or embracing it--as the case may be) because our loyalty to Jesus requires it (this is important--it's not giving things up just for the sake of suffering), we are suffering for Jesus. When my husband asks me to watch a movie with him but I'd rather not because I don't enjoy his company and I don't like movies, but I do it anyway because I know God wants me to do things that will build my marriage up, the pain (as insignificant as it may seem) is suffering for Jesus.

The young man who asked me this question looked at me rather strangely. How could this be suffering for Jesus? Jesus said that when we are faithful in small things, He can entrust us with bigger things. I suggest to you, as I did to him, that those who have been willing to be tortured or killed rather than renounce Jesus began accepting suffering in its lesser forms long before they were in the place of the greater suffering.

When we begin to reduce our pleasures, we will feel the pinch of it. It will hurt. But we do it because we want to embrace something bigger than ourselves, something bigger than our own needs, wants and desires. We want to embrace the fullness of life that God offers and we can't do that when we're living lives of lavish squandering and dissipation. As one of the fellows pointed out, it really comes down to who we love most--ourselves, others or God. When we love others more than ourselves and God more than either ourselves or others, we're going to be making decisions that pinch. Sometimes they'll be outright painful. This is suffering for Christ. This is choosing Christ over pleasure, choosing Christ over lavish squandering on things that ultimately are worthless.

It was an amazing time as we studied and discussed. Finally, one of the young men asked if we could have a time of silent contemplation. We followed that with an incredible time of prayer. God was present in a way I would never have anticipated when faced with leading a study on gluttony to two young, skinny guys. It was so awesome. It was all so unlikely and so improbable. God is good.

And the way our discussion turned to the suffering church was so "a propos" because beginning the next day, I was to attend a three-day seminar on the suffering church led by a couple who have presented this seminar around the world. The seminar would end at 5:00 on Thursday and at 7:00 that evening I would begin attending a conference on living in the supernatural. I was so excited about what was ahead and the Bible study on gluttony was an unexpected but awesome jump into all that was to come.

Renouncing Gluttony

I knew I had to work towards the Repent/Renounce/Break/Bless sequence that I did last November. That was so meaningful and powerful for me then and I wanted the same kind of breakthrough this time. Here is what I prayed when I was done:

I confess, Lord God, that I have broken my vow to be and stay under the authority of [a particular weight loss program--I had made this vow many years ago and had been wrestling with it recently]. I have found that this is an impossible task. I am unable to do it no matter how hard I try. I was wrong to break this vow but I was also wrong to make it. Yet I deliberately choose to make it, knowing that Jesus said to NOT make vows. I was wrong. I was wrong to give [that organization] the kind of authority I did for they did not point me to Jesus or the need to feast on Him instead of on food.

There is a time for feasting and a time to refrain from feasting. Christmas is a time of celebration of You coming to earth and so it is a time of feasting. You commanded times of feasting in Your law. But I seem to want to feast all the time and have the finest of foods as well. I have been dissipated in the way I spend money I don't have to eat out for the purpose of comfort and luxury. I have tried to comfort myself by going to beautiful places and ordering fine foods. I have argued that I've needed these restaurant times as oases to spend time with You and I know You're not against doing that but only if I can afford to do it.

I've allowed myself to be gluttonous in areas other than food, as well, such as the use of the computer or even in my desire for people. Actually, those two have been tied together, haven't they? And I've allowed my excessive use and desire for these to interfere with what You would have me do--take care of my home and my family. I've allowed my use of the computer and my desire to be constantly connected to my friends to supercede my responsibilities.

According to whitestonejournal.com the solution is to reduce my use of pleasureable things, not eliminate them. I want to do this, God. I repent of making the vow to be under the authority of [that organization], of breaking my vow, of being caught up in the excesses of spending what I don't have, of making my comfort my god, of spending time on the computer with friends when I should be meeting my responsibilities in my home and to my family. I have been wrong. I want to change.

Please forgive me. Help me to reduce my pleasures and increase the meeting of my responsibilities. Help me to find balance between overwork and too much play, between the excesses of spending and saving, between hiding from people and needing them too much, between too much sitting and too much activity, between comfort and pain, between taking and giving. Help me find balance, Lord. I choose balance and moderation except when it comes to pursuing You. For that, I choose to be extreme.

Also, Lord, I allowed myself to masturbate again, after over 2 months of abstinence. I was wrong. I see how much of a trap it is, luring me back into lies I have renounced and into the trap from which I have struggled to escape. Forgive me!

I renounce, once again, the lie that masturbating is harmless. And while it does give comfort and pleasure, I renounce the lie that this comfort and pleasure is the sort I want. It is not. I want Your comfort, dear God! And I want the pleasure you provide, not what I steal for myself.

What lies have I believed about the other things I've confessed, God? I renounce the desire to shirk my responsibilities. I renounce the laziness that keeps me inactive at the computer instead of moving around my home--keeping it clean and in order and keeping my family well-fed and well-nourished. I have chosen my friends over my husband and sons and spend much more time with my friends than with my family. I'm not sure what I need to renounce with this--my wrong priorities. This is a hard one, God! I'm not sure I WANT to spend much time with my husband. I don't enjoy being with him. I want to, God, but I don't. I renounce my selfishness and choose instead to give time to my husband for his pleasure and happiness even when I don't feel like it. I renounce the lie that says I need large amounts of time each day with my friends. I renounce the lie that says I need to pamper or indulge myself at restaurants, cafés and dining facilities whenever I'm out. If I start providing better for my family, I will probably find eating at home more attractive. I renounce the lie that says I have to be out of my home to spend quality time with You, God. I have a lovely prayer room for that purpose and keep avoiding it. I renounce the lie that comfort is always better than pain. I renounce my self-indulgence and instead choose to embrace self-control and restraint. I renounce my vow and the making of vows.

I break off my laziness, my self-indulgence, my selfishness, my sinful attitudes, the spirit of Jezebel if it's still hanging on, all lying spirits and deceiving spirits. I break off all residue of my sin and all connection to everything I've renounced.

I choose You, God. You are my Ishi, my Husband, my Lover, my King and my Master. I have given You my ears to pierce, to be Yours forever. Thank You for forgiving me. Bless me, Lord, as I choose to become more active, to take better care of my home, my husband, my family. Bless me as I choose to reduce my pleasures so I can better meet my responsibilities. Bless me, please, as I choose to give as well as receive. Bless me as I choose to walk in Your ways instead of mine and as I continue to seek Your Face and Your Presence. Bless me, please, as I choose Life over death.

I love You.

Is Gluttony Sin?

As you may have gathered from previous posts, I continued to be discombobulated and dis-eased. It came to a head towards the end of January, and I knew I had to do something about it. Sometimes I leave things that are rumbling in my mind because I can't be bothered to take the time to deal with them. However, I knew I needed to spend time with God and get all this sorted out. I thought I'd be dealing with one thing but instead, I wound up dealing with another.

I've been doing the course from settingcaptivesfree.com called The Lord's Table. The whole premise is that gluttony is sin but I've had real trouble with this and when I went to find the texts in the Bible about gluttony, all I could see as a negative result was poverty and sleepiness, NOT that it is a sin. [Please! Don't assume from this that it isn't a sin--I'm just giving my personal thoughts.] But I hadn't done a thorough search and so last night I began to do so. Using Nave's Topical Bible at bible.crosswalk.com, I looked up the verses purportedly to do with gluttony. Most of them had very little to do with food and more to do with things like dissipation, dissolution, etc.--big words that I wasn't sure what they meant until I looked them up. Here is the conclusion I drew from my research:

We're not to allow ourselves to become so caught up in pleasing ourselves, wasting, squandering, and indulging, that we forget to watch for the signs of Christ's coming and so aren't ready when He comes.

We need to be "decent and true...so that everyone can approve of our behaviour..." and not look for ways to indulge our evil desires, lacking moral strength or disregarding accepted rules and standards.

Our conduct can show that we're enemies of the cross of Christ. One such way is when we are given up to the pleasures of our palate or to gluttony, when we make THIS our god, rather than following Paul's example.

It is wrong for leaders to pig out at church functions and leave others with little or nothing. It is wrong for leaders to serve only themselves, even when it comes to eating.

Gluttons are lavish squanderers who waste their means by indulgence and, according to Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary, as quoted by dictionary.com, this wasting could be of one's own body.

There are plenty of verses in the Bible that talk about how GOOD it is to eat and be satisfied and full, so if gluttony is a sin it is something that is beyond being sated with food. It would seem that the sin is wasting, squandering, self-indulgence, lacking self-control, making the desires of our stomach our god. And while feasting is commanded in the Bible, there are a number of passages where people were feasting when they should have been fasting or being more circumspect in their eating. I think the thing is to be moderate and self-controlled, not just in eating but in other things like spending and computer use—-two areas where I think I need to begin paying attention—-and to seek God’s face at all times to ensure that one is hearing what He is saying and obeying.

I spent 7 hours in my research and in thinking, praying and sorting things out. It was hard work. I knew I had to work towards the Repent/Renounce/Break/Bless sequence that I did last November. That was so meaningful and powerful for me then and I wanted the same kind of breakthrough this time.

Searching for Life

I couldn't sleep. I went to bed and I stayed there but it seemed like the battle of the previous post continued in my mind, threatening to engulf me if only I would give in to the thoughts that plagued me. I refused. I recited the two chapters in Matthew that I've been reviewing the past few months, I sang silent songs of praise to God, I prayed, I chanted over and over and over again, "I choose Life!" When my alarm rang for church at 9:30 a.m., I still hadn't slept, though I'd been in bed for 7 hours. I was too tired to move.

I DID force myself to get up later, however, and attended two other church functions--another step in choosing Life over self-destruction. I would have liked to have slept my day away or hidden away, especially when the afternoon activitiy was a women's group taking its first look at John and Stacy Eldridge's book, Captivating. My perusal through the study guide before going had produced enough tears that I wanted to stay far away from the group and the potential for more tears to flow. I went anyway and compromised by hiding around a corner where most couldn't see me. To my surprise, I was okay most of the time and could probably have been in the thick of things once I'd shared my pain with my friend, the hostess.

She wanted me to go to an evening event at our "mother church". The afternoon event went so long that even if we left straight from one and went to the other, we'd be late. I wasn't sure. But it was to be a time of praise, worship and intercession and I thought it might be good for me to simply sit and soak in the presence of God. My friend urged me to go and so I did. I'm glad I did, though the "sniff" (rubber cement or some solvent kept in a small container and sniffed to produce a "high") of the men sitting behind me was rather strong. Everyone is welcome in this church in the middle of the worst part of the city, which I think is the coolest thing.

I've never experienced or seen what I observed that night. It was awesome. I arrived late. The band was leading the congregation in worship. As seems typical in many churches, the same song went on and on and on. And then someone stepped to the mike to begin the time of intercession. People were invited to come forward if they wanted to pray and some did--praying extemporaneously or praying Scripture. And here's where it became interesting. The person praying would pause and the band, which had been playing in the background, would begin to sing--first one person in the band and then another and another. I didn't realize it at first because it happened so seamlessly and it seemed rehearsed but they weren't singing any particular song but rather singing their agreement with what had just been prayed. They'd sing for a bit and then pause and the person praying would then continue with his or her prayer. It was a beautiful way to dialogue together to God.

Sometimes one of the musicians would sing a phrase or sentence and turn it into a repetitious rythym. I remembered how, at the camp I'd been to in the summer, people would sing "in the Spirit" but would sing real words and music that harmonized and counter-pointed each other and it sounded so heavenly. I felt encouraged in my spirit to participate with the band in the same way (they were loud enough that I figured I could sing gustily and not be "found out") and so, when the music seemed right, I would counter with my own words, harmonies and rythym. If only worship could always be so wonderfully intricate and inclusive! My soul soared to the heights.

God is good. That night I didn't have to battle to choose Life. Instead (though still I couldn't sleep), I could celebrate and thank God for His mercies which are continually renewed.

I choose Life!

Friends, husband, and others are NOT where I should be finding my importance and value. It is in You, God, that I have value and nowhere else. So how do I change? How do I change myself so that how You view me matters to me so much more than how anyone else views me. I can’t, God. I need You to change me. I know You have been but I’m still not there. It hurts to be disliked, hated, ignored, shoved aside. I want to matter to the people who matter to me but it seems like I don’t.

And so then all the blackness comes threatening to engulf me. The temptation to wallow in self-destructive thinking and behaviour is huge--end my life, drive a knife through my chest—-except I’ve renounced that way of thinking so I shove it aside. My eating 400 grams of Lindt chocolate yesterday, however, came out of the same self-destructiveness. If I can’t overtly harm myself, I’ll do it subtly? Since I can’t use a sharp knife, use a dull one?

Self-destruction and the promise of relief it brings is a lie from Satan. It won’t end the pain. It merely enlarges it. Self-destruction feeds on itself. Give it an inch and it will take everything I have and when I have nothing left it will continue to consume. I can’t give in—-not even with the smothering smoothness of fine Swiss chocolate. I must continue to reach out for life—-for Life.

How? How do I grasp life when everything in me feels like its dying? When all I feel like doing is curling in a ball and giving up? I’m reaching out to You, God. I’ve read my Bible. I also read notes (with lots of Bible passages) from the “Forgiveness/Temptation” section of my palmtop. I went grocery shopping when I felt like hiding in bed. I parked a long ways from the entrance so I could walk and when I came home I brought in the groceries myself rather than asking the boys to do it. Each of these were a way of reaching out for life and living but it hasn’t been enough. I’m overwhelmed by my emotional pain. I need to just accept the pain, don’t I, God? I have to be willing to feel it and not run from it. I guess in that sense I HAVE succeeded in reaching out for life. The trick is to continue to do so and to continue to say no to self-destruction. Please help me to do this.

Dear God...

...I need your peace. I'm too easily upset by the way others treat me. Help me to be more dependent on you than on any person. And when my world seems to fall apart, help me to look to YOU for comfort and help than to other things that cannot satisfy. Give me hope, God. Let me not be drawn into the black hole that yawns before me. Pull me away from the edge of the abyss and give me hope, courage, strength and peace.

Thank you for who You are, Father. Thank you for Your love, Your presence, Your guiding hand, Your deliverance. Thank you for all you've done for me till now--the ways you've rescued me, delivered me, healed me, enabled me to help others. Thank you for the promises you have given me and the hope you have planted in my heart even though I see no other reason to hope. Thank you for the friends and the communities of your people in which you have planted me. You are able to do far above what we hope or ask for. You are holy, Lord. You are in control even when it seems like everything is spinning out of control. You are the Light when everything seems black. Yours are the arms that draw me close and hold on to me when I'm willing to pause long enough to let you. You are my Rock. Hide me in Your cleft and let the winds blow past.

Wholeness

I was talking about what I've shared in my previous post with a friend and we started talking about wholeness. I believe this new desire for good emotional/mental health is part of the process of growing in Christ. He wants each of us to be whole in every way but I truly believe that He has His own timetable for the restoration of each of us. When we listen to Him, we make ourselves open to His leading towards that restoration. Most times, we get an idea in our head and, because it’s a good one, we think that that’s what we should be doing. But sometimes it’s not yet God’s timing and so we’re doing it on our own strength instead of His. I’m discovering that when God comes into the picture (because now is the time he’s appointed to deal with a particular issue) it makes all the difference in the world–-it’s like God moves the boulders out of the way ahead of us.

My friend pointed out that some people would argue that it is always God’s timing to get one’s life in order and I agree with that in principle, but our lives are so complicated and we’re all so OUT of order, there’s no way any of us can begin to put everything in order all at once. So, where do we begin? For myself, do I begin with physical health? Mental/emotional health? Losing weight? Exercising? Getting my marriage in order? Dealing with my same-sex attraction and other related stuff? Learning how to not be emotionally dependent? Where do I start?

That’s where being sensitive to God’s leading is so important. And God’s order of dealing with things isn’t always ours or society’s. I think of one advisor who was impatient because I was dealing with my ssa issues when he wanted to see me work on my marriage. He wanted to run ahead of God and have me change things in my own power. But that can be so defeating because there’s no way I can change much of anything on my own---not if I’m truly honest with myself and not if I want the change to be real instead of simply on the surface. When GOD does the changing, it’s so exciting and awesome. Of course it still involves decision making on my part but really, it’s like sitting on the sidelines and watching as God rearranges my attitudes. I’m really quite excited!

The end of Isaiah 40 reads, “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They will mount up on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not grow faint.” (MRV—Maggie’s Remembered Version) Waiting on the Lord. That’s the key. It’s not a passive waiting but waiting does involve not running ahead of God. I’m happy to keep pushing into God, grabbing hold of what He chooses to give me and waiting for what He decides to do next. Our God is an awesome God.

Returning to Health

Something else happened the Thursday of my last post. As I was walking up the stairs to bed, something occurred to me. I can be happy. So simple, but it was a sudden revelation. It was a surprise to me. Can I? Can I really be happy? Cool! As I settled into bed that night, another thought came to me and that was the need for me to focus on my health, particularly exercise plus proper eating and sleeping. That returned to me very forcefully several days later.

Compared to how I’d been the previous two weeks, I was doing much better. The attitude change I described in "A New Way of Thinking" (and which had occured the day or two before), was the catalyst for that but I realized that in the large scheme of things, the improvement was a small one. What I mean is that while I was doing much better, I realized that I was (and still am) a long way from being in good, solid, emotional and mental health.

I got thinking this way because I was trying to figure out how to tell my husband and others how, exactly, I was doing. The stress hadn’t left and it probably wouldn’t take much to put me back where I was. As I was doing some shopping the day before, I realized that my standard for my own personal mental/emotional health has been very low. As long as I’m not falling apart, I’ve been satisfied. It occurred to me that it’s no longer good enough. I want COMPLETE health, not just a fraction of it and not just a pretense of it. It was a powerful revelation. I’ve never thought this way before.

And so, for the first time, I've started pushing towards better health—-not physical health as much as mental/emotional, though they’re probably tightly connected. I’ve already been working on my eating with an online course called “Lord’s Table” for the past several months which deals with the spiritual aspects of overeating but now I want to also focus on things like proper nutrition, daily exercise, etc. I’m really excited about the possibility of returning to good health.

Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel

After watching “The Notebook”, I continued in a semi-catatonic state for several days. I would return to God’s arms as I remembered and as He gently nudged me and that helped tremendously—probably kept me from falling apart completely.

The thing is, God doesn’t promise a life free from pain and even in the midst of my pain I was convinced (and continue to be) that He allows and maybe even BRINGS pain into our lives for His purposes and to shape us into who He needs and wants us to be. I don’t want the pain but I’m willing to walk wherever God leads me and if that means pain, then so be it. A number of friends discussed the possibility of leaving my husband but God used some amazing methods to bring the two of us together more than a quarter of a century ago after being separated for a couple of years and unless God tells me to leave, I really don’t see that as an option.

The movie had been Saturday. Thursday, a breakthrough came. I was at my wits’ end, with no one to share my pain, I finally decided to tell my husband what was going on with me—how I was so near a breakdown of some sort. He listened quietly and then went on to talk about a letter he had just written and was excited about. Hurt that other things seemed more important to him than my crisis, I walked away, and escaped to the bathtub—a favourite place to be alone with God.

He finally came up to where I was and actually sat and listened to me. He wanted to know how he could help so I started by telling him my symptoms and what was happening with me. He wanted to know why this was happening so I started to tell him what the couple at church I had gone to for prayer had concluded the week before—that the stress of my marriage had built to such a point that I couldn’t cope anymore, though I didn’t put it quite like that. I think he was really scared I was going to say I’m leaving and probably his relief that I didn’t, enabled him to give his full attention.

I told him that there are three things I’m most aware that I need from him and he listened, agreed and told me he’s made contact with the counsellor I suggested and also renewed contact with his accountability partner who’s also a trained therapist, so that was good.

I felt a bit more hopeful with his response but being depleted is something that’s going to take a long time to change. I wasn’t just at the bottom of the barrel, I was scraping away the wood of the barrel bottom. I still felt like I was millimeters away from the psych ward but I kept going to God. I knew He was in control. I knew He loves me. I knew He has all sorts of good things in store for me but it didn’t take away the mental/emotional/physical exhaustion that was now two weeks in duration.

The Notebook

I’m not usually much of a movie-watcher. If given a choice, I prefer the interaction and friendships the Internet provides than the passive watching of some invented story. However, my husband really enjoys movies. I don’t really understand how watching a movie together can promote togetherness because you sit beside each other and say nothing till the movie is over and then you go your separate ways. What’s the big deal? But my husband really enjoys movies and, I think, would like my companionship while he watches so on New Year’s Eve, after my birthday party, I offered to watch a movie with him. He wanted to see “The Notebook”.

“The Notebook” is a wonderful love story, I went to check out reviews and one reviewer commented on how people who review for a living are pretty jaded when it comes to movies but the night this movie was shown for the reviewers, there wasn’t a dry eye in the lot.

Warning! I’m going to give away the plot.

James Garner stars as an old man who spends his day reading a story to an old woman with Alzheimer’s in an upscale nursing home. The story he’s reading is the story of a young couple, teens, who fall in love. It’s a summer romance. He works in a lumber yard, her monied family is spending the summer where he lives. At the end of the summer, shocked that she's fallen for such a boy, they forbid her to have anything to do with him and return home early, taking her with them. He writes to her every day for a year but her mom intercepts the letters and the girl never sees them, crying herself to sleep every night, thinking he doesn’t care.

In the movie, we see two stories happening—that of the young couple and that of the old. As the old man is reading, I begin to suspect the story he’s reading is really the story of this old couple when they were young.

The young woman goes on to become engaged to a young heir but on the day she’s fitting her wedding gown, she sees a news article that causes her to faint. Her first love is standing in front of an old house he’s restored—-the house he had promised to restore for her. She runs away to see him one last time but while there, she finds she still loves him and he her. Now she has to choose.

At this point, the old woman comes out of her dementia and remembers and the old couple have a few minutes of love and affection before she returns to her state of forgetfulness. Meanwhile, their kids come to visit. They want their dad to come home. He doesn’t need to stay in the nursing home with their mom. But she is his love and he won’t leave her.

I was crying through much of the movie but by the end my body was wracked with silent sobs. Only once have I experienced (or seemed to) such love and I had to keep pushing away the thoughts that came to me about that. But the problem weren’t those thoughts so much as the pain of never being loved like this in a legitimate way. The pain froze me in one place. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything. I sat and stared into space with empty eyes. My husband saw and tried to comfort me but he didn’t ask what was wrong and eventually he left. I stayed like this for a long time, overcome with unspeakable grief, before I went to bed. I’m not sure I can ever watch (or read) a love story again. It’s too painful.

God showed me something, however, as I was lying in bed, unable to sleep. HE loves me like that. I could feel the warmth of His arms around me and the love and affection He was pouring on me at that very moment. God loves me! His love for me is intense and unarguable. On the one hand, it was all I needed and yet, on the other hand, it didn’t remove the pain and grief at all.

I wondered about this but not for long. God made us for love. He put that desire and longing for human love into us. He made us that way. God was NOT enough for Adam. Adam needed someone like him to love and be loved by.

Meltdowns

Christmas was a very difficult time for me. Part of the problem had been that I’d been sick in the weeks leading up to Christmas. By the Monday before Christmas, I’d started improving and, with Christmas so close I had to start working full-tilt on getting ready. My deadline for being ready was Thursday at 6 p.m. because I had small group from church that night, my birthday the next day (I don't get ready for Christmas on my birthday, instead it's a day of complete rest) and Saturday, Christmas Eve, was Christmas Day for me--I'd wake up way earlier than usual to start cooking and would continue "doing Christmas" till past midnight: a couple meals, church, opening presents.

It looked like I was going to be ready on time, though it was really taking a toll on my energy level, but late Thursday afternoon, before I'd finished grocery shopping for Christmas, my car died. That meant my birthday was not a day of rest and so, by Christmas Eve, when I needed all the energy I could muster, I had little. My boys were wonderful in the help they provided but by the end of Christmas dinner, I had a meltdown. The most obvious symptom were tears that I couldn't keep back but the real symptoms were such a total exhaustion—physically, mentally and emotionally—that I couldn't do a single thing. I escaped from the room, my family and guests and spent the next hour soaking in the bathtub, reading my Bible, praying and trying to figure out what was going on. That was enough to enable me to make it through the rest of the day and evening.

The next day was Christmas Day and we went to my mom's. I had no obligations this day. I didn't have to bring anything and I didn't have to do anything once I got there. My mom noticed something was wrong, though, and the fact that she noticed and cared started my tears going again. After that, the smallest thing triggered them. By the end of THAT meal, again I was in such a bad state that all I wanted to do was go home but I didn't want to spoil everyone else's Christmas and they all wanted to play a game. I went and lay down in one of the bedrooms until everyone was ready to go home.

I planned Monday to simply rest. I figured if I just rested a day, I'd be okay. Surely this was just because I'd worked so hard without a rest. But Monday wasn't a day of rest. My son was flying to see his girlfriend but when we went to check him in, after much confusion and the help of more than 6 agents, it became evident that his expedia ticket was never issued. It took all day and much energy to sort that out and finally get him on another plane at the same cost he had expected.

Tuesday was my designated day to rest and I did--till I had another meltdown. This time there was no obvious reason and I was beginning to get scared. I had a milestone birthday this year and was throwing a big party in my home the following weekend with over 60 guests invited (I'm not a party person by any means--I usually avoid them--but milestones need to be celebrated). I needed my energy to get my house in order. How in the world was I going to do it if I kept falling apart? I'd discussed the problem with a friend the night before and she was quite alarmed. Now, with this inexplicable meltdown I began to wonder, am I going insane? Am I having a nervous breakdown, whatever that is?

Each meltdown, aside from the tears, was a complete lack of ability to function even in the smallest ways. Even when I wasn't in the crisis moments that I described, my energy (physical, mental and emotional) was so low I wasn't even able to put together a plate of leftovers to heat and eat. I couldn’t even make tea which I usually drink nearly non-stop. I couldn't make decisions. I could do next to nothing except what I absolutely HAD to do (like helping my son at the airport--somehow I was able to do that).

I was chatting with a friend and asked her to pray for me. She told me she would but urged me to find someone who could lay hands on me and pray for me in person. I've never asked anyone to go out of their way to do that so it was scary but I was in desperate straights and so I asked a couple from church if they'd be willing.

When I got to their place, the husband started asking me many questions to try and figure out what was going on and why. I had kind of figured out it was stress and he agreed. He came to the conclusion that it wasn't really all the work related to getting ready for Christmas but rather the stress from over 30 years of a very painful and difficult marriage. At first it seemed kind of old news that my husband is stressing me. Why crack up now? My friend basically said that it was the straw that broke the camel's back (he used a different illustration--same idea).

As I pondered, I realized that I'd actually been handed a gift. I think I was able to realize this because, through the whole ordeal, I'd made an extra effort to "feed on" Jesus. I even escaped to the washroom at my mom's place at one point before the meal just to pray and regroup with God. I was spending extra time in prayer, meditation, worship (quietly, in my head, because I had no energy for anything else), Bible memory (reviewing what I've learned) and making a point to read my Bible.

So why was the realization that the problem was stress from living with my husband a gift? One question I was asked at the end was, "What do you want?" Well, I can't change my husband as much as I might want to. But I can change me. What I want is to be able to keep my equilibrium, my peace, my health and my ability to function well regardless of what happens to or near me, no matter what anyone says or does. I know I've come a long way in this but it's evident that I still have a long way to go. Now that I know the problem, I can begin to deal with it.

Already the next morning I found myself evaluating my attitude and internal responses to things my husband said or did and presenting them before God. I think I've been getting very angry at many of his behaviours and, in an effort to keep the peace, I've stuffed the anger which, in turn, has created so much stress that I couldn't function. I never realized (not really--I knew it in theory only) that I had a choice in how I responded. I don't HAVE to get angry or annoyed. I'm not sure yet how I'm going to make that happen but I know that God has done some amazing things in my life in the last several months so I don't doubt that He'll show me the way through all this.