CONNECTION

Theresa and I, two of 2500 people on a 12 story ship three football fields long.

Just got back last night from time with daughter Gretchen and family in Orlando, plus a cruise from Tampa to Grand Cayman to Cozumel and back. It’s good to be back on “terra firma”. The best part of the trip can be described as “connection.”

Connection with Gretchen who brings me so much joy, with her family, with the Herbers and Marco Habib on ship -where mutual ministry took place, and with my wife Theresa – 23 ½ -7 time together.

Connection can be instant these days with laptops and email. What happens if the laptop isn’t charged? I lose connection. What happens if I don’t maintain connection with the above mentioned people? Fellowship and intimacy connection is lost.

Same goes with God. A consistent morning connection with Him is of utmost importance. Through Scripture God pours His Word into my spirit, and I am recharged. It gives me the opportunity to hear the quiet, small voice that directs my steps. If I "get connected" with a morning discipline of solitude with Him, I hear what His choices are for me for the day. That early morning connection allows me to focus on God's purposes, not mine.

As I spend time with God I reconnect with the awareness of His love, grace and mercy, for His empowerment to live above circumstances for that day – to enjoy a day of gratitude and expectancy that God is in control, no matter the circumstances. CONNECTION!

Great to be back.

Prosperity in Afflictions

Os Hillman writes about Prosperity in Afflictions."The second son he named Ephraim and said, 'It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.'" Genesis 41:52

When Joseph was elevated to rule over the Egyptian kingdom, he revealed some profound truths gained from the experiences of his years of adversity. He named his first son, Manasseh for, he said, "God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household" (Gen. 41:51b). His second son was named Ephraim because, "God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering."

Whenever God takes us through the land of affliction, He will do two things through that affliction: 1) He will bring such healing that we will be able to forget the pain, and 2) He will make us fruitful from the painful experiences.

God does not waste our afflictions if we allow Him the freedom to complete the work in us. His desire is to create virtue that remains during the times of testing so that He can bring us into the place of fruitfulness in the very area of our testing. He has never promised to keep us from entering the valleys of testing, but He has promised to make us fruitful in them. He is the God who turns the Valley of Achor (trouble) into a door of hope (see Hos. 2:15).

If you are in the valley of affliction, now is the time to press into Him. When the time comes to bring you out of this valley, He will heal your memories and bring fruit from this very time.

I'll be back with you after Thanksgiving. Have a great and thankful season...all your life!

God Appoints Suffering - 4

Stephen Saint, son of Nate Saint who was murdered by the Aucas, has this to say about God’s purpose in suffering. People who suffer want people who have suffered to tell them there is hope. They are justifiablly suspicious of people who appear to have lived lives of ease. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the reason that Jesus suffered in every way that we do, while he was here. 1 Peter 2:21 This (your) suffering is all part of what God has called you to. Christ, who suffered for you, is your esample. Follow in his steps.

Saint’s view of suffering:
1. God uses suffering as a punishment.. Various Biblical passages refer to God using adverfsity as punishment. In our desire to see God as a God of love, mercy and grace, we at times forget that He is also a God of justice.

2. The blind man of John 9 was made blind by God to demonstrate His power when the man was healed.

3. James 1:2-4 indicates that suffering can build perseverance and strength of character to those who cooperate with God in their trauma.

4. Humility. God wouldn’t take away Paul’s thorn in the flesh, according to 2 Cor.12:7, to keep Paul from becoming prideful.

It is normal to want to avoid suffering. However life at times is tough. I like the following verse after James 1:2-4. “If you lack wisdom, ask God for it.” In context it appears that God wants to be asked what the value of the suffering is for the person at the time. Is it for character growth? Is it to nurture humility instead of self centered pride? To demonstrate God’s power? Punishment?

If “all things work together for good to those who love God and are committed to Him” then we need to ask Him how the current struggle is a good thing. Sometimes the answer is supremely clear. At other times, obscured. My children had to ask themselves why they lost their mother “prematurely”. The answers haven’t been real clear and the full good of it may never be known. But the point is, when going through a rough time it is best to ask God “how” or “what” instead of “why me, God?”

I personally think that God uses suffering in my life most of all to depend on Him. I tend toward self-sufficiency. But all self-sufficiency can do it produce my best. Where dependency on God produces “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” or, “Glory be to God who by His mighty power at work in me is able to do far more than what I could ask or dream of…”Eph.3:20.

Suffering can make Others Bold

Continuing our series on “God Appoints Suffering for His Servants,” Piper’s third premise is that others can be made bold.

“God uses suffering of his missionaries to awaken others out of their slumbers of indifference and make them bold. When Paul was imprisoned in Rome he wrote of this to the church at Philippi, “Most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.” (Phil. 1:14). If He must, God will use the suffering of his devoted emissaries to make a sleeping church wake up and take risks for God.”

Piper tells of the five lives taken by the Auca Indians. Their wives demonstrated such a source of strength that many were moved to a deepening dedication to God. Scores of books have been written, movies made and speeches given that have produced much missionary zeal in the hearts that have been touched.

The execution of Wycliffe missionary Chet Bitterman by the Columbian guerrilla group M-19 in 1982, unleashed an amazing zeal for the cause of Christ. In the following year of Chet’s death “applications for overseas service with Wycliffe Bible Translators doubled and the trend has continued.”
John 12:24 Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

God Appoints Suffering - 2

Examining John Piper’s works on “Why God Appoints Suffering For His Servants,” his second premise is a stretch. Biblical, but hard to grasp. “Suffering makes your cup increase.”

“By enduring suffering with patience, the reward of our experience of God’s glory in heaven increases.” He cites 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

“Paul is not merely saying that he has a great hope in heaven that enables him to endure suffering. That is true. But here he says that the suffering has an affect on the weight of glory. There seems to be a connection between suffering endured and the degree of glory enjoyed. Of course the glory outstrips the suffering infinitely, as Paul says in Romans 8:18, Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.

“Jesus points in the same direction in Matthew 5:11-12 God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven.

Piper then quotes a long passage of Jonathan Edwards, summarized by “It will be no damp to the happiness of those who have lower degrees of happinness and glory, that there are others advanced in glory above them: for all shall be perfectly happy, every one shall be perfectly satisfied. Every vessel that is cast into this ocean of happineess is full, though there are some vessels far larger than others; and there shall be no such thing as envy in heaven, but perfect love shall reign through the whole society…”

Piper closes the monologue with, “Thus one of the aims of God in the suffering of the saints is to enlarge their capacity to enjoy His glory both here and in the age to come.”

One of the conundrums of the Christian walk: what is the after-life really like upon death and for eternity? By faith we can say with the song writer, “I don’t know about tomorrow, but I know Who holds my hand.”

Suffering and the Sovereignty of God

Why God appoints suffering for His servants is a chapter title in the book “Suffering and the Sovereignty of God,” edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor. It is an interesting Reformed perspective on the topic that I thought might stimulate our thinking.

“Why did God appoint for Paul to suffer so much as the prototype of the frontier missionary? He is sovereign. As every child knows he could toss satan into the pit today if He wanted to and all his terrorizing of the church would be over. But God wills that the mission of the church advance through storm and suffering.”

Piper list six reasons for the Christian to suffer, the first being SUFFERING DEEPENS FAITH AND HOLINESS.
He reminds us that God disciplines his children through suffering producing deeper faith and deeper holiness. Hebrews 12:10 For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness.
Hebrews 5:8 tells us that Jesus experienced the same thing. Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered
Clarifying Christ’s role: Heb.4:15 This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.

Piper says that the process through which Christ demonstared deeper and deeper obedience was the process of suffering. For us there is not only the need to have our obedience tested and proven deep, but also purified of all remnants of self reliance and entanglement with the world.

Paul describes his own experience in 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.

Suffering weans us from the world, sets our hope fully on God alone, and is the primary means of building compassion into the lives of His servants.

I don’t like the process of brokenness that comes from suffering but I sure enjoy the product!
More on suffering in our next post.

God is Love

A week in Kentucky with Ray and Holly and the three granddaughters was great. It is exciting when you see your children growing in the Lord. Holly is due in three weeks with my first Burwick grandson - name to be Barron Olaf. Barron meaning "young warrior" or "noble man" and Olaf meaning "ancestor - five kings of Norway were named Olaf including St. Olaf. So, Barron is going to be a noble young warrior in line for kingship!

While there Barron's sister gave her dad a flu bug which he so kindly passed on to me that, fortunately, hit me as I arrived home. Consequently a bit late on the postings.

AS I approach the year of 70, if there is one thing I'm still learning, it is GOD IS LOVE. I knew that cognitively, but as I look back on life's experiences, hindsight is 20-20. He was always there even in the toughest times. During the trauma, it seemed as if He had gone on vacation. Death of a baby. Death of a wife. Being fired. Stuttering. Parkinson's and more. Looking back God lovingly used all the trauma in my life to fashion the current Ray. I read the following in some forgotten book:

One day C. H. Spurgeon was walking through the English countryside with a friend. As they strolled along, the evangelist noticed a barn with a weather vane on its roof. At the top of the vane were these words: GOD IS LOVE. Spurgeon remarked to his companion that he thought this was a rather inappropriate place for such a message. "Weather vanes are changeable," he said, "but God's love is constant.""I don't agree with you about those words, Charles," replied his friend. "You misunderstood the meaning. That sign is indicating a truth: Regardless of which way the wind blows, God is love."
Even in suffering, the topic of which we'll explore in the next few posts.