Um. . . I am speechless as to how to introduce what God did. Basically the next person that tells me God doesn't exist, I am going to start laughing.
Before I share with you where I had left off and providentially picked up in the reading of this book yesterday during lunch, which I quickly had to stop, for my awe of God interrupted me, and then return to work attempting to get my mind back on work, let me share this. . .
Reading through this man's biography always left me dumbfounded as to how incredibly clearly and beautifully God was revealing to him theology and doctrine through his experience on the mission field. As I read I heard him, unconsciously, through his prayers and meditations coming to the theological and doctrinal conclusions I had been taught for years. I remember Pastor Art saying once that much of theology has been formulated on the mission field. Surely I saw that in this book. Maybe it has to do with the fact that you are hard pressed everyday to live by faith and continually trust in God through all the trials that are faced in missionary life, and at the end come to the conclusion that what the Bible said was true because you lived it out which brought about a greater reverence, worship and affection for God beyond the intellectual understanding.
I think it is then that our true colors are shown, through the trial and the circumstance will we do as we say? Will we trust God and not lean on our own understanding, love Him with all our heart mind soul and strength, walk by faith and not by sight and take up our cross and follow Him?
This is where I picked up yesterday, after months of not reading this book. . .
A bitter blow waited for him in Shanghai. Mission leaders planned to send him to north China for the next few years. Problems had arisen in Kansu, and they wanted James' assistance there.
It was one of the greatesT disappointments he had ever faced. Not that the decision was reached without a consultation. There simply wasn't anyone else to send. Besides, it would be good experience for James if he was to be drawn into the administrative side of the CIM.
"I can't say I''m willing, Lord, but I'm willing to be made willing," prayed F.B. Meyer. James knew the barrenness of obeying reluctantly. Recognition that God's will was "perfect and acceptable" would be costly, but it was always fruitful, in his experioence. He cast his mind back to the many disappointments he'd had in his plans for southwest Yunnan.
There was the time Allyn Cooke, all ready and trained to join James in tribes work - a colleague at last - was sent to the Chinese city of of Tali [instead].
"I was disappointed too," Allyn admits. "I stayed in Tali rebelliously for some months until I confessed my bitterness to God on my knees and asked Him to make me useful to Him in Tali. The very same day a letter came from HQ releasing me for the tribes."
So James made a painful change of course and set his face towards the cast plains and forbidding heights of Kansu. Determined to set his sails for the blessing of God, he learned to love the new province, but he was never able to forget how much it cost him. "Yunnan was my first love, my Rachel," he said, "but Kansu became my Leah."
I remember a few weeks back, as I was trying to dig out the idol of self that was keeping me from being a servant to my family, saying to myself "set your face like flint."
For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross.
At the outset of this blog, surly God was revealing more of Himself to me, it felt clear as day.
I can say that life has been my school master, as far as I can see it through the Scriptures.
The more and more I talk to people the more I come to find out all of us sheep need to be taught the same lessons and every day of life we are being taught in our own circumstances and are being tested to live out our faith, even in the smallest of things. I found this with Jessica Anderson, the lessons she learned while in her fist year at Master's, the place I dreamed of attending for 6 years, with Jessica Bunting in Virginia, whose life makes mine look like heaven on earth, Christine Ottrando, who had already gone through very similar things in years past as I had been through or was going through and many many others.
Apparently we learn mostly through trial and testing.
James said this a little later. . .
You arrive at the end of the day cold, hungry and tired, not to find a nice clean room waiting for you, a warm bath, a warm fire, a smile of welcome and a nice meal! No, you splash along the slushy streets from dismal inn to dismal inn. . . and you get suspicious stares. Finally you practically force your way into an inn. It is pick dark; the floor is a mess; there is no furniture but a mud platform, no light, no warmth. . . . You and your muleteer make a meal of plain boiled rice.
But next morning you get out again into your blue skies and snow mountains and forget all your previous night's troubles.
I must say that during the months that followed the first blog entry here, in the words of Relient K "the skies had never looked so clear." I found myself completely in awe & joy, daily, with the gorgeous skies the Lord painted each and every day, amazingly unique and new. It was after the rain that these came, and I always thought to myself time and time again, "who could possibly complain about the rain when we knew this was the outcome."
After I found victory in Jesus after "I wish" I thought "that would be worth it again to find this kind of joy." Until the next week when I was there again, it was much tougher to think.
I don't want to forget a single struggle, long or short lived. I want it to always remind me what a great sinner I am and what an infinitely loving, gracious and patient God we have, and to remember that when a brother is struggling that I struggle too, and am to show the same as God has shown me, for he who is forgiven little forgives little and he who is forgiven much forgives much. May I always forgive much, for surely I have been forgiven much.
One last thing. . .
After finding that it was still hurting and not broken yet, before I talked to Jessica, I confessed in tears to someone that Sunday night, who asked "what is wrong?" that I was rebelling against God's will and wickedly saying to Him "I want that blessing, not this blessing." She quickly encouraged me and said, "I know you know this is true, there is joy in obeying the Lord." I stopped and said, "I really needed to hear that." I had forgotten. I had put myself in God's place and said I know what I need. I really needed to hear those words, I hadn't heard them, or perhaps listened, to them in a long time. There is joy in doing the Lord's will.
Perfect place for this song. (I haven't had the stamina all along this blog to share the blessed lyrics that so encourage me so often, that you too may be encouraged, because I have to type them all out, no copying and pasting off the internet, but this one is worth the time, they all are, but here goes.)
Don't You Know
by Watermark
(Sung from God's perspective - if that is the right way to put it)
I have hidden you
I have set you apart
And saved the best for Me
Saved the best for Me
I love you that much that I would
Hold the things that you think you want
And I'll give you the things that you really need
Well don't you know that I know you?
Don't you know I know where you are?
And all of Heaven sings over you
Because of the depths of My love
I love you with a love that you cannot think of, no
I Am near you even though you feel far away, far away
I've rescued you and carried you and caused your world to stop
Just so I could hear you say that you love Me too
Well don't you know that I know you?
Don't you know I know where you are?
And all of Heaven sings over you
Because of the depths of My love
All of Heaven sings over you
All of Heaven sings over you
I've rescued you and carried you and caused your world to stop
Just so I could hear you say that you love Me too
Well don't you know that I know you?
Don't you know I know where you are?
And all of Heaven sings over you
Because of the depths of My love
Well don't you know that I know you?
Don't you know I know where you are?
And all of Heaven sings over you
Because of the depths of My love
Because of the depths of My love
Yes God is that GOOD! AMEN?!
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