Onward, Forward – The Story Box

At first glance it is nothing more than an old cheap blue plastic notebook. Thumb through the pages and you’ll find the names of over 140 individuals – those who supported us during a two year odyssey in our lives. At some point Daniel took it upon himself to total those columns; $30,280, all unsolicited.

I find that old plastic blue notebook priceless. Because of the stories. Because of the names of people. Most of all, because it is a tangible reminder of God’s doings. It grounds us in what He has already done and gives us confidence of what He might do again.

Let me go afield here for and minute for some needed clarification. When I reflect upon our journey of faith and prayer, I am in no way insinuating that God gave into our selfishness. As a matter of fact some of His clearest leading was when we received a “no” to what we wanted.

None of us should expect that we can manipulate the Almighty into a Lamborghini in the driveway, a promotion to be president of the company, our children making the game winning shot to win the state championship, or an all expense paid vacation to the Bahamas.

As we seek God with our hearts, as we are guided by the mind of Christ, then we can expect that He will meet our needs, work things out for good, direct our paths, answer prayer and call others to new birth and freedom.

Living by faith is never out-dated. We all go from stage to stage, circumstance to circumstance, season of life to season of life. Each gives us a fresh wake-up call to trust in the faithfulness of God. And I can say with confidence that without faith it is impossible to please Him.

As we move onward and forward there will be some uncertainty, maybe a lot of uncertainty. There will be some doubts and doubters. There will be some risk. That’s just the nature and environment of faith. But as Elizabeth Elliot reminds us, “There is no need for faith where there is no consciousness of an element of risk.”

Not How, But Who!

There were many Scriptures, notes and stories that encouraged us on our journey. One of my favorites was by Wheaton College president Raymond Edman in his book Out of My Life. He is telling of a conversation he had with Roland Bingham the founder and director of Sudan Interior Mission (now called Serving In Missions). Dr. Edman had asked, “Of all the many answers to prayer in your lifetime of service for our Lord, which was the most wonderful or unusual?”

Dr. Bingham replied slowly and thoughtfully, “There are many answers to prayer which I could relate. You see, there are many promises in the Scriptures, a promise of God for every kind of circumstance that may arise.

“Perhaps the most striking answer that God has used as a source of strength in my life and to the missionaries in Nigeria is one that took place some years ago. A great opportunity for advance on the mission field had been presented to the missionaries. Word had been written to us, followed by a cable, to say that $10,000 was needed immediately for the property and equipment indispensable for that advance. We had no such sum in the Toronto office nor anywhere in sight.

“To be sure, we made earnest prayer that the Lord would guide and provide, as He has promised in His Word. Just at that time I had an appointment to speak at a Bible conference in a distant city. As I journeyed by train to the conference, my mind was much occupied with the urgent need in Nigeria, with importunate prayer that the Lord would undertake for us in our perplexity.

“That evening after the conference session, I was entertained in the home of some friends before returning to Toronto by the morning train. My host said to me, ‘Brother Bingham, you brought a Bible message this evening and did not mention anything about missions.’ To this I replied that such was my assignment.

“Then he said, ‘as we have devotions before retiring, perhaps there is some need on the mission field for which we should pray.’ Then I shared with them the urgent word from Nigeria. Imagine my astonishment when he said to me, ‘That’s fine! I will give you $10,000 at once for that project!’

“You can understand that I could hardly sleep that night for sheer joy of heart. On the train as I was returning to Toronto, my heart was filled with overflowing gratitude to God for His goodness to us. As soon as I arrived in the office, I planned to cable the mission headquarters in Nigeria to go forward at once with the new project.

“Suddenly the Lord spoke very quietly to me by His Spirit. That you understand, I am sure. Not with some outer sound, but by the still small voice of the Spirit in the depths of my heart He made the inquiry: ‘Why are you so happy?’

“Dear Lord how wonderful that prayer has been answered so quickly and completely! Ten thousand dollars in one gift, in one night, and without the slightest thought on my part that these dear friends could or would make such a gift!

“Then the Lord said, ‘Do you have the money?’

“No, my Lord, our friend did not have the money in his pocket to give me, but he promised to go to the bank this morning and send it to us without delay.

“Again the Lord spoke, saying, ‘All you have is his promise?’

“Yes, my Lord, but I am sure he will mail that check this morning.”

“Then the Lord said very quietly to me, ‘Strange! Yesterday when you were on the train going to that conference you had My promise, but you were not very happy about it. Now you have a man’s promise and your heart is filled with joy and confidence!”

“That answer to prayer, and that deep searching rebuke from the Lord, is quite possibly the most striking answer to prayer I have had; at least, it has been the most instructive.”

Dr. Edman goes on to give this thoughtful insightful, “The substance of the lesson is not how prayer will be answered, but Who answers prayer. Not how, but who!

“This constitutes one of the deepest lessons of God’s people to learn. In time of problems and perplexities for which there seems to be no answer or any source of help, our natural temptation is to want to know how pray can be answered. This is a subtle way to walk by sight, and not by faith. On the contrary, if the difficulty and distress cause us to draw closer to the God of all grace and comfort, we shall come to know Him better, and leave to Him the matter of answering prayer in His own way.”

Photos taken by Daniel on his 2009 trip to Kenya and Burundi

It’s About His Faithfulness

I looked over at the clock. It was just after four in the morning, and I was wide awake. Hoping to get back to sleep, I turned over…again and again. It was no use. Finally I wore down and fell asleep just before day break. I had never experienced sleeplessness before this. Now I routinely awoke in the middle of night feeling overwhelmed, with questions racing through my mind. Am I crazy? What am I doing to my family? How are we going to pay our bills? Why am I dragging my wife through this? Is this just a flight of fancy?

I wasn’t only facing my own doubts but the doubts of others also. Often it came in the form of a blank stare and silence when we tried to explain. Occasionally it came from words of discouragement. From a mission leader, “The only reason this works for you is because of contextualization. Churches in the south understand the need. It would never work in Chicago.” From a mission’s recruiter, “You can’t eat faith!” And from a church leader, “God doesn’t work that way anymore.”

Doubt erodes faith. On the other hand, we are only kidding ourselves if we say we never have bouts with it. One lesson I have learned about faith (and doubt) is that it is not so much about my faith as it is about His faithfulness. God is the one who made the promises, and He is the one who keeps them. It rests on His character, not my ability to have a giant faith. Ups and downs are par for the course. Doubts do come. In it all He remains faithful. Our trust is in God not in ourselves.

Both God’s words and works gave us blazing beacons of His faithfulness. Psalms were particularly encouraging, “Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.” * As for the works, I do not have time to tell about luggage and laptop computers, squash, tomatoes and apple butter, the couple who handed us a gift early on with the words, “For your start of a walk of faith.” A complete stranger from New Orleans who sent a check, and a missionary couple from Liberia who took us to dinner and told African stories to our children. The telephone call asking if I could use a pair of shoes not knowing I was living with cracked soles. And there’s one of the most amazing of all, nine separate gifts totaling $1500 when we were within days of no way to pay our bills.

It leaves no doubt in my mind that faith is not about my ability to walk on water but about His faithfulness.

*(Psalm 9:10 as well as 3:5-5; 6:6; 25:3; 42:5; 69:15-18; 78:4-8; 111:5; 119:90)

More than Sufficient

Our faith journey may seem to have come about suddenly. It may appear as if we wanted to be radical for Christ. Neither is true. Neither would have been sustaining. Instead it grew out of a formative period of learning to be Spirit-filled and a deepening prayer life. I cannot emphasize enough that God had been patiently working in our hearts for a number of years. Faith grew out of an abiding relationship.

We wanted to give this spiritual vibrancy to our children. To pass along this walk of faith that rested in the sufficiency of Christ. What we had managed to give them, as we learned later, was a highly controlled environment that kept us well within our comfort level and in some ways even isolated us from God.

Early one morning in late autumn I was sitting on the floor of our bathroom huddled up to our small electric heater. At that time we were planning a trip to Mexico in early January. I was beginning to feel the crunch of our bank account dwindling and hoped for some cushion upon our return. As I prayed I begin to ask the Lord to supply us with $5000 to meet our needs. I’m not sure why that figure came to mind or exactly how that prayer got formulated but I continued praying it in the weeks leading up to the trip.

As we prepared to go a friend and a friend of a friend gave us travel miles which purchased our tickets. A couple provided $1000 dollars; some of which purchased our first digital camera. But no specific answer to the request. We traveled to Mexico, surveyed the situation, returned home and eventually decided to go.

One Sunday a few weeks after our return, we arrived for the morning service. The accountant who was working on our taxes pulled us aside to give us news of our returns. We normally received an amount back, but I had only worked about half the year and we didn’t have high expectations. Were we ever wrong and blindsided by the ways of God. “You are getting back a total of $5432 this year” she informed us.

As we stepped into the service, the assembly was singing Arise, My Soul, Arise rewritten by Indelible Grace: “My God is reconciled; His pardoning voice I hear; He owns me for His child; I can no longer fear. With confidence I now draw nigh, With confidence I now draw nigh, And ‘Father, Abba, Father,’ cry. Arise (arise), arise (arise), Arise, my soul, arise. Shake off your guilty fears and rise.” Tears welled up in my eyes and streamed down my face.

As we drove home afterwards Diana and I begin to unfold the entire story to our children. They were unaware of how we had been praying, and it was a powerful moment to tell them that God had not only answered but had actually given us more then we asked. They took it all in for a moment, and then from the back seat one of them said, “Dad, today we learned that God is not sufficient. He is more than sufficient.”

All photos taken on the January 2005 trip to Mexico