Recently the words grace and sacrifice were used by others to define this particular time frame of our lives. Debbie is experiencing consistent pain, fatigue, and fevers. In seeking the cause and a resolution toward healing, both through prayer and the medical professions, we have been removed for an extended time (7 months now) from our familiar surroundings, and work/ministry related relationships and responsibilities. These have been a significant source of our sense of identity, purpose, and significance. As we continue through this “trying” time of waiting for healing to take place, through whatever avenue Jehovah Raphe (God our Healer) chooses, my hope is that we are indeed growing in and actually reflecting grace. Jesus said to Paul’s treble request to be delivered of “the thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being too elated,…My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:7-9). Father entrusts us with what we can handle, but as Mother Teresa is quoted at saying, “I know that God will not give me anything I can’t handle, I just wish He didn’t trust me so much!” Oh, how true that sentiment is for Debbie and me right now!
Wayne Cordeiro, in the introduction to his book “Leading on Empty” says, “Suffering will change us, but not necessarily for the better. We have to choose that.” Debbie’s ongoing pain, fatiigue and fevers with no apparent relief is changing us. We are choosing to do all we can to allow His grace to be sufficient.
Regarding sacrifice, the area of deepest sacrifice for me is the stripping away of what I have believed gives me a sense of identity and significance. Missing various meetings (Member Care while Managing Crisis, CUSH consultation, Round Table, IC, Leadership Workship, Chad Conference, Sudan and Kampala Unit Retreats, RIET meetings, Conference) that I believed were key to providing leadership to the Region and the potential of gaining fresh insights from others through the interactions has stripped away any illusion of my identity and significance being bound in my leadership position. That is actually a good thing, but it still hurts. The final blow is the realization that I am not able to be part of the Zande/Mbororo survey. This type of engagement is the heartbeat of what I believe I am engaged in leadership for and it too has been stripped away!
Several weeks ago I came across the following in “The Saving Life of Christ” by Major Ian Thomas which I believe should be my response to what currently feels like sacrifice, as significance and identity have been and are being stripped away; “You are not called upon to commit yourself to a need, or to a task, or to a field. You are called upon to commit yourself to God! It is He then who takes care of the consequences and commits you where He wants you. He is the Lord of the harvest! He is the Head of the body—and He is gloriously competent to assume His own responsibilities! Man is not indispensable to God. God is indispensable to man! …’The need,’” all too often is said, ‘constitutes the call’! There are a thousand needs, but you are not committed to these. You are committed to Christ, and it is HIS business to commit you where He wants you. He has committed us to a farm cabin in Siloam Springs, Arkansas for now. We continue to believe that Jesus-the Head of His Body-the Church, “commits” men and women to where they will be most useful in his kingdom.
Major Ian Thomas expands on what he has already said in this way; “No man or woman on earth has the right to commit any member of the body of Jesus Christ to any task, or to any field; that is to usurp the authority of the Head of the body, Jesus Christ Himself. 1 Corinthians 12:18—’But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.’ The moment I claim the right to commit a man or a woman or a boy or a girl to some field of service, I blaspheme His sovereign place as Lord of the harvest… God is perfectly capable of taking care of His own affairs, and the reason so little is accomplished by the Church of Jesus Christ today is that we have all too often organized God out of business. Millions of man hours and countless millions of dollars are being misspent on man’s promotional activity, unasked, on God’s behalf….Surely what the head demands of every member of the body is restful availability, and prompt response to every impulse of the head in instant obedience, producing the coordinated activity of the whole, and the orderly fulfillment of that purpose to which each, as a member of the team, has been committed in particular….The challenge we hear so often today in the name of consecration is ‘Do more!’ Go,! Go! Go! But God says, ‘Be still and know that I am God’! In other words, quit the panic! Just let God be God!”
“Restful availability” begins with silence and solitude in the presence of God. That’s how we get beyond our programs and promotional activity that results in “organizing God out of business”-even good mission business! In early November I was walking along the river at dusk when several very large flocks of geese flew overhead headed further south. As I was “listening” for Jesus’ voice I was reminded that Father is in control of our circumstances. He ordered the movement of those flocks of geese—how much more does he desire that I hear his voice and follow him. I love being outdoors and my walks along the river have given opportunity and I am learning how my spirit can commune with the Spirit of Jesus. “My sheep know my voice, and they follow me” I recognize that there are distractions along the river. It may be the river itself, a bird, fish, geese, etc. As Marshall pointed out to me—Jesus pointed us to the closet as the place for silence and solitude.
I was reading the “The Great Omission” by Dallas Williard when we came to the States in July. The book is primarily about discipleship, or rather its omission. As a foundation for true discipleship Williard focuses attention and reflects on the disciplines of Silence, Solitude, Fasting, and Sabbath. He makes the statement, “Learn that you don’t have to do to be. Accept the grace of doing nothing. Stay with it until you stop jerking and squirming…Far from being a mere absence, silence allows the reality of God to stand in the midst of your life. It is like the wind of eternity blowing in your face.” My identity, value, worth, significance is not in what I do. It is in allowing the reality of God to stand in the midst of my life—to hear his voice and follow him! Unfortunately, I have not learned this yet! I am still “jerking and squirming”. There is nothing “to do” in the closet. You can only “be” in the closet where there are few, if any real distractions. Along the river there are still some things to do—distractions that allow me to still jerk and squirm a little bit!
How we respond to pain and suffering is a choice- a heart matter as Ravi Zacharias puts it in The Grand Weaver. There are three possibilities—”our heart will grow hard, it will be broken, or it will be tender. Nobody escapes. Your heart will become coarse and desensitized, or be made tender by that which makes the heart of God tender as well. God’s heart is a tender heart..our infirmities deeply touch God.” Zacharias goes on to show how Job is “an example of how an upright person works his way through pain and hurt”. Grace! “What is essential is the sense of God’s presence during dark seasons of questioning…Our need for specific answers is dissolved in the greater issue of the lordship of Christ over all questions—those that have answers and those that don’t…..We must see the world of pain through the eyes of Jesus, who best understands it not merely as pain but as brokenness and separation. In the solitude of reflection, the heart and mind come together to think of the cross….-allow God to make your heart tender, strengthen your mind through faith, and make the cross the aortic valve of your life—the result follows. You see God’s pattern in you and become the instrument of consolation for those who hurt.
We are tempted to raise the question—”Is God fair?” when going through “trying times”. Craig Groeschel addresses this in The Christian Atheist. He lays down the foundation upon which the response can be established by pointing out the following; “when we’re hurting and confused, we need to remember a few truths about God. First, God cares for each one of us. When we hurt, he hurts….Because of what his Son endured on the cross, when we face any kind of pain, he knows how we feel….God..comforts us in our pain. But is God fair? In my pain, I may not think so and even express that “I don’t deserve this” based on the fact that “I am a good person and didn’t do anything to deserve it”. The problem is that I am not good. “But the good news is that God is not fair. Psalm 103:10-12 says, ‘God does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.’ If the wages of sin is death and we’re sinners, then we deserve death. We’ve broken the law. We’re guilty. We deserve to be punished. To die and suffer eternally would be fair punishment for our disobedience. But thank God , he’s not fair. He is just, but he is not fair…Bad things happened to him so that good things could happen to us. ‘God works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will’ Ephesians 1:11 Using the story of the blind guy in John 9:24-25 who stated that he didn’t know if Jesus was a sinner or not, but that he did know that he was blind but now sees Groeschel says, “I have my doubts and questions about God, but I’m thankful that just like the blind guy who was healed, I don’t have to understand everything to believe something…Even in the middle of our pain, or, perhaps more accurate, especially, in the middle of our pain, God is good.
So, we don’t understand everything that is going on but we do believe that God is good, He is in control, and working this situation out in conformity with the purpose of his will. His grace is indeed sufficient! Grace turns sacrifice on its head, and launches us into opportunity for growth and character development. Through a life of intercession Rees Howells found this principle to be true; “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity!”
The apostle Paul urges us; “by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship”. Grace and Sacrifice in action is Worship!
Wolcott Wanderings 