Praying for Presidents

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone--for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

I Timothy 2:1-2

Most of us really want to faithfully pray for our president and other leaders. With a presidential election looming before us and a pack of what appear to be less-than-promising candidates, now is a great time to start praying for our future leader as well. But sometimes it's hard to know what to say. Good news--there is a great model for us in King David's Psalm 101.

Psalm 101 is David's declaration to God of what kind of man he wants to be as king, and what kind of servants he intends to keep around him. Some commentators say he wrote this while he was waiting to become king. Whether before or after, it's a glimpse into the heart of a humble and devoted man of integrity with a call to rulership--exactly what we want in our own White House. Here are some bullet point summaries of his words that we can pray for our current and future national leaders:

• Verse 1 - "I will sing of your love and justice. . ." - some versions use the words mercy and judgment. A godly ruler should embrace both and exhibit both, since the function of his office is to both encourage righteousness and punish evil. He should be able to apply justice and mercy appropriately and in proper balance.
  
• Verse 2 - "I will be careful to lead a blameless life. . ." - He will pay attention to how he walks and curb his sinful tendencies.
• Verses 2b-3 - "I will walk in my house with blameless heart. I will set before my eyes no vile thing." - His blameless life in v. 2 will spring from a blameless heart, or some versions say integrity of heart. He will maintain that heart by guarding his "eye gate."
• Verses 3b-7 - These verses are all about the kind of men he will surround himself with, his "ministers" or servants. In our modern parlance, these would be the king's advisers. He calls for men who:
• are faithful
• not of perverse heart
• don't slander (mudslinging?)
• are arrogant and proud in heart
• walk blamelessly
• do not lie or practice deceit

It's very significant that David spends more of this psalm talking about those he will surround himself with than he talks about himself. That illustrates a point that few people realize--that a president's (or senator's or congressman's) advisers are every bit as important to his success or failure as he is himself, even if he is a strong leader. They are the ones who study the issues in depth, as the president can't possibly have time to know everything about everything. He is often depending on their depth and accuracy of knowledge and understanding of complex issues and events. He must be able to trust them to support and guide him in his agenda and not one of their own. They are the ones who tell him how to handle every problem, issue, crisis or conflict. They spend more "face time" with him than anyone else and have his ear.

So, it naturally follows that if these people are righteous, wise and trustworthy, the president and nation are well served by them. But if they are faithless, perverse in heart, arrogant, slanderous and deceitful, the consequences can be devastating for the president and the nation. This is why we need to pray that President Bush and our future president surround themselves with the right kind of people.

Let's pray together that God will in his mercy give us leaders and advisers like David, who, although he was by no mean a perfect man, loved the Lord with his whole heart and sought to honor Him as a man and as a king.

The Fearsome Foursome Rides Again

The Fearsome Frizzin' Freakin' Foursome rode again recently back in the old hometown for a long overdue reunion. This was the goofy name my three high school bests buds and I coined to describe ourselves back then. It was our collective identity. "Frizzin'" referred to our hairstyles. "Freakin'" had something to do with our crazy teenage antics. "Foursome" was obviously because there were four of us, but I'm not exactly sure why we were "Fearsome." What can I say? It was 1971. I can offer no other explanation. But we were the best of friends and stuck together like white sticks to rice.

We were unlikely candidates for the close friendship we shared, all from different backgrounds and with diverse personalities. There was Geni, the high school beauty queen and debutante, from the "right" family, shy and reserved. Geni was tortured that, in spite of the fact that she had everything going for her, not many boys asked her out. This was a great mystery to us all, until we learned from one of the boys that they all worshiped her from afar, but were too intimidated by her beauty even attempt asking her out for fear of rejection. In addition to her beauty, she possessed a strong moral compass, had more sense than the rest of us and was the only one who was not rebellious and didn't have problems getting along with her parents. I don't think she knew it at the time, but she was our rock. We hung out at her house a lot.

There was Rene, shy, insecure, childlike and delightful. She was the only girl in a dysfunctional family that was not exactly considered A-list in a small fish bowl of a town containing a lot of big fish who thrived on snobbery. She was a year younger than the rest of us. We would never even have met her had not one of my male friends started dating her and asked me to befriend her. My boyfriend and I double-dated with them on their first date. Before that night, I rode by her house one afternoon to see where she lived, and there she was in the front yard, rolling around in the grass with her big shaggy dog. Right then I knew she would be well worth getting to know. She was given to depression then, but also had, and still has, an outrageous sense of humor and fun.

Then there was Charlene, the unfavored (at least in her perception) middle daughter of a bitter divorcee, who valued social status and proper appearances above all, values that Charlene rejected. Her mother disapproved of Rene and I, as we weren't "their kind of people" (although she was always cordial to us), which naturally made Charlene attach to us even more. She also chose a boyfriend who was custom-designed to drive her mother nuts--definitely from the wrong side of the tracks, and not even cute. Despite that one lapse in judgment, Charlene was and remains infinitely kind and loving, a devoted friend, the caregiver and nurturer, and the instigator of fun, insanity and togetherness.

That leaves me, a Yankee transplant in a time when southern kids still argued about who won The War (uh, that would be the Civil War) and chanted playground slogans like, "Save your Dixie cups, for the South shall rise again!" This gave me what was then called an inferiority complex so that I never felt that I quite fit in. Although I was admitted to all the coveted teenage institutions in town, I felt very much like Harold Abrams in the classic movie, Chariots of Fire, talking about the alienation of being Jewish in England when he said, "They lead me to water, but they won't let me drink." I was foolish and silly like all teenage girls, but in some ways wise beyond my years, considered something of a philosopher, and a very loyal friend.

Against the odds, the four of us became fiercely loyal friends to one another. We were all wracked by teenage angst. Except for Geni, we also had problems at home and became a surrogate family for one another. What really drew us together, though, was a shared sense of the intrinsic value of things, unusual in teens, that led us to reject what we felt was the "plastic" lifestyle of the "In Crowd" with their slavish attention to appearances, fashion, and the whim of the moment. We decided to be true to ourselves, to be "real" instead of imitating someone else because he or she was deemed "cool." If that made us cool, great. If not, that was fine, too. Perhaps we can be forgiven if we were a bit self-righteous about it, because at least it kept us from caving to peer pressure to indulge in sex and drugs, if not rock 'n roll.

After high school, our paths diverged greatly. Two summers later, Charlene went to the beach for three weeks and came back married to a guy she met there. They settled in Charleston, she became a nurse, raised two sons, and she and her husband have now been married about 30 years and share a quintessentially Low Country South Carolina life near Charleston.

Rene married a great classmate of mine on her eighteenth birthday, one month before his nineteenth birthday. No sane person would have placed a bet on the success of that marriage, but 30 years later, they are more in love than ever. They have lived all over the world with the U.S. Air Force, raised two children, and lost one tragically, their beautiful 18-year-old daughter, in a car accident a few year ago. Rene recently finished her B.A. in fine arts that she'd worked on through all their moves for over 20 years. They have retired from the Air Force and settled in Arkansas.

Geni also married a promising hometown boy, whom she nearly lost during their engagement to a brain aneurism. He was not expected to survive it, and if he did, doctors predicted it would be in a vegetative state. After many weeks in a coma, faith in God's power to heal and a miracle brought him through. Today he is an OB-GYN who spends his vacations doing medical missions in South America. Geni is an elementary school teacher. They have three kids and live in our hometown.

And me, well, I've led quite an eclectic life. I'm still single, and have done just about everything. For example, I spent nearly ten years in Washington, DC serving senators, a congressman and a vice president, and another ten as a missionary in Latvia. Go figure. Now I live in Atlanta, teaching, writing and serving my church.

So half a lifetime after the Fearsome Freakin' Frizzin' Foursome disbanded, here we were together again. Now we are middle-aged women with bad knees and high blood pressure, and one a breast cancer survivor. Teen angst has been replaced by family and life challenges. But each of us still has all the endearing qualities that made us love each other in the beginning. We spent two all-too-short days in the warm and comforting cocoon of each other's love and companionship. We just picked up where we had left off. It was one of those things that you bask in the afterglow of for days. I drove back to Atlanta feeling full and enriched.

And I learned something that I thought I already knew: Lifelong friendships are too precious to allow to atrophy because life and distance get in the way. Sometimes we have to fight for them, but like anything of value in life, they are worth the fight. After all, wasn't that what we were about as teenagers--what is real and true? When you distill life down to its essence, what is left is our relationships, first with God, and then with family and friends. I intend to hold onto mine.

FYI, we have committed to get together again this summer and a couple of times a year after that for the duration.

A Call to the Church

I’m a news junkie, but my habit is causing me grief and so I may have to give it up. Almost everything I hear or read seems to reinforce one conclusion: Our nation has reached the nadir of her moral strength and leadership in the world. This is a great tragedy, because we have so much to lose.

Our wholesale rebellion against God began some 40 or so years ago, but we have been coasting on the momentum of a better, stronger time since then. Now, however, that borrowed energy has just about run out. As we grind to a halt, we are beginning to feel the full impact of the folly of that rebellion in this generation. Indeed, soon to come of age is the first generation in our history who barely have a nodding acquaintance with even cultural Christianity and who have no knowledge of or respect for God and His ways. Even in the household of God, there is little difference between the churched and the unchurched. It has left us empty, shallow, coarse, cold-hearted, and selfish.

As a result, there are, of course, consequences to be paid as a nation. I could fill a thousand blogs listing them. Suffice it to say that we are left without a moral compass, we are abandoning our God-given destiny and, worst of all, we have dishonored God.

As I was thinking these doleful thoughts this morning, I picked up my Bible, which fell open to Isaiah 54 and 55, and began to read. I know that Isaiah was writing about Israel and not the United States, yet we are so similar to Israel in our cycles of apostasy, and I desperately pray that we would similarly find God’s forgiveness and restoration as expressed in these chapters. I urge you to read and pray Isaiah 54 for the United States. I believe that the generous mercy described there is still available to us today if we will humble ourselves before God and ask for His gift of repentance. I’m encouraged by Chapter 55:1-3 and 6-7:

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David."

"Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon."

Verse 2 sums up what we have done as a people:

“Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?”

We have spent all we have on self-indulgence, sensuality, lust for money, rebellion, materialism and other worthless sins. Now, our souls are bankrupt, gaunt and starved, and yet we say, “’I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing'--and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked—” (Revelation 3:17) And we continue to look for nourishment everywhere but in God. God, however, in His amazing mercy, still calls to us to return to Him.

As I read this morning, I felt that these words are a clarion call to the Church in this season, right now. God is calling us to “come.” He is calling the unconverted, but He is especially calling His own people who have become apathetic and backslidden and have been seduced by other things that do not satisfy.

God has been speaking to the whole church that the heavens are open in this season and that grace is readily available for every need. He has extended the golden scepter to us and urges, “Ask what you will and I will grant it.” If you are a believer whose heart has become cold, God says, “Come.” Do it now, while he is calling. If you are a Christian walking closely with the Lord, call on Him in a spirit of intercession for others. He WILL hear and answer. He is ready to forgive and restore and even bring us to our finest hour. This is our time. Do it for the honor of God and the advance of His kingdom, and do it for our nation’s future.

Reflections on Elections: Despair and Hope

The current crop of Republican presidential hopefuls drives me to my knees in prayer, and not just because I can’t decide who to go for. It’s that I can’t seem to find strong leadership and Christian character existing together in one body. There is none that appears to exhibit integrity in its true meaning of wholeness.

To see what I mean, consider a few of the choices. Rudy Giuliani. America’s Mayor is a proven leader, but supports abortion and gay rights and has a history of blatant infidelity and divorce. Mitt Romney. A Mormon, he looks good and talks the right talk, but only recently changed from pro-choice to pro-life. Changed man or opportunist? John McCain. This war hero seems to be on the right side of the moral issues, but otherwise, it’s hard to tell just whose kingdom he’s building. Then, there’s Newt. Leader of the 1994 Republican Revolution and darling of conservatives, he has leadership and the right but he has character issues. During President Clinton’s impeachment trial, while Gingrich was speaking out against Clinton for his behavior with Monica Lewinsky, he himself was having his own extramarital affair, even as his wife was hospitalized with cancer.

So again I ask, “Where is character and leadership in one person?” Where is a potential president who knows where he wants to take the country, how to get there, and can get people to rally to his vision? Should we find that person, will he, or she, possess enough courage of his convictions to refuse to sacrifice them before the altar of political expediency? Will he be a man of prayer and have enough wisdom, humility and fear of God to know that he needs godly counselors? Will his heart hold enough of God’s love and compassion to deal with his political adversaries with fairness and respect? Will he be a standard bearer and not a standard breaker?

I’d have despaired of ever having such a leader if I had not seen the promise in our church’s young people and the way their parents are diligently and purposefully raising them. In a culture that has made a parent’s job nearly impossible, they have made training their children’s character Job One. Then they have recognized their kids’ God-given bent and call, and gently guided them in that direction, all the while teaching them to love, obey and enjoy God with all their hearts. This is a winning strategy, and all heaven is cheering on these parents and others like them, because more is at stake than we could possible know. They and their children have given us all hope for the future.

In the dim valleys of the daily grind of raising a family, it must be easy for parents to lose sight of the loftier peaks of their own calling as parents of tomorrow’s kingdom builders. If you are a parent, let God reveal them to you afresh, and be encouraged, because you, and others like you, are raising standard bearers who just may be the ones to lead this nation, in their different fields, out of the morass of mediocrity into God’s fuller expression of righteousness and justice, truth and mercy. Who knows but that among your kids there is a future president or two.

Finding the Church at Meerkat Manor

I’m all about meerkats. Anyone who has seen five minutes of Animal Planet’s Meerkat Manor would have to agree that these strange relatives of the mongoose are really cute and fascinating. But more important than cuteness, they give us a great picture of the Church community as God intended it. OK, my pastor didn’t buy it either when I tried to get him to use them as a sermon illustration once. But consider the following facts about meerkat life:

1. Meerkats are very social animals and live in groups, called mobs or gangs, for protection, as their desert habitat presents many challenges. When one gang encroaches on another gang’s territory, group members band together, fluff their fur out, jump up and down to make themselves appear bigger, and make a lot of noise. This is called mobbing. After the conflict, the winners will hug and congratulate each other with human-like gestures (although this is really re-marking each other with the group’s scent). We would also do well to “mob” our spiritual enemies. When we are united as one, I'm sure we look a lot bigger to the enemy of our souls, and indeed we are. Perhaps the metaphor breaks down at the point of fur fluffing, jumping up and down and making a lot of noise. But maybe this could be warring prayer. . . . At any rate, we could surely benefit by standing shoulder to shoulder to deal with our mutual threats and then rejoicing together after the victory has been won.

2. Each Meerkat in a mob has an important role to perform. For example, there are:

--Babysitters – who stay with the pups while the gang is out foraging for food. Different gang members take this responsibility different days. This job is not dominated by males or females. Ahem. . . .

-- Sentries – who watch over the gang to spot danger. Meerkats have been known to climb up to 30 feet in a tree to do sentry duty. This duty is performed by males and females. There is a sentry on watch both at the burrow system as well as when the gang is foraging for food. In other words, they never let their guard down. They keep “watchmen on the walls" who are contantly protecting the others from predators and will go to whatever lengths necessary to insure that no member of their gang gets picked off.

--Excavators – Sometimes it’s necessary to renovate burrow systems. Often Meerkats will get one behind another and work together to move sand out of the burrow system, similar to the way firemen used to hand buckets of water to one another to put out a fire in the old days. It’s about teamwork, you see.

--Mentors - An elder Meerkat will take on the responsibility of teaching pups the DOs and DON’Ts of being a Meerkat. This includes how to raise young, how to forage for food, and what to look out for. For example, raising young is a learned behavior for Meerkats. Let’s say a pup is separated from her mob at birth and kept as a pet. If that pup gets pregnant, she will not know how to raise her young or teach them how to forage for food. Could there be a more scriptural expression of church community than this?

--Groomers- Meerkats like to groom one another and will remove ticks and fleas from one anther and actually eat them, though these parasites are not a normal part of their diet. Yes, this is disgusting. Spiritually speaking, of course, we all need friends to help us with parasite removal from time to time. And, we all need to help someone else get rid of their parasites, too, even if it’s not our regular thing.

You can see that with meerkats, it’s all about community and being responsible for and to one another. It’s about knowing your function in the group and performing it wholeheartedly. It can pretty much be summed up this way:

MEERKAT MOTTO

Respect the Elders, Teach the Young, Cooperate with the Family,Play when you can, Work when you should, Rest in between.Share your Affection, Voice your Feelings, Leave your Mark.
© Fellow Earthlings' Wildlife Center, Inc.

Does it really get much better than that?

Everything I Know About Life I Learned From My Dog

Some of the simplest yet most profound lessons in life I have learned from Carrie. Carrie is my Latvian yellow Lab pictured on the left who came home from the mission field with me. By the way, Carrie is very intelligent and understands both English and Russian. She obeys (or ignores) commands in either language.

Anyway, next to swimming, Carrie loves nothing more than to go for a walk. She loves to explore all the sights and scents of the larger world outside our small house and yard. The two little words, "poydyom gulyat'", or "let's go for a walk," are all it takes to get paws dancing and tail wagging.

But in order to get the anticipated walk, Carrie knows that she must submit to the dreaded muzzle. She despises her muzzle, but since she has been known to bite other dogs, we don't go out without it. Still, she knows that wearing that muzzle is the key to something greater that, in her dog's world, is well worth the discomfort and confinement of it. So when I approach her with the muzzle, without prompting, she sits down and lifts her head, perfectly still and snout extended high, so that I can easily put it on her. Then without delay, off we go to explore the world (or at least the neighbors' yards).

How much easier and more joyful would our lives be if we could learn to submit to the discipline of the Lord with the same speed, willingness, and anticipation? If you have walked with God more than three days, you have undoubtedly experienced that uncomfortable confinement of God's discipline. Maybe it's that he seems slow in giving you something you desperately want or need, like a new job, a ministry you've dreamed of, a husband or wife, or children. Maybe you know you are gifted and called to a public ministry or career, and feel you should be progressing in it, and instead you seem to be going nowhere, hidden away in a place of obscurity. In situations like these, instead of quietly submitting to the yoke knowing, like Carrie does, that it will yield good things, most of us want to throw off God's loving and purposeful restraints and either press forward on our own or give up.

For those who have ears to hear, however, Hebrews 12 encourages us that the Lord disciplines those he loves and that it's proof that we are true sons and not illegitimate. It also says that he disciplines us for our certain good and that the results of it are life, sharing in his holiness, and a "harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12: 11) If we really believe this, then we can approach his discipline with faith and not just endurance, but embrace it with patient but joyful anticipation of stellar results that will benefit us and glorify the Lord through our lives. Who doesn't want that?

Even the Bible admits that "no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful." (Hebrews 12:11) Nobody knows that better than Jesus, "who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:2) Thank God that Jesus never lost that vision of joy ahead through the toughest trial in all eternity. We have reaped the benefit of his obedience. Let's follow his example in the smaller challenges of our own lives. It will be worth it all. Just ask Carrie.

Higher Ways, Higher Thoughts

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
--Isaiah 55:8-9

In the past, I have usually looked to this passage of Scripture for consolation when something didn't work out as I'd hoped or something happened, usually bad, that I didn't understand. But today, reading it for the umpteenth time, I see it in a whole new light and whole new faith.

Today, these words fill me with forward-looking anticipation instead of a backwards-looking, sometimes grim sense that, well, God must have known what he was doing. The old view was about acquiescence in what has passed; the new view is about hope and faith for the future. The old view was about God chiding me for my doubts and regrets, as if to say, "I'm God. Don't you think I know what I'm doing here?"

In the new view, I hear God saying, "Yes, you are facing challenges that are bigger than your ability to figure out, but take heart! I've lifted that burden from your shoulders, for I have solutions that your finite mind can't even conceive, yet they are simple for me. And I delight to employ them on your behalf for your benefit and my glory! I WILL make a way where there seems to be no way. Just trust me." In this scripture, I hear today an extension of that same sense I've had since December that God is not only able, not only willing, but eager to show himself strong on our behalf. It fills me with a childlike sense of excitement like when I was a kid, waiting for Christmas morning to see what wonderful things were under the tree for me.

The promise goes further in verses 10-11 to say that what God speaks cannot fail to accomplish his desire and purpose. You and I can completely rest in that reality. I don't have to lay awake at night trying to figure out what to do about the thorny problems of my life. My job is to lay them before him in faith, obey anything he might tell me to do, and then praise him in grateful, joyful anticipation of the answers. Then verses 12 and 13 will be fulfilled:

"You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.
Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord's renown,
for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed."

Love's Labors Not Lost on Lena

Lena Dering represents every reason I invested ten years of love and labor as a missionary in Latvia. Her life typifies my dream for those whose lives God privileged me to touch, and whose lives touched mine so deeply there.

Lena (pictured at the right) is from Sakhalin in Russia's Far East. Her only memories of her father are violent ones of physical abuse. Her mother died when she was still a young girl. Somehow she ended up living in Riga, Latvia, with her grandmother. That's where her path crossed ours at Morning Star Church of Latvia. Through some of her Christian school friends who had joined our church, she gave her heart to Jesus and began her often arduous journey with Him. And with us.

When Lena first came to our church, she was far more cynical, distrustful, hardened and street smart than a young teenager should ever be. She was a classic "survivor." But under the tough shell was a tender, if wounded, heart that longed to trust God and to love Him, and be loved by Him. And by us. She had many false starts. Sometimes she would disappear for months and return to her old life. But the love of God kept drawing her back. The very stubbornness and tenacity she had learned in order to survive, God used to keep her doggedly coming after Him.

One message we constantly taught that resonated with Lena was that God had a purpose for her life that was bigger than herself, a role for which she was specifically designed, to help build the Kingdom of God on earth. We taught that salvation was only a starting point and that God had called each of us to partner with Him to destroy the works of the devil and rebuild righteous things on this earth. She learned the truth of Colossians 1:16-20 that all things were created by Him and for Him, that He is to have supremacy in all things, and that the Bible speaks authoritatively to every field of human endeavor, not just the spiritual realm.

So when I started a biblical world view course in Riga, she was the first to sign up. At our class Lena would ask so many penetrating questions that I would be exhausted, often with a headache, by the time we quit (which was always later than planned). But it was great, and she really caught a sense of destiny and a vision for becoming a positive witness and influence in her world. At the same time, as the Lord healed her heart more and more, He deposited in her a growing compassion for people whom society has rejected. It became more and more clear that her destiny was to fight for these people, and to call them out of darkness into the "glorious liberty of the children of God." (Romans 8:21)

Jump forward with me a few years to 2004. That was the year that most of our American team in Latvia came back to the U.S., as it was clear that our work there was done. Lena came as well, and settled in Nashville to serve with Pastor Bob and Sharon Perry in new ministries they were forming there.

Not long after, she began to learn about the heinous and growing problem of human trafficking, the capture, sale and exploitation of children and women for the worldwide sex trade. She learned quickly that this problem didn't just afflict faraway lands like Thailand, but was burgeoning right here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. She began to study everything she could get her hands on about this topic. God began to connect her with others around the U.S. who are working to rescue the victims and end the practice of human trafficking. It has become the consuming passion of her life. Today she continues to network with others working on this problem, speaking out to church and other groups, creating multi-media presentations and even collaborating on an opera that addresses the problem being composed by David Perry. (Stay tuned for more on David's work.)

Gentle reader, forgive me for gushing a bit when I say that I am so proud of Lena. Here is a young woman from a very tough background with nothing but disadvantages, who practically raised herself in the stifling Soviet system, where speaking out and fighting social injustice was punished rather than praised. Many from her nation who have come to these shores come with one goal in mind: to get rich and forget the lack they knew back home. But Lena has come to give. She sees American liberty and wealth as a resource for fighting her chosen fight more than as a means of self-aggrandizement. Of course, she would love to prosper here, but rather than seeking to lose herself in the comfort of American prosperity, she looks outward to the world and seeks to better it from her perch in Nashville. These things she does because she believes that God has called us to build His kingdom here on earth and take His light to the dark corners, wherever they are.

My personal motto for my life in Latvia was, and continues to be here, "rebuilding a nation, one life at a time." Lena Dering is one life that proves the efficacy of that motto and why we need to go to the nations, starting with our own. I am humbled to have had the joy and privilege to be at least a small influence in her life.

Move On!

After weeks, I am still musing in Exodus 14. This is the chapter in which the Israelites have begun their exodus from Egypt, but now find themselves hemmed in by the sea and the desert with Pharaoh's troops in hot pursuit. Of course, we all know that God miraculously delivers them in the end. I want to focus, however, on their initial response to this frightening situation in the hours before they see God move on their behalf.

In verse 8, the Bible tells us that at the beginning of their exodus the Israelites were "marching out boldly." Isn't this the way we always start out when God has spoken something new to us to do that requires an active faith response? We have a fresh word in our hearts, we're brimming with confidence and faith that God is in control, and we march out boldly. It often seems there's a divine ease in beginning, at least once we overcome the initial inertia that plagues many of us.

That's before we hit the wall. Israel hit a wall. Verses 10-12 describe their response to the very LARGE wall that they hit.

As pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians'? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!"

One look at the sea before and Pharaoh's armies behind was all it took for them to go from "bold" to "terrified." Suddenly Pharaoh looked big and God looked small. In that moment, a life of servitude under the status quo seemed infinitely preferable to, well, certain death. But this very point is where the rubber of adversity meets the road of faith. The Israelites had forgotten one thing: they forgot Whom they were serving and Who had led them by His own sublime, divine design to this perfect place of impossibility. Their problem wasn't the sea and the Egyptians at all, because God had their back on that situation. Their problem was their fear and reticence to leave the safe familiar for the scary unknown.

How much easier it is to stay in the place, at the level, with the things we are familiar with than it is to strike out into the great unknown of pursuing our dreams and destinies! Many of us have been in a season for some time when we have faced our own walls, our own Red Sea and pursuing Egyptians. It has been very difficult, not only to see the way forward, but even more so to see that the benefits of moving forward will outweigh the cost. If we remain in "Egypt", we can stick with familiar challenges that we have figured out how to deal with. There we can continue as we always have, with neither too much cost, nor too much benefit. In other words, we can simply maintain the status quo. This is what the Israelites wanted to do.

Yet, throughout God's church He has been speaking that this is a season to strike out boldly and pursue dreams and destinies. Most of you have sensed this in your own hearts. He has repeatedly given His assurance that if we will strike out, there will be provision and fulfillment and fruit IN THIS SEASON, not in some distant and undefined future, as it has seemed in the past. I see God's grace and blessing and provision like those nets full of balloons they often have at conferences or arena-sized celebrations. God's net is loaded with balloons of blessing, ready to drop. He's just waiting for someone to pull the string of faith to release them on us.

Pulling the string requires us to trust God like never before and to "march out boldly" in the direction of our dreams. But it doesn't follow that this is a hard thing. In the past season it may have seemed hard. No, it WAS hard. Now, however, God is so eager to meet us in this divinely ordained time that we needn't fear stepping out of our Egyptian comfort zones into the Great Unknown. The Promised Land is there waiting for us. And when we arrive, it will be so worth every step of faith we have taken in the dark, however small or tentative, every tear we have cried, every wall we have scaled and every prayer we have uttered. Soon we will sing along with the Israelites:

"I will sing to the Lord,
for he is highly exalted.
The horse and its rider
he has hurled into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation."

In fact, for a great time of worship, go ahead and dance and sing the whole Song of Moses in Exodus 15. We might as well get in practice. Let's move on!

Where's the Cloud?

I'm still gleaning juicy tidbits from Exodus 14. Just found a very encouraging morsel about God's constant guidance and protection--even when we can't see Him.

But back up for a moment to the end of Exodus 13. The Israelites have just begun their exodus from Egypt, and God has provided them a means of guidance in their journey. In verses 21 and 22 it says:

By day the Lord went ahead of them by a pillar of cloud to guide them on
their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they
could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the
pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

Great. But then they notice that the Egyptian armies are coming after them. Since they are trapped at the edge of the Red Sea, they panic and start accusing Moses of bringing them out into the wilderness to die. They think its all over. But that's when God instructs Moses to raise his staff over the sea and says he will part the sea for them to cross over. Then something interesting happens that I've not noticed before.

In verse 19-20, it says:

Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel's army,
withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in
front and stood behind them. . . .

Put yourself in the Israelites' position at this point, especially those at the front of the crowd where the cloud had been. The Egyptians are closing in quickly, there's nothing but sea in front of you, and now your promised means of guidance has left, right when you needed it most. Many of them must have felt at first that God had abandoned them. Can you imagine their despair? (Judging from their initial response when they first saw the Egyptians, I'm not sure they were moving in a whole lot of faith that God would come through for them.)

As usual, however, God had method in His apparent madness. Verse 20 explains. It tells us that He moved to the rear in order to place Himself (in the cloud) between the armies of Egypt and Israel, and that throughout that night, the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side so that neither came near each other all night long. In reality, what they probably saw as God's abandonment was actually His sure defense. He placed Himself as a buffer between them and their deadly enemies, simultaneously making the way dark for those enemies, but giving light to His people in the midst of their ordeal.

How many times in our own lives, in those dark nights of the soul or simply in perplexing circumstances, has it seemed that God was nowhere in sight and strangly silent? And how tempting it is during those times to listen to the whisper of the enemy telling us that we have been abandoned in our need.

Oh, no. It is during those times that God is our greatest champion. It is at those times that He stands between us and our enemies, protecting us from all harm and giving us light while confounding them in darkness, and preparing us for a great victory.

All that night, the Lord sent a strong wind that pushed the sea back, making a dry highway for the Israelites to cross over. Throughout that very dark night, God was preparing their path of escape and ultimate victory. That same path proved the way of utter destruction to their enemies. Darkness to the one, light to the other.

Thank God for these wonderful illustrations of his ways. The pillar of cloud moved from where the Israelites thought it was suppposed to be. But in so doing, it provided protection from their enemies until God completely delivered them--and completely destroyed that enemy forever. We can trust Him in the dark times when we can't see or feel him to do the same for us.

Trapped with No Hope for Escape is the Best Place to Be

I've been getting a lot out of Exodus 14 lately and want to write a few entries about it. This is the chapter where God splits the Red Sea for the Israelites exodus from Egypt.

At the beginning of the chapter, the Lord tells Moses to tell the people to "turn and camp before Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, opposite Baal Zephon; you shall camp before the sea." It sounds like they had some forward momentum going, and then the Lord tells them to turn back and camp at this particular spot. This piqued my interest to see whether there was some spiritual meaning to the words Pi Hahiroth, Midgol and Baal Zephon.

From my brief research, it looks like these words are simply geographical locations. That was disappointing, until I realized the significance of that geographical position. At that particular place by the Red Sea, the Israelites were trapped. This fact was not lost on Pharaoh, who sent his armies out after them with a vengeance.

Why would God do something like this to His people when they were on their way to freedom in their Promised Land? Verse 4 has the answer: ". . .and I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over all his army, that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord." His purpose was to display His glory as God, and in the process, completely destroy Israel's enemies. It doesn't get any better than that.

Of course, the Israelites didn't know this and weren't exactly full of faith at this point. All they could see was Pharaoh's chariots closing in on them, and they were scared to death. They thought they were going to die. Incidentally, they were REALLY mad at Moses for getting them into this mess, too--a good topic for another post. For now, it's important to note that, although they were terrified and in a real pickle, their situation was by God's design. Not for one moment was God surprised, nor was anything out of control. He had set them up in a perfect place to receive a spectacular miracle from His hand, to His glory and their own eternal benefit.

Verse 13 reports Moses telling the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever [emphasis added]." If they had not been trapped as they were and had had even the smallest way out on their own, perhaps by running from the Egyptians, they would have taken it, and missed their miracle. And they would forever after have had to look over their shoulders to see if Egypt was in pursuit. As it happened, God was able not only to get the Israelites out through the Red Sea, but He completely destroyed the enemy armies in the process. The Egyptians were not going to pop up again later. They were gone forever, never to be a concern for Israel again. This is God's way.

When we read this story, knowing the end in advance, it's easy to be critical and wonder why the Israelites didn't trust God and got in such a panic. But how often do we do the same thing in our own life situations, when our view is blocked by our own God-designed traps? God help us to see Him in the trap, and to rejoice in trust, knowing our miracle is about to happen. And may He get all the glory.

January 1, 2007 - Happy New Year!

The first day of a new year seems like the perfect time to begin blogging, so here I go. Might as well start with some reflections on the old and new years.

I can't pretend that I am sorry to see the old year go. I think of it as a "bad year." In reality, 2006 was just like life in microcosm--great highs and great lows, punctuated by a lot of nondescript times. So although I'm not sentimental about its passing, I am certainly grateful to God for the good things of 2006, and for the growth that the good and the bad produced in my life.

When I look forward into 2007, I see challenges. Some of these will be thrust upon us by by life and world events, some offered to us by God to accept or reject.

In regard to this first type, I enter the new year with a subtle and unusual sense foreboding regarding events on the world stage. I have a strong sense of history, and usually look at trouble in the world with the attitude that the world has survived many crises and that "this, too, shall pass." But this year, I just sense that we may see some natural and/or geo-political troubles of an in-your-face nature that will shake us and force us to deal with them very directly. Right now, most Americans seem to be in denial about the threats we face from radical Islam, for example. More on that later. Suffice it to say that we need a wake-up call, and I pray that it our dullness won't necessitate another 9/11, or worse, to make us see reality. I just feel that we need to, as the Bible says, be sober, vigilant and gird our minds for action in the year ahead.

That brings me to the second type of challenge mentioned above, the one put to us by God. For weeks now, I've been feeling strongly that God wants to pour out on his people fresh grace and favor for three things in particular: physical healing; financial and material provision for the things he's called us to do, individually and as the church; and overcoming spiritual, mental, and material obstacles to achieving those things that we know we are called to do, but haven't been able to do in the past. This applies to both life accomplishments and character deficiencies and sin patterns. The challenge lies in whether we will take what He is offering to us. It's as if He is saying, "If you will just put your toe in the water in faith, I will part the waters of your Red Sea, and you will pass through it with ease." This may sound cliche, but it's a fresh thing, in which the proverbial "faith as a grain of mustard seed" will truly move the mountains in our lives, our churches, and even our nation. God not only will respond to our faith, He is eager respond to our faith in a big way. He's not asking for much, just faith evidenced by a small step in the direction of our dreams and toward engagement of our foes.

So if we meet the scary and difficult challenges that the world thrusts upon us by taking up the wonderful challenge that God is offering us, 2007 has the potential to be our finest hour. God is giving us a special window of opportunity to overcome with a divine ease, by grace through faith, our personal demons and gain forward momentum toward our God-given goals, as individuals and as the church. For our nation and its difficulties, this is a chance for the church to carry a torch of faith, courage and resolve for our fellow citizens and the world to follow. As the old hymn says, "Let courage rise with danger."

Am I looking forward to 2007? Absolutely. It may not be our easiest year ever, but it can certainly be our most glorious. How wonderful it will be, on January 1, 2008, to look back and thank God for all He has done in and through us, and to lay our victories at His feet.