Deus e Fiel

So the paper saga continues... but peacefully, just slowly, and at major cost to my sleep. I actually came up with a rather profound thesis last night which surprised me. This paper might really have something strong to say when it's all over, rather than simply being respectable. Thank You, Lord....

Great quote from Eldredge's book "Waking the Dead" again - for those of you who know my Swiss history, it's a bit familiar. But I think I take issue with some of what Eldredge says:

"A friend of mine wanted to teach English as a second language in an Asian country, as a way of becoming a sort of undercover missionary. A beautiful dream, one that I’m sure she would have been excellent in fulfilling. But she rushed to the field unprepared in many ways. I don’t mean finances and language skills; I mean in the ways of the heart. The team she joined was totally unfamiliar with the new heart, and they doubted its goodness; as with too many Christian ministries, shame and guilt were often used as motivators. Their theology would play right into her issues, shut down her young heart. Finally, she was unpracticed in spiritual warfare, ill-equipped for what hell would throw at her. The devil is a master at shame and guilt. She went; she got hammered; she came home, defeated. Her friends wonder if she’ll ever try it again.

"The disaster could have been avoided. Wisdom was crying out: do not rush the field (Luke 14:31); train yourself to discern good and evil (Heb. 5:14); live as though your life is at stake, and the enemy is waiting to outwit you (Matt. 10:16). God has given us all sorts of counsel and direction in his written Word; thank God, we have it written down in black and white. We would do well to be familiar with it, study it with all the intensity of the men who studied the maps of the Normandy coastline before they hit the beaches on D-Day. The more that wisdom enters our hearts, the more we will be able to trust our hearts in difficult situations. Notice that wisdom is not cramming our head with principles. It is developing a discerning heart. What made Solomon such a sharp guy was his wise and discerning heart (1 Kings 3:9).

We don't seek wisdom because it's a good idea; we seek wisdom because we're dead if we don't.

(Waking the Dead , 99–100)

First of all, he's absolutely right in that last line. We live in a war, and we've got to take seriously the task of arming ourselves in Christ. Wisdom teaches us to call things what they are, so we can live in freedom.

Eldredge also has a point about not "rushing the field" before we're ready. But often God calls us into situations we're personally unprepared for, and allows us to learn the hard way, and to know that He's simply with us in it, so that we'll learn wisdom and trust in Him through it. I know, because I prayed long and hard to understand this for myself. Why would a good God allow me to be such an idiot as to not understand the various warning signs and get stuck in such an abusive situation in Switzerland? Was I disobedient? Did He try to stop me?

As I thought back over it, I was definitely young and naive. However, I realized three things: First, that God had so many amazing signs of confirmation on my going over there that there was 100% confidence that it was His will. Everybody around me knew it, and I knew it.

Second, sure, I could have been smarter about things and left earlier, or not gone. But God had not yet given me the experience, maturity or understanding to know better. If He had, then I would have been responsible to act differently. But He hadn't, so I wasn't.

Third, because He IS a good God, He wanted me over there "for good and not for evil," (Jer 29:11). The adversary turned people against me, but when I look at the amazing results of everything that happened, I can say very confidently with Joseph, "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive." (Genesis 50:20)

It was a good thing. I suffered, but avoiding it would not have grown me up, would not have made me the person I am today. So I thank God for the whole thing. I thank Him for what He started there that He has promised to develop and complete in me and for me. I thank God for what I don't know about yet - and I thank Him for the preciousness of the time when I was back there this summer, thinking it through but also reveling in the freedom I felt.

I first was confronted with the dire need to thank God FOR everything (even the bad stuff) by a pastor from Nigeria. We were students together at Regent, and I had the privilege of picking him up at the airport when he first arrived. He brought the fragrance and the power of Christ with him, and when he prayed in chapel, the glass walls shook. One day he ran into me when I was having a particularly rough time. I was really doubting God's goodness, really confused about what was going on, and hurting deeply. Emmanuel exhorted me loudly and without backing down to thank God FOR what I was going through. He went bananas on me - and I looked at him like he was crazy and wandered off in tears thinking, "Geez, that was useful. Not."

But Emmanuel knew what he was talking about. He bore the scars on his head from maddened rioters who hacked at him with machetes and sticks in response to his preaching the Gospel. And in the end, for reasons I still don't understand, while he was still at Regent, he became ill with cancer, and in a matter of months had gone home to his Lord, leaving a wife and two young children behind.

All over Brasil, the Evangelical Christians have a slogan. It's on their cars, it's on their Bibles, it's on their churches, it's on my pastor's church letterhead: Deus e Fiel. God is Faithful.

And in the end, that's the only thing that matters, the only thing we need to know. Everything we learn, in the long run, will just prove that true if we commit ourselves to living by that faith. But what we understand going into something, what we can prevent or not prevent, is really not the point. Trust and obedience is.

17Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise,
And apply your mind to my knowledge;
18For it will be pleasant if you keep them within you,
That they may be ready on your lips.
19 So that your trust may be in the LORD...

~Proverbs 22