Back at Sunday School

Tomorrow I'm teaching Sunday school, but before I can teach, I have to be taught. It is always like that. I can try and stop my ears and hum, but I cannot point in the right direction if I've not been directed. 
The lesson is about big problems and a bigger God. The trick is perspective. It should be so simple: it's just the way we look at things. Looking ahead: we know the Story ends good. We've been told, just as John on the island of Patmos, that the end is the beginning and the tears are dried. Looking back: the heroes of the faith have gone before us and they're watching us. No feeble knees and lame hands. Looking inside: all things work together for our good. Trials build character. Looking around: Nick Vujicic says no arms, no legs, no worries! I don't know how he does it! And then looking up: I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.

I'm looking up tonight, Lord. My perspective is out. Please meet me at Sunday school tomorrow. 

"Our God is so big and so strong and so mighty, there's nothing our God cannot do." The story is about a scared man who hides away, but is called a mighty warrior. Still too timid to tackle the idol by day, he breaks it down by night. An army with camels like the sea sand are waiting to be defeated and the God of Peace leads him to victory with torches and trumpets. 

This is not just a case of a different perspective; whether the glass is half full or almost empty. This is no programmed plan by man to help you triumph over your problems that roll like giant waves and keep you down too long. This is a radical, humanly impossible take on life. It is God's perspective. And He gave it to me at Sunday school.  

On Friday the girls at school wrote exams. I had to invigilate...up and down inbetween desks, handing out lined paper whenever a hand went up. It can be boring and challenging at the same time. You can change the path you walk, try and guess who needs paper next, pick up the occational pen dropped by accident or cross out the time on the board.
I remembered back when I started at the school five years ago. I used to pray for the girls I new. That they would write well, that they would remember their work, sometimes for family trouble to cease or to be able to choose the right friends.
On Friday I realized that I knew almost all the girls in that particular class. I knew some of them really well and I started praying as I watched them sitting heads down in the rows. What was it that they really needed my prayers for?
Time was running out, 10h30 scratched out and then 10h45. They wanted more paper, urgently, all the time. And then I saw it. The blotches on the paper. How it got there, I did not know. You cannot give them paper with ink splashes all over! Maybe it will interfere with what they have to say, maybe they will worry about what the teacher will think instead of just putting down on paper what they know. They needed to give it their best shot!
As I whispered excuses for the soiled paper to one here and there, I suddenly knew what I should pray:

Lord, be merciful to them!
Blot out all their iniquities and hide Your face from their sins.
Save them, Lord, and write their names in your book of life.

When someone dies...

A day ago at this time, she was still there...Now, her room is empty, the house quiet. You will never hear her calling your name again. The pain in your chest is so much, you want to cry out. At times, you do. When you wake up, you remember. She is gone, forever. 

When a close friend's mom dies and it seems like you can feel her pain, the best place to look for answers is the Bible. It is, after all, a book about life and death. The preacher in Ecclesiastes knows our uncertainty about these matters: "(man) does not know what will happen...who can tell him when it will occur? The living know that they will die" (Eccles 8:7,8 and 9:5)
What he says next is quite startling, unexpected. "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting for that is the end of all men. And the living will take it to heart." He goes even further: "Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better (or pleasing)." 
The prayer in Psalm 90:12 confirms this. Lord, please teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. A heart of wisdom is one that seeks the Lord. It is quite obvious that the Lord allows death and mourning so that we can take it to heart, so that our hearts can be made pleasing for the Lord as we seek Him.
Men, women, young girls and even children will die. That is, however, not the end. The writer to the Hebrews put it like this: "And it is appointed for men to die once, and after this the judgement, SO Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many." Whenever someone dies, we need to look again at Christ's death. He died so that we could live.
No wonder the preacher says that it is good to be in the house of mourning. We can expect to find Christ there. Waiting, still, to impart His life to save ours.

"For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death."   2 Cor 7:10

    

When hard things happen...

When hard things happen, most people ask God why. How strange it is that before the problem arose, they hardly ever spoke to Him. Never told Him anything. Not how they were feeling, what made them happy or upset or even asked Him for anything. 
Yet, when the hard thing happens, they ask. It is a personal thing to ask someone why they do something. Imagine asking your teacher why she gave you a bad mark for that essay you thought was quite good. Wouldn't you say you would have to know her quite well before asking such a question?  

Yet, without knowing the Heavenly Father at all, you ask and even demand why certain things turn out the way they do. If you walk with Him, you can talk with Him and He will tell you everything you need to know. Jesus said to His disciples that He called them friends and told them everything His Father had told Him.
If you have walked with Him all along and that hard thing happens, you will know that He is with you always. You will know that He has measured that thing exactly for you and that He is helping you all along to carry it. And you will know that as the two of you walk, He will reveal His reasons to you at just the right time.

God's letters to you

Next week it is Valentine’s day. There will be a lot of talk about love. What do you think is the best way to show love to someone? Maybe it is to say yes when he asks you to marry him? Or is it to care for someone who is very sick? Or to do something very romantic like writing the words “I love you” in the sky with the vapour stream of a private aeroplane?

When God wanted to show us His love, He wrote us a love letter. It is called the Bible and it consists of 66 books. Listen to the words from one of His letters:     

                   “Rise up, my love, my fair one,

                     And come away.

                     For lo, the winter is past,

                     The rain is over and gone. “

In John 15:13 Jesus says the following words: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. “

Why do you think Jesus said this to his disciples?

Do you think it is true or can one show your love for someone in a bigger way than this?

What was He trying to tell them?

If you receive a love letter or even a card from someone, would you not read it? If you receive word upon word from Almighty God, would you not read it?

Greater love.....don’t you long for that? Then read His letters to you.

                             

I

SPECIAL MATRIC MESSAGE

So often during the last two years have we  quoted these verses: For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
How wonderful that God speaks to us! Yet, we need to read on: Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.  
Now we are talking! If you went on a road trip recently, you would know how important it is to know the people you're travelling with. All sorts of problems pop out while we're on the road.
You are on a new one from today. Better make sure who's driving...I would suggest you get to know the One who knows what's lying ahead. You must be able to talk to Him, to get His take on things, to call on Him when you're in trouble.
Romans 10:8 & 9 makes it really simple: If you confess with your mouth the LORD Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 
Do we really need to be saved? You tell me...what about the bad habits you cannot shake, the wrong choices you've made? The Bible calls it sin and says we need to be saved from that and eternal hell. A future where there is no-one to share His precious thoughts with us and draw us near and say: "I know the thoughts I think toward you..."

These holidays I went to China and learned to pray...

Tengyung, Paoshan and Mottled Hill were my destinations, plain boiled rice my staple diet and high mountains my challenge almost every day. I slept in rat-infested huts, sludged through mud and tried to understand a foreign language. My companion was the famous missionary, James O Fraser, lover of the Lisu people from southwest China.
For me, to read a missionary story is like going on a holiday. It refreshes me. Not only do I get to "see" the world, but I learn valuable lessons about the Christian life.
James O Fraser's life is described in detail through letters that he wrote home to his mom who was his main prayer partner. As time passed and disappointments grew, the talented twenty-two year old realized that his battle for the souls of the demon-worshipping tribe was serious. He asked for eight or so more praying volunteers and "rolled the burden of his soul" for the tribe's salvation over to them. He instructed them how to pray: ask for specific things that you know God wants to do, wait for answers, ask God what He wants and be careful of asking for things that are so big that you cannot handle it. 
When God answered these prayers over the following years, thousands of Lisu came to know the Lord. A young American girl, Isobel Kuhn, heard Fraser speak at a missionary congress and decided to go to China as well. In her first book, By Searching, she tells her story. 
But that is another story for another holiday...