Seeing God's Glory in the Small Steps

We're off for the week, spending time down in Louisville, Kentucky with Nathan's brother and family, and reconnecting with many friends from the four years we lived here, as well as friends we've made on visits since our move back to Toronto, and a few friends FROM Toronto who are here for the same conference we're down for. Louisville is a place where we get to pick up where we left off with several people (Don't you love friends like that?). And it's also a place where we've already heard several times the question we'll hear several more times over the course of the week: How are things going with the church plant?

Depending on who asks it, that question can come with varying amounts of external pressure: everything from the person you know is really hoping to hear about hundreds gathered and many new Christians to the really good friends who would still support you if you told them it had totally failed (it hasn't), and all the people somewhere in between. But regardless of where the asker falls on that continuum, WE feel the desire to be able to talk of great revival and piles of visible fruit. WE want to feel we've accomplished something, that this endeavor is the best thing out there, that we deserve the full support of everyone who asks. And when we don't have an endless supply of stories about how we see God working, it's easy to want to exaggerate, to leave out the unpleasant bits and discouragements, to convince ourselves that things are far better than the reality. I've felt this temptation many times already this week!

Tough Call

Have you ever been called to something exciting and responded enthusiastically with faith, only to encounter difficulty and discouragement? Have you hit hardships in ministry, trials in parenthood, obstacles in your service? If you're anything like us, these things can have a tendency to make you question whether you are where you're supposed to be, whether you heard the call right, whether God has somehow sent you out only to abandon you on the journey. These are the times when I especially love the "real life" nature of the Bible. I'm so thankful that God's words to us aren't just glorious transcendent ideas that are totally detached from our very earthly experience in a fallen world. There are lots of glorious transcendent ideas, to be sure, but they are woven in and out of the true stories of real men and women who lived, who doubted, who praised, who suffered, who were weak, who were strengthened, who by God's grace pressed on despite their sin and failings and the failings of those around them.

One in particular that has been an encouragement to me lately, in a wintry season of tougher ploughing and some discouragements, is the prophet Isaiah. As I mentioned, when the going gets tough, we can fall to the temptation to doubt God's call on our lives, to wonder if we're on the wrong road. But I think that's because we read about people like Isaiah and his glorious call, and we stop too soon in the story. Isaiah 6 is a common passage to quote at missionary commissioning services. There have been songs written about it. Most of us are familiar with verse 8: "And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?' Then I said, 'Here am I! Send me.'" We love this response of faith, the enthusiastic "Here am I! Send me." We want to be that guy. Here is Isaiah: He has just seen a vision of God in all his holiness and all his mercy (verses 1-7). He has had his sins atoned for, and is ready at the call of God to go out and take the news of this holy, merciful God to the people. It's exhilarating!

But we stop too soon if we stop there, because we miss what God's call on Isaiah actually is. For the next 5 verses, Isaiah is informed that his ministry is going to be one of tough ploughing, of closed eyes and ears, of proclaiming destruction alongside that proclamation of mercy. Isaiah starts off with a readiness to go out as the Lord's messenger, and the next thing we hear out of his mouth is "How long, O Lord?" The rest of his ministry is replete with hard messages, difficult circumstances and unhearing people. Isaiah even has to give a hard rebuke to one of the most godly kings of Judah when Hezekiah's pride leads him to foolish action. Of course, Isaiah also has the joy of seeing prayers answered, an enemy army decimated in the night at the Lord's hand, a king miraculously healed of a terminal illness, time turned back on its heels, and the honour of being one of the foremost proclaimers of a coming Messiah who would bring salvation, blessing and peace to his people as he rules in glory. But even the most glorious of callings comes with its share of "How long, O Lord" cries. If we forget this when things are dark, and WE'RE the one crying "How long, O Lord?" we're liable to feel like we've somehow wandered off the path of God's will.

The Blessing of a Simple Testimony: A Letter to My Daughter

On Saturday afternoon, we had the great joy of seeing our oldest daughter baptized, and my husband had the great honour of being the one to carry it out. Over the past while, as she was working on writing out her testimony, she expressed the concern that what she had to say about how she came to know Jesus was "boring". Here are my thoughts for her, and for any of you who struggle with the same feeling:

My dear daughter,

I want to say, first of all, how happy your daddy and I are that God has reached into your life and called you to be his own daughter, that he is passing the faith he has given us on to the next generation. It is a joy for us to witness and participate in your baptism, and to call you not only daughter, but now sister as well!

I know that you have struggled with the feeling that your testimony is somehow lacking, somewhat boring. I understand because I, too, have a simple testimony. I remember praying "the sinner's prayer" (many times, actually) at the age of 5 or 6, and I really can't remember a time before that when I did not believe the Word of God and his saving gospel to be true. While I've had struggles (don't we all?!) and times of both lesser and greater growth, I still cannot point to a time in my life when I was not a Christian. And so there have been many times over the course of my life when I've heard or witnessed a testimony that involved great amounts of time and sin and struggle and fireworks, and I've wondered to myself why I couldn't have something more "interesting" to give as an answer to the question, "How did you come to follow Jesus?"