The Miracle of the Moment

Every Sunday morning I publicly gather with other believers.  We break bread together without fear of interruption.  We take hymnals from their places and freely sing hymns of praise to the Rock of our salvation.  We read God’s Word together from all portions of Scripture.  We hear messages that have been prepared beforehand with the help of Biblical study aids.  We do not quietly whisper the gospel or place lookouts at the doors.  We do not use codes to inform the believers of the time and place of worship.  We do not baptize new believers or conduct corporate prayer meetings in secret.

These worship privileges have become common in our everyday North American lifestyle.  We often take them for granted in the same way the Israelites seemed to take manna from heaven for granted.  In our eyes they have lost their miracle status.  Yet, in countries like China, where believers are persecuted for their faith, these privileges are considered miracles.  This is one lesson I learned from Nik Ripken in his book The Insanity of God.  He writes, “The truth is, these things that we take for granted are all miracles!  Chinese house-church believers taught me that.  Their remedial lessons gave me new eyes to see and appreciate the miraculous power of God still present and at work in our world today.”

Chinese house-church believers meet in secret.  They move about from farm to farm and house to house, often at night.  Many house-church leaders are without a complete Bible.  Bibles are torn apart and divided so that each pastor can take home a portion of Scripture to share with his people.  House-churches are also without hymnbooks.  Christian music is absent from the public airways as is any Christian teaching.  Instead the house-church leaders find that they gain their most important theological education while they are in prison.

The Chinese house-churches do see miracles.  They see God’s faithful provision of strength and courage while in prison.  They experience His repeated protection from authorities and His supernatural guidance through dreams and visions.  They witness amazing answers to prayer and their church has grown with new believers.  In fact, at least one hundred million new believers have come to Christ despite fifty years of oppression under communism.  Yet, in comparison to the miracle of religious freedom in North America, the Chinese believers asked, “So tell us, Dr. Ripken, which of these things do you think are the greatest miracles?”  This question humbles me because I realize how much I take for granted, how much I fail to appreciate. 

Ripken ends his book with Samira, a Christian believer out of Islam who was forced to flee her home country.  She worked as a women’s advocate in refugee camps and later, for her own protection, she was relocated to the American Midwest.  She was able to spend a week with the Ripken family and while there she witnessed a public baptism.  She questioned, “Why aren’t all these people standing and cheering and clapping at such a miracle from God?  I think that I am going to burst with joy!  I think that I am going to shout!”

She didn’t shout, but she did see something that we often fail to see.  She saw the miracle of the moment.  She saw the miraculous power of believers in Christ coming together to publicly testify the name of Jesus.  I often miss those moments.  I pray that God would give me new eyes to see the miracles of the moment and greater appreciation for His miraculous power so that I might more freely respond with shouts of praise and thanksgiving. 

The Glory of the Gospel

My daughter recommended a book.  In the book, The Insanity of God, Nik Ripken shares lessons he learned from believers in persecution:  how to follow Jesus, how to love Jesus, and how to walk with Jesus.  In chapter 2 Ripken looks back to his rural Kentucky background.  His parents weren’t churchgoers except for Sundays like Christmas and Easter.  They did, however, faithfully send their children for Sunday school and worship.  This may have been for the free babysitting, but Ripken liked to see his friends and he enjoyed the choir music of the morning worship.

At the age of eleven, Ripken had a significant and personal spiritual experience.  It was an Easter Sunday and the church pews were full.  He remembers that the sun made the stained glass windows of the sanctuary glow with a deeper, richer color than he had noticed before.  The pastor’s message recounted the familiar story of all that had happened to Jesus during the Passover week.  Ripken was drawn into the story.  He absorbed the words.  He writes, “For the first time, I understood something of the price that Jesus paid for the sins of the world, and for me.  .  .  When the preacher finally got to the Easter-morning part of the story – the part about the rolled-away stone, the angel, the empty tomb, and the resurrected Jesus – something deep inside of me wanted to shout right out loud:  Hooray!  I felt like breaking into song just like the crowds in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.”

But as he glanced at the people around him, he saw no difference from other Sunday mornings.  Some children drew or wrote on bulletins; some fidgeted; some appeared lost in their own private daydreams.  Most adults seemed to listen intently, but their faces showed no excitement, no enthusiastic response.  He wanted to shout, “Hey everyone!  Are you listening to this?”  He thought, “How in the world was it that these people managed to get so much more excited about what happened at a high school football field on Friday nights than they did about the resurrection of Jesus at church on Easter Sunday morning?”  He concluded that maybe they had heard the story so many times before that, now, they saw it as  .  .  .  just a story.”

He writes, “I am sure that they believed that it was the truth – but it was truth that had very little to do with real life.  Evidently, it was a story that did not demand much excitement or response.”  As I read those words, I was convicted of my own lack of joyful response to the gospel story.  I have the opportunity to hear that exciting story often, but have I allowed it to become too familiar, to become just a story?  I know it to be true and yet does it still excite me?

I was dead in my trespasses and sin.  I was separated from God.  And the Lord Jesus Christ left the glory of heaven and paid the penalty for my sin with His own precious blood.  I have been saved by grace; it is a gift of God.  But, when I have torn the wrappings off, do I toss the gift aside and move on to other activities or do I contemplate the cost of the gift?  I should ponder it often.  My response should be one of grateful excitement.  Thankfulness should overwhelm me and I should sing praises and shout for joy.  I pray that my response would not be numbed by the futile things of this world, but rather, that the story would remain ever fresh and awe-inspiring, that Jesus’ sacrifice for my sake would never become just a story.

Creative Work

She looks for wool and flax,

And works with her hands in delight.

She is like merchant ships:

She brings her food from afar.

-Proverbs 31:13-14

The Proverbs 31 woman works with her hands.  She looks for wool and flax.  She brings her food from afar.  As I consider these verses, I wonder how they relate to women today.  We don’t usually look for wool and flax as we can buy our clothes already made.  Food from afar requires only a visit to the local grocery store.  The focus must be on the work she does with her hands.  The Hebrew word work that is used here can mean much more than the simple act of labor and toil.  This word work or asah also means to make or to create and it is used in Genesis and the Psalms to portray God’s work of creation as He fashioned the heavens, the sea and dry land, the great lights, the beasts of the earth, and man.

Because we as women have been fashioned in God’s image, we also have a creative nature.  Our creative nature is not on God’s level as Edith Schaeffer reminds us in The Hidden Art of Homemaking.  We are restricted by a finite body and limited resources.  However, we still have the ability to work with our hands and to create and fashion something with delight.  We have the ability to bring forth something that other people can taste, smell, feel, hear, and see.  We have the ability to create a home that is a place of refuge for our own family and for any others that enter its doors.    

Mary Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life created such a home out of an old, neglected house with broken windows and a leaky roof.  She worked with her hands to transform the dilapidated house into a home filled with love.  Real women, single and married, have done the same.  Amy Carmichael made a home for girls rescued from temple prostitution.  Betsy and Corrie ten Boom created a haven of safety for Jews during WWII.  Susanna Wesley created a home for her large family even in the midst of turbulence and tragedy and Caroline Ingalls created homes in many remote places from the big woods to the prairies.  

Many other women whose names do not appear in books have also created homes for those in their care:  homes with the aromas of simmering soups and cut flowers; homes with the welcome of warm hugs and comfy couches; homes with the joy of cheerful music and happy laughter; homes with the beauty of papered walls and coordinated colors; homes with the savor of delicious meals and tasty treats.

Homes are an essential part of life for every human being.  They offer a sense of community and welcome and they provide a place of shelter and refuge.  As T.S. Eliot states, “Home is where one starts from.”  To create a home is a privilege that we as women are given and when we do it willingly with palms that are opened upward with a spirit of offering, it is a source of joy as well, joy for those for whom we create, but joy also for ourselves for it is in giving that we receive. 

She Does Him Good

The heart of her husband trusts in her,

And he will have no lack of gain.

She does him good and not evil

All the days of her life.

-Proverbs 31:11-12

The first verses that describe the Proverbs 31 woman focus on her relationship with her husband.  She does him good.  She is pleasant and cheerful.  She is kind and lovely.  I notice that the definition for good does not include traits like irritable, critical, and exacting.  Instead her spirit is calm, compassionate, and meek.  She has virtue and moral goodness.  Her husband trusts in her.  He trusts her morally.  He also trusts her to build his reputation.  Nancy Leigh DeMoss’ mother modeled this kind of honor for her husband.  Nancy relates, “To this day, I can never remember her speaking negatively about him to us or anyone else.  It’s not that he didn’t have weaknesses and rough edges, but rather that she was scarcely conscious of the negatives because of her deep, genuine admiration for him.”

I am in the midst of studying Titus 2 with the guidance of True Woman 201.  The authors, Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Mary Kassian, point out that four different Greek words are translated “love” in the English language:  storge – familial love; phileo – friendly love; agape – commitment love; eros – sexual love.  They then ask the student to rank these four types of love in order of importance in a good marriage.  I was quick to rank agape #1.  My explanation followed the idea that marriage is not always easy.  My husband does not always do things the way I think is best.  Therefore, I must have agape, a committed love, for my husband.  I noted that phileo love attracted me to my husband, but agape keeps me faithful no matter what.

Imagine my surprise when I turned the page and learned that the actual word Paul used in Titus 2:4 is phileo.  “Older women are to encourage young women to love (phileo) their husbands.”  Phileo the authors write “is often used to describe more of an emotional response.  Phileo means to deeply care about a person, to approve of him, to appreciate him, to welcome him, to treat him with affection.  Agape generally says, ‘I choose to love you,’ whereas phileo says, ‘I deeply like you and enjoy you.’”  The love I am to have for my husband is the love that I had for him when we were first dating, a love that overlooks his faults and imperfections, not because I am committed, but because I deeply like and enjoy him.  The authors directed me to take a moment to reflect and I took many moments. 

It seems much easier to focus on my husband’s weaknesses than to simply enjoy his friendship - to laugh in the midst of a mess, to enjoy the extra time together when he turns down the wrong street, to be grateful for what he did do rather than annoyed for what he didn’t do.  I have reflected and I have practiced – I have simply enjoyed my husband.  And I have discovered an amazing fact:  I have more fun when I enjoy my husband than I do when I focus on the changes I think need to happen.  My husband truly is my best friend.  I must be committed to him but, more importantly, I must delight in him.