A few days ago, Elise and I took Robert Frost’s advice, and took a road less traveled. As we slogged our way North on I-81, with its frequent stops and stalls, raging roadsters and sixteen-wheeler caravans, we chose to be impetuous: we would drive the entire length of the skyline drive.
High in the Blue Ridge mountains is a 105-mile road that runs the length of Shenandoah National Park. The road rides the ridge like a boat in a storm, one moment deep within a wave of light-sprayed canopies then bursting out into bright skies chasing green valleys, as blue mountains ripple off toward the horizon.
High on the mountain looking down everything shouted life. The bees at work in the flowers emerging from the roadsides. The trees reaching toward the sun. The houses and homes scattered along the valley floors.
At one stop, struck by the brilliance of life and color, one lone tree stood in stark contrast. This tree was afforded incredible privilege on this road: prime real-estate, rich earth, unobstructed by other reaching branches, direct light and rain. And yet, in spite of all its advantage and privilege, it stood there dead and decaying.
Up on the skyline I was raptured by God’s creative power and the beauty of His creation (Psalm 19.1), drawn near by His Spirit to cast all my care before His everlasting throne (1 Peter 5.7). High on that ridge, I was devastated that even there, it was possible to miss what God is doing right before our eyes.
A Place of Becoming
On the mountaintops of our spiritual life we can still miss the voice of God. Like Elijah, we search the earthshaking events of our lives, the strong winds and fires (1 Kings 19.11-13). Why? Because on other mountains we’ve seen God rain down fire (1 Kings 18). We’ve seen Him arrayed in splendor (Mark 9.2-8). We’ve seen the earth split at His command (Numbers 16). We’ve walked behind His manifest presence in a pillar of cloud (Exodus 14). We love these experiences because they are so explicit and unmistakeable. We long for the charismatic, profound and immersive experiences of God’s presence because they reveal the grandeur of the God we are so desperate for in our journey.
On the mountaintop God can speak through the storm and call through the fire. Along the shore He can part the waters and echo His will through the waves. Yet at other times, as we stand beneath the skyline, He whispers to us in a voice still and small. A voice easily missed in the everyday.
This is the road less traveled that makes all the difference. In the words of Jerry Sittser, “Who we choose to become and how we choose to live everyday creates a trajectory for everything else. Perhaps that is why the Bible says so little about God’s will for tomorrow and so much about what we should do to fulfill his will today.”
Although I met with God on the skyline drive I am not being called to make it my residence, to build a little lean-to shack and wait for the next grand moment of transfiguration. I must follow the same Christ I served going up the mountain back down into needs of the people waiting below (Mark 9.14-29). Staying there would lead me to the same fate as that dead tree.
To Stay or Go
Why are we as people so prone to stay? What is it that keeps us clinging to the mountaintops or rooted in past experiences, rather than following Jesus further on the journey?
How often do we take root in our pain, digging our heels into the earth of our discomfort. These wounds lead to cynicism which scar our faith and stunt our growth. Our souls become like that dead tree high atop the skyline drive. Why do we stay? Why do we root ourselves to cynical decay? “Cynicism,” Jeannie Allen writes, “is always driven by fear of the future or by anger regarding the past. Either we’re afraid of something that might never occur or we project something that has occurred on all the days that are to come.”
Ultimately, undealt with fear and anger will go with us wherever we go. They will stay where we stay and hitch a ride on our backs into pilgrimage. If we let them, fear and anger will leech on us in the desert and the promised land leading us to either die in the wilderness or be carried into exile.
To Hear and Know
This makes the words of David’s psalm all the more meaningful. In Psalm 143 David is pouring out his soul before the Lord. In his pray he recognizes his shortcomings, his exhaustion and his need. David is crying out to God, as if he were tossing back and forth on a makeshift bed in a dark cave, waiting for the relief of dawn.
David’s prayer in verse 8 is simple and sage: cause me to hear, cause me to know. “Cause me to hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Cause me to know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.” The Psalmist understood that whether in the valley of the shadow of death or the heights of mount Zion it is the love of God that brings the bright joy of morning after the long nights of despair. Beneath the skyline of God’s matchless love, he seeks God’s love and guidance.
As Elise and I, along with our troop of children, prepare to fly back to Senegal in a few days, we pray this prayer once again. Lord, cause us to hear your love and know your path. We lift our souls and all the concerns that seek to weigh us down before you.
Whether on the Blue Ridge Mountains or the plateau of Dakar, God is leading. Are we following? Jesus is speaking life. Are we listening? His Holy Spirit is moving among us, promising redemption and transformation in exchange for our bitter roots and stubborn decay. Today are we willing to yield our lives to His healing? Are we willing to share that good news with others?
riverwash
Submerged in a rush of water,
Immersed by an encompassing cold,
Sharp against the humid heat above.
Gone, the tropic green and piercing blue canopy.
Deep in the spinning flood,
Spun up by swimming souls,
Sunbeams descending like veins of lightning through cloudy water.
Near, the beating rhythm of soap and stone.
Cloth sharply folded in on itself,
Beating stains against wet rocks in the flowing stream,
As mothers wash and children play.
One by one they all go home,
Shivering in the chill of a setting sun.
Adventuring in Africa
This year I set my feet on a new adventure. I am visiting all the countries across the continent of Africa. Yes, every single one. So far, I’ve been back to Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania and the DRC. I’ve also a ventured through the borders of Algeria, Egypt Sierra Leone and South Africa.
You may be asking yourself, “How is that possible with closed borders and global confusion?” Books, my friend. Books. Who better to guide me into the history of Ethiopia than to see it through the eyes of Maaza Mengiste? Who could show me a clearer picture of apartheid than reading Cry, the Beloved Country?
Over the next two years I hope to read a book from each country by an African writer, to submerge myself in their narratives and prose to better see the continent I love.
While visiting the great island of Madagascar I encountered a new proverb: “In the washhouse, the clothes leave with their owner, the soap with the river water, and the rock remains.”
Those words sent me spinning back into my own island childhood. Playing in murky rivers with other African children, downstream from the sound and presence of mothers cleaning cloths against the rocks.
We would dive down into the stream unsettling dirt, with our eyes open into the tan haze of cloudy water, searching for the feel of cold, grey stones beneath or feet. In the soapy, muddy water we couldn’t tell who was white or black. We were children at play.
On the way home, refreshed and shivering from the river we would stop and eat beignets stained purple from being fried in palm oil. The heat warming us in each bite.
Looking around me at the pain, the cries for justice, the generations stained by growing prejudice, I find myself longing for those river rocks. Rocks that withstand the dirt and grime, they release the soap and sorrow into the river.
Venturing Toward Community
Jean Vanier believes, “There are three activities that are absolutely vital in the creation of community. The first is eating together around the same table. The second is praying together. And the third is celebrating together.
So often we turn ministry upside down. Whether its the swirling chaos of life or the difficulties of community around us too frequently—with altruistic purposes— we up-end the gospel into manageable and measurable to-do lists. We try and track our output in numerics. We invest ourselves in an ideology and cement ourselves to the spot. We beat our dirty clothes against dry, desert rocks (Psalm 1271-2).
In our attempts to do ministry we circumvent the flow of the Holy Spirit that is directing us toward Christ and others. In our best efforts we sit down to eat alone with empty hands.
Reflecting on urban ministry, Mark Gornik illuminates the common assumption that ministry “is first of all what we do: an action or strategy we take, a program we lead, a church we start, a particular word we have to share, or a special place of need to which we must go.” How sorrowful if this is the foundation of ministry and not “waiting on the Spirit, being ready to notice what God is already doing, and then finding ways to join in with our unique gifts and callings.”
Have we forgotten what it felt like as a child to jump deep into the flowing water? To feel the cold water immerse our small frames and feel its pressure on our ears. To hear the rhythms of a new world around us and feel our hearts beating against our eardrums.
How can we celebrate together, like boisterous children in a river, if we cannot hear the heart of God beating against our eardrums? How can we pray together, if we have not set together in fellowship, breaking bread and reflecting on Christ?
To truly be the community of Christ we must move from our desert outposts toward where His river is flowing into the nations, placing our lives once more in his hands and rejoicing as He washes away our sin, our misconceptions and failures, preconceived notions and prejudices. In Africa our tribalism often gets in the way of our witness. Is America any different?
Lord, forgive our sin. May the stains of our past leave with your everlasting river so that together we may see that the rock of our salvation remains (Ezekiel 47; 1 Samuel 2.2).
a face to face legacy
Have you ever noticed how much of normal life is spent interacting with others?
We order coffee, standing across a counter from a barista, face to face. We stand on the far side of a conveyor built as the groceries troop toward the scanner and the waiting hands of a cashier, face to face. We check in for a flight, face to face. We can experience the joy of getting a moving citation for driving too fast, face to face.
Our face to face encounters are so ubiquitous they can easily become mundane. In those moments as we go about our days at the store, on the street, and yes, even getting our speeding violations, we become numb to eternity beating behind in other’s eyes. We live our lives face to face and unaware.
But every once and a while we have a meeting with someone that gives us pause. We brush with celebrity, or meet a hero.
Back in college one assignment required for our class was to interview a retired missionary. The teacher handed out names and contact information to us, one by one. I looked at my card to find a name I’d grown up hearing: J. Philip and Virginia Hogan.
I called and spoke with Virginia and set a time to come visit them at their home. The day came and my friend Jimmy and I walked up to their door. I could hardly contain my excitement and nervousness. I was about to meet two living legends face to face!
The Hogans in 1945
Philip and Virginia Hogan
Phil and Virginia had met at the same Bible school I was attending. They shared a passion for ministry. As a child she’d felt God calling her to China. At one point, Phil worried his calling to pastoral ministry and affection could never outweigh Virginia’s calling to the unreached peoples of the East. But as they served in American churches the Lord was stirring his heart and opening a door for them to the far East.
They boarded a westward bound ship in 1947, but before the end of 1949 with their heads spinning, they were on their way back to America. For two years they served the people of China face to face. They loved the people of China for a lifetime.
Closed doors test us. They challenge us, taunt us to react. What would Philip and Virginia do while they waited for the door to reopen to China? They returned to the United States and pastored a church until a new position was created at the sending base in Springfield, Missouri to mobilize the call of God for a new generation of missionaries to reach the unreached around the world. Never able to permanently return to the country of their calling they set their hearts toward reaching all peoples.
Philip Hogan served 30 years as the director of a growing, innovative and vibrant missionary effort across the globe. And here I was, a young college student sitting face to face with a couple that saw millions meet Christ through their lives. It was hard to fathom the influence he’d had on my life. My heroes, like J.W. Tucker and Lillian Thrasher who poured their lives out serving God in Africa, served under his direction. My parents were approved to see Equatorial Guinea transformed under his leadership.
And just as if they were a long-lost aunt and uncle, they invited me into their home. They shared their lives. They shared successes and failures. They’re voices rang with passion for the peoples of China. They openly discussed errors they made along the way. Their generosity and candor were overwhelming.
To this day I remember walking out of their home in the spring 2002 with my heart reverberating in my chest. A few months later Philip went to be the Lord. And now, as I write this in the spring of 2020, Virginia joined him, passing from this world into the presence of their Lord Jesus.
Never underestimate the power of a written record of faith acting as a spiritual time capsule.
- Donald Whitney
A Living Legacy in Time
Donald Whitney said it best. “Never underestimate the power of a written record of faith acting as a spiritual time capsule.”
Philip and Virginia left behind them a living legacy of testimonies and triumphs, of obedient hearts set toward Christ and a generation of men, women and children who shaped the world.
Hogan’s word written in 1972 are prophetic for our time: “We are not the designers of history. You and I cannot choose the moment God would thrust us into the drama of the ages.”
In this 2020 time of isolation and social distance, we’re reminded of the immeasurable potential of life lived face to face. What compares to seeing life through someone else’s eyes; experiencing the rich tapestry of their lives, sorrows and joys colored in tears? Nothing is quite like the unique blessing of life together.
I pray that we can see what an incredible gift this season of silence and solitude can be, if we willingly embrace the quietness of our souls and lean closer to hear the voice of God, where we feel His presence and see Him face to face.
This season can be the reset, a restart where we re-fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith. This can be the time we re-orient our drifting and distracted service for God back to Christ-centered worship. This season can be a recall, a reshaping opportunity, to reorganize our opportunities and goals as beloved stewards of Christ’s calling.
Your Spiritual Legacy
Someday we will see Jesus face to face! What a joy for those of us who are in Christ Jesus, redeemed in His love and transformed in His Spirit. Phil and Virginia are already there before the throne. I’m sure they are standing shoulder to shoulder with generations of men and women from China, as wells as countless other tribes reached by their obedient stewardship of Christ’s commission.
Friend, what is your spiritual time capsule from 2020 going to look like? What is the living testimony you will pass on to future generations hidden within the pages of this year? Can you see the men and women you loved through prayer and witness into Christ’s kingdom? Can you even begin to fathom the generations of men and women from every tribe, people and language you will meet before the throne, because of your generous missions giving at your local church?
May we live our lives face to face, aware of the rich potential of every moment. May we see through the mundane to the extraordinary. May we see Jesus and radiate His love into the lives everyone we meet, face to face.
a hobbit's tale
I don’t know about you but my life has felt a lot like Bilbo Baggins’ lately. Beyond the basic similarities (short, stout, a homebody with a little too much toe hair), this season feels very much like a wild journey to there and back again.
Daphne is reading The Hobbit for her English class and that inspired me to dust off my copy and bring it along with us to the Gambia. How very apropos. I sat on the smiling coast as the comfortable Mr. Baggins had his world, ever so subtly, turned upside down. He was no longer in the shire, calm, green and relaxed. He found himself on an unanticipated adventure, dodging trolls and escaping goblins. In the dark depths of a mountain cave gone were the normal life experiences, as he pocketed a small, seemingly insignificant ring.
I’ve been wondering if while Tolkien penned his adventure the words of the Teacher ever echoed in his mind: “For certainly no one knows his time: like fish caught in a cruel net or like birds caught in a trap, so people are trapped in an evil time as it suddenly falls on them,” (Ecclesiastes 9.12).
One day we are moving through the paces of life with tea and sympathy in the shire, and the next the whole world is cautiously searching for the way out of the dark and endless mountain tunnels. And yet, of all the adventurers passing through the mountain paths only one emerged with a treasure. Only one came through with the ring that would determine the rest of the story.
What always stands out to me in the depths of the Misty Mountains is how accidentally Bilbo was separated from the others. Knocked down and out, his story diverged from the rest as he was left in a dark world with no way forward. In times like these, shrouded in the unknown when, in the words of Lin-Manuel Miranda, “when you're in so deep it feels easier to just swim down.”
In times like these we have no way to say which way is up, which way is out. We don’t have the path or the answer.
The Surprise of Finding More
Right now all of us are prayerfully searching for our next step in the dark. What a blessing! In times like these, when all we have left is our blind faith, not only does God lead us toward our next step, but we can discover more in our journey. More than just a stay-at-home order but a blessing of friendship and family. More than just a gollum in the shadows but a ring. In blind faith we find more.
More than just quarantines and tiger kings. More than sheltering in place and aimless waiting. More than mere social distancing and anxiety. In the dark unknown where our faith is pressed against the wall we can find a crucible for our souls and renewed purpose for our lives.
In the dark unknown
where our faith is pressed against the wall we can find a crucible for our souls and renewed purpose for our lives.
Friend, this time can be more. It can be the solitude and solidarity with Christ our souls hunger for. A season not marred by fear but marked by faith because He is our God and He is our strength (Isaiah 41.10). This strange time can be the silence we need. A quiet space where we cease to be conformed by the misshapen world around us and slowly become mentally transformed into the likeness of Christ (Romans 12.2). These lost days can be a family pilgrimage where we learn to walk as He walked (1 John 2.6).
The Way of a Family
By now it should be no surprise to you that I love symbols and sacraments. I love to see mysteries unfold out of the mundane. Like the body and blood of Jesus in bread and wine. Like the death and resurrection found in the waters of baptism. Like the shell on the pilgrim’s path.
Every time our family ventures out to the beach we come back with pockets filled with all kinds of shells. We make them into art, jewelry and decorations around the house. There is something beautiful about shells, especially scallop shells.
Scallop shells for centuries have served as symbols for men and women on pilgrimage. So while we were in the Gambia I took the family to the beach to hunt for shells. I wanted us to take fun pictures with them as we walked with Jesus through the Holy Week.
How much more meaningful those shells became as our adventure took on a greater, more global, ambiguity. Far from home but not lost. Blind in the dark but not sightless. Pilgrims on the way. Our little African shells are now on an adventure home, displaced and yet hopeful, in the unknown yet knowing that God is doing a work in our pilgrim hearts.
If you are feeling this way today rest assured you are not alone. We are walking with you. And take comfort. We are not the first to walk these mountain paths.
Far from home
but not lost. Blind in the dark but not sightless. Pilgrims on the way.
From There and Back Again
Jesus was no stranger to the dust of the pilgrim’s path or global events.
Before he was born Jesus was carried in his mother’s womb down to Zechariah and Elizabeth’s home in Judea (Luke 1.39), and Caesar Augustus’ decree set off an empire-wide adventure that shook up the entire Roman world (Luke 2.1-5). About the time Jesus would have been toddling and forming simple phrases he was swept up once again by his parents for his first international road trip (Matthew 2.13-15). His childhood was spent as a stranger in a strange land, a refugee awaiting the day his family could return to their homeland.
Did Joseph and Mary ever wonder, “How did we end up here? How long will this time last? When will this road home lead us home?” Do you find yourself asking the same questions? Take heart, you aren’t where you are by accident.
Mary and Joseph did not journey empty handed. Their bags had treasures whose purpose were not yet clear. Those costly gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh surely came in handy setting up their new life in Egypt, but the richest depths of their meaning were still obscured by time (Matthew 2.11).
Their family pilgrimage was just beginning. The long unseen road still lay ahead.
Toward Transformation
Friend, we are all making our way through this misty mountain together, but let us not miss the gold ring that awaits us on the journey. What was God speaking to your heart before this season began? What was the seed His Spirit planted that you now have dedicated time to cultivate?
I won’t begin to say that we will understand everything that is happening right now, as a world, as a people, as a family. But perhaps, if we trust and believe, we will find in our next steps, not only the gold we easily recognize, but also rich spice for our worship and aromatic resin for guidance as Jesus directs our lives toward the cross.
If we are faithful in this pilgrimage now, investing in the gifts He is giving us, we will be better equipped and prepared than ever before to see this world increasingly redeemed and transformed! And what a joy we don’t walk this road alone! What a joy that we are on this adventure together! Here’s to the next step!
furnace of transformation
A few weeks ago the world felt like a different place.
Two weeks ago Elise and I packed up the kids, with a week’s worth of clothes and a few books mixed into each bag, for a family trip to the Gambia.
My work had brought me here last fall when I taught through the Torah at the Bible school. We had planned, even before our return to Africa that I would come back in March, with Easter on the horizon, to walk the students through the Gospels. What could be better than that!
Because the kids’ spring break overlapped with the weeks I was scheduled to teach we would travel as a family, overland across the land border near the Senegambia bridge. Then, we could spend our days as a family exploring and enjoying the green beauty of the smiling coast before I put on my work hat to teach each evening. This would be a trip our kids would never forget!
We finished the first unit of the course when all schools were closed across the nation. Sunday morning I preached on trusting God, and before the day was over the borders between Senegal and the Gambia were closed.
Needless to say, it was time to wash our clothes, buy more groceries and see if we could extend our stay in the apartment we’d rented for our two weeks here (thankfully, they were able to accommodate and even give us a “Corona Discount”) and trust in God.
In one week, our lives went from global interaction to life in careful quarantine. On the Smiling Coast of Africa we had finally joined the rest of the world in isolation. In many ways it feels like humanity overnight stumbled down a rabbit hole from the vibrant and kinetic and crowded life of our beloved Africa to a monastic family life of solitude and silence.
Like you, I am left wondering, what should I be learning from this season? What is God saying to me, to you, to His Church?
Finding Clarity in Solitude
So often we pace our lives at breakneck speeds.
For the past several months since we returned to Africa we have been preaching and teaching in churches and Bible schools here in Senegal and the Gambia. For seven months we have been in a construction project without stop. We spent weeks setting up our lives, moving and unpacking, repacking and moving.
When we live fast the idea of slowing down to listen to the voice of God seems counterproductive. “Surely, we should keep moving this fast,” we say, “we are living like this in service to God!” It becomes easier for us to gain wisdom and advice from spiritual mentors and leaders than to still our hearts and listen for the voice of God ourselves.
In our rush we put the cart before the horse and are some how surprised when things flip upside down. Emily Freeman says, “While it’s true we often need teachers and mentors to help us take our next right step, my tendency is to rush to other voices before I’ve taken the time to listen to my own voice as it is united with the voice of God. I’ve learned the importance of crafting a vision, or a bigger purpose, in solitude and silence first, then finding the teachers who can help me implement that vision with a plan.”
Even before we packed up for this indefinite adventure I felt this trip to the Gambia was going to be one that brought clarity to our lives and ministry. If anything, it is a wonderful and painful opportunity to find clarity in solitude with Christ, trusting in the God who loves us.
Experiencing Authenticity in Silence
Solitude creates space that normal life cannot. Normal life, with all its built-in comforts and conforming regularity, forces us to cover up our rough edges and leave our motivations unexplored. Normal life pushes us to bulldoze the red flags into the trembling earth of our souls in endless striving.
But solitude, in the words of Ruth Haley Barton, enables us “to experience a place of authenticity within and to invite God to meet us there. In solitude we are rescued from relentless human striving to solve the challenges of ministry through intellectual achievements and hard work, so that we can experience the life of the Spirit guiding toward that true way…”
When we are unable to maintain the pace of normal life, the weeds across the torn up fields of our souls begin to spring back up, revealing the detritus of our lives. Solitude with the Holy Spirit enables us to begin pulling out the weeds by the root and plant new, life-giving seeds.
Solitude reveals our need for Jesus to enter into our redeemed lives and transform us more and more each day. And this solitude is not isolated to the Gambia or Gainesville. Solitude with Christ can happen in Washington DC and Ouagadougou.
Solitude as the Furnace of Transformation
Friend, I have come to see this season, with all its fears and unknowns, ups and downs as a blessing because in the time of quarantines and travel restrictions, I am driven more and more into solitude and meaningful ministry with my family.
I understand all the more what Henri Nouwen meant when he said solitude is “the furnace of transformation,” as I turn my trust increasingly away from humanity and back to the Father (Jeremiah 17.5-10). I feel the incredible and refining hand of Jesus as He searches my decisions and tests my emotions.
We have been given a gift of fiery solitude. A time to slow down and get real. True, a few months ago the world stumbled into this different place, a generation defining moment. Can you imagine how we will walk out of this furnace if the Church will lean deeply into the presence of Jesus?
a betrayal of accents
Have you ever been in a new place, walking in a strange land, wading through a different culture with the slightest sense that you are blending in? You’ve done your homework. You’re dressed like the people on the street. Your tone and gait aren’t that distinct. And then the inevitable happens: you speak.
The last time we were in France we were making our way through the city incognito. Just a couple of Europeans-about-town, and then we needed a taxi. The driver looked at me with a look of paralyzed confusion as I told him where we needed to go. Seeing his wheels turning I finally said, “I’m from Africa.” It was an instant “lightbulb” moment! The accent he expected never came and the one that did he would never have expected. My accent betrayed me.
Working cross-culturally we all strive to lose our accents, those distinguishing marks on our loaned language. We spend countless hours on parsing and vocabulary but then spend a lifetime trying to use them in the same way as the people we’ve come to serve. We fear that our message will get lost in the slip of vowel or the truncated consonant. We listen to a sound over and over again painfully aware that our mouths will never be able to mimic it perfectly. Our accents betray us.
An encouraging reality is that accents aren’t new. People have been struggling with accents as long as multiple languages have crisscrossed the globe. I think part of our fear is because accents often serve as cultural shibboleths (Judges 12.6). They negatively signal our “otherness” and create linguistic demarcation lines where we are left as aliens, suspect and strange. Our accents betray us.
Peter sat in the courtyard of the high priest as Jesus was judged (Matthew 26.58). They vaguely recognized him as being with Jesus from Galilee. They told one another, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” And with each accusation, Peter’s own accent testified against him. They said, “Certainly you too are one of [his disciples], for your accent betrays you,” (Matthew 26.73). Peter’s strong Galilean accent stood in stark contrast to the Judeans that filled the courtyard.
Even after he was restored in Jesus’ grace and mercy (John 21.15-17) Peter’s accent never changed. His Greek was rough and twisted (just try reading the letter of 2 Peter!) but in every misshapen phrase and mispronounced word was the accented voice of a man who had been with Jesus.
Peter preached in Jerusalem in his rough fisherman’s brogue and saw the Holy Spirit breathe revival (Acts 2). He stumbled his way through chicken-scratch Greek in the home of Cornelius and saw the nations invited into redemption and transformation (Acts 10)!
For the rest of his life, as Peter journeyed through the nations, his accent testified that he had been with Jesus. Can the same thing be said about us? When we speak, do our forms and phrases reveal a proximity to Jesus that speak louder than our split infinitives and awkward conjugation?
Even if our accents never improve, may our ever-increasing love for Jesus as His Spirit’s transforming power is at work in our lives reverberate into the lives of those God our Father places around us.
May our accents betray that we’ve been with Jesus.
army of 800
Have you ever felt the seasons break dramatically? One day you’re wearing shorts and the next day you’re searching for a parka! The winds shift and the seasons change. Sometimes a single day can start in heavy snow and end with a summer’s breeze. The end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 was that dramatic for me.
2019 brought with it the culmination of countless personal goals. There were so many things I wanted to accomplish before I turned forty and it seemed like the horizon shrank before my eyes. Things that were a far way off at 30 are now in my rearview mirror.
I had so many goals for the 2010s! I wanted to complete a master’s degree in intercultural studies to strengthen my interactions with the incredible men and women Elise and I have the privilege to work with. I wanted to read 1000 books. I wanted to write my first book before turning 40 (which now sits alongside other works of academia in the SAGU library). I wanted to teach in three African bible school in three different language (yes, that different language this time was English!). I wanted to crossover the decades, like I’ve done every decade since 1989-1990, in my beloved Africa.
So many milestones, so many multi-year goals. All completed. It left me with a sense of accomplishment, but it also left me asking, “What’s next?” These were my “Before 40” goals but I’ve got time before March 2022. I still have time in the gap.
As I prayed, I sat with 26 months in my hands, the hourglass of 116 weeks left before my fourth decade begins. What I found is an army of 800. 800 days. The potential of 800 mornings ready for worship. The endless possibility of 800 evenings to sit with my children.
In those 800 days our oldest will cross into her teenage years, with the other three fast on her heels. In those 800 days there are old languages that need to be fortified and new languages to be learned. In those 800 days there are new bible school students to mentor. In those 800 days there are new churches waiting to be planted and new relationships to be formed.
In those 800 days will be suffering. Days when it will be hard to get out of bed. In those 800 days there will be rejoicing. Nights when the singing and celebration echo the heavens. In this 800 days, some days will fall, fail to live up to their promise, but behind them are still new days awaiting the dawn, a phalanx of Fridays awaiting the Sabbath.
Dreaming about the next 800 days I found myself drinking in Jesus’ answer to the expert in the law, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself,” (Luke 10.27).
In 26 months will I be able to say that I stewarded each day well, with their potential for spiritual, academic, and physical growth? Will my family and my community be closer to God because of my obedience to steward the blessing I bear in the time set before me? As I set new goals are they saturated in purpose and praise?
We can set goals and walk out the steps of our dreams for the future, but in the journey let’s not lose focus on the rich potential of today. Tomorrow is not promised to us (James 4.13-14) and our yesterdays have past. What will we do with today, this single soldier standing before us?
The winds are shifting. Are we ready?
God is love
God is love.
Have you heard those words from John the Apostle lately? God is love (1 John 4.8). Those words make us smile, make us fall silent, make us tremble. They fill us with wonder and draw us with every syllable to search out their meaning. It raises up the praise from our lungs, “Jesus is Lord!” and
God is love.
Deep down many of us know this truth. We know that John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, speaks from a rich personal experience of the Father’s love (1 John 4.9). The Father loved him so much He sent Jesus to find him on the shore while he was mending his nets (Matthew 4.21). And like the Father sent Jesus, He is sending us to all nations (John 20.21). Why? Because
God is love.
We can see it in his every word, every action, every letter. John’s life was forever marked by the love of God. It is in the looking back over this decade and seeing the hand of God leading us through our own ups and downs, highs and lows. In 2009 Elise and I were still healing from the loss of our child through miscarriage and the joys in the birth of our beautiful baby girl, Daphne. In 2019 we are rejoicing in the birth of new churches in a country that a decade ago wasn’t even on our radar! How can we begin to worship and adore Him? There is one clear place to start:
God is love.
His love reminds me of the testimony of a new believer waist deep in a river standing by my father preparing for baptism. Looking up the crowds along the banks with a passion and a purpose he shouted, “I believe! I have seen it! It is true!”
God is love.
Even still there is a danger that when we hear something over and over again, the words begin to lose their meaning. And worse still, when words begin to lose their meaning our application of those words become misguided. If God is love, and we have experienced His love, then surely it will impact our lives and the lives of those He places around us! It will send us out, pressing deeper and deeper into the darkness in search of the lost.
God is love.
And we must let Him define His nature. God’s love is patient and kind, bearing all things, believing all things and hoping in all things (1 Corinthians 13.4-7) His love is patient, something our generation needs to embrace. To love as God loves we must define patience in His terms: being slow to anger and long in suffering. We desperately long for God’s love to be this in our lives, but how much more difficult does it become when we think of others. The people who need our patient love the most deserve it the least! Those others who don’t look the way we look, don’t speak the same language we do or even don’t vote the way we vote! And don’t even get started talking about those who don’t believe as we believe! They strip Jesus of His divinity, like the Roman’s beside His cross and like Peter we violently rise to His defense! How could we even begin to love those that persecute and martyr our spiritual family around the world?! And still those words echo out again and again…
God is love.
We say, “Lord, I’m happy to love my neighbor, but surely that can’t apply to my enemy!” And in his love, his long-suffering, slow-to-anger love, Jesus says to us again, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:44-45).
God is love.
Thank you for letting our family serve as your personal link from the local church to the unreached! Thank you for partnering with us in prayer-filled time and generously-given treasure so that we can live among the lost in unreached nations. We rejoice that you have experienced the love of God and have passionately sent us and so many others around the world to proclaim
God is love.
a shell in the concrete
I don’t know if you’ve ever walked through a construction zone but they can sometimes be tricky to read. I’ve come to believe that architecture is its own kind of language.
Growing up around construction I look at it a little differently than most people. My childhood was marked by cement bricks and rebar, pouring foundations and laying tile. I have to really press my mind to remember a time when Dad wasn’t building a church here or there, reinforcing this or developing that. Interspersed with my recollections of swimming in the ocean and flying to boarding school are memories of digging gravel and shoveling sand for a hundred different construction projects.
Since we’ve been home in Senegal, Elise and I have been elbow-deep in serving our team in construction. Our new house has a small one bedroom way-station apartment that our team has joyously outgrown. When teams visit from America, or one of our families working far off comes through Dakar, we find ourselves bursting at the seams. And so it seems that our new wine needs new wineskins (Mark 2.22).
To expand our little hummingbird of a guesthouse required us to channel our inner Chip Gaines and smash through walls, run new electrical and move water pipes. And, as will always be the case when dealing with past construction, the more we opened the more surprises we discovered. Beams that needed replacing, walls that need reinforcing, doors that needed raising…
As one of our teammates walked through the controlled chaos of what at one time was a living room, she said, “It’s like a tornado came through!”
That’s the wonderful pain of growth. That’s the joyous challenge of change. We all want a stronger future, a solid framework for our lives, but in pressing forward we sometimes have to take a sledgehammer to our lives.
Benoit, my dearest friend here in Senegal called me last week letting me know that he’s been asked by the national church leadership to take the pastorate of a church four hours in-country. My heart rejoices in the security and new opportunities for my friend, but my heart grieves in the distance it creates. Our time in the States built an anticipation to get back in the trenches with him here in Dakar. I just dedicated their firstborn son they named after me. We’ve sharpened one another and challenged one another (Proverbs 27.17). Could I even begin to count the hours we’ve prayed and planned together? And in a moment, I’m now planning to drive them to their new home in a few days.
It is so easy for us, once we see the first chunks of concrete break off the wall or hit the first setback, to say, “Maybe we don’t need to do too much. Maybe we should just patch that up and keep things the way they’ve always been.” But when we do that we miss the hidden joys that breakout in our pain and the growth we never thought was possible.
How wonderful to know that our Lord has a plan for Benoit and his family, filled to overflowing with hope and a future (Jeremiah 29.11), What great joy to believe that His ways are higher than mine (Isaiah 55.8-9). The best I have for my friend is like a small, outdated, one bedroom apartment when our Father, who gives gifts from his abundance, has so much more for him (Matthew 7.11).
High on the pile of discarded rubble that we once called an apartment wall that stood for sixty years I found a shell in the concrete. Somehow, in the midst of the mixing, grated against gravel and course sand, a whole shell snuck its way into our old construction. There, in the dirt and dust of the past was a shell, a symbol of pilgrimage itself, just for me.
As great as our vision is for Senegal, God’s vision is far beyond our wildest thoughts or imaginations! As incredible as our aspirations for a life-giving, rapidly multiplying church network in Dakar is, it pales to the future and hope God has laid up for the future. Jesus is ready to take the water of our obedience and pour out the richest wine of God’s abundance (John 2.1-11).
I pray that today you will see God’s hand working in your life. And I pray that together, as we follow Jesus on this pilgrimage of obedience, we will see shells in the concrete that promise an increasingly redeemed and transformed Africa!
the great humbling
We all need a good humbling now and again.
Recently I’ve been walking through the life of Job (and man, if that doesn’t knock the wind out of you!). His friends were no help as he struggled to keep his head above water. He was isolated and alone.
I think we’ve all probably felt like that at one point or another. Living at the speed of life can be overwhelming. For Elise, the kids and I its been amazing and overwhelming to be back in Senegal, slowly catching our rhythm. At times it feels like we’re jumping onto a treadmill set to full-speed!
In the last few weeks since we’ve landed back in Senegal, we’ve moved into a new house, started reconstruction on the apartment to host short term teams, and even wrestled with the rain. We’ve also visited several pastors and friends, scheduled a few courses to teach at the Bible school, preached a few times, and come up for air once or twice too.
The other morning I sent an email to check on the status of getting our container out of the port and then received a surprising phone call two seconds later saying it was on its way to the house! Praise the Lord! The workmen at the guesthouse as well as a few co-workers helped us unload all 20 square feet of furniture, family books and belongings, as well as the amazing Africa’s Hope resources for the Bible school!
At times like these when life is rushing at me I like to slow down, to set my present into the continuum with the past and the future. To the humbling times of prayer and worship where the Father spent aligning our spirits with His.
Back in college, as Elise and I were studying for ministry, I loved to sit right behind an elder missionary who had lost his wife and children in Iran. What a humbling experience to worship with that brother who sacrificed all in pursuit of His calling. Every time we sang It is Well with My Soul his arms would slowly rise and I would have to stop singing. I couldn’t catch my breath.
Just before we left the states a few weeks ago, Elise and I worshiped with dear friends of ours from Northeastern Africa. Not long ago he spent a month in prison in our former hometown. We celebrated the goodness of God together! How do you classify experiences like that? How do you quantify the joy of embracing dear friends and extolling the name of the Lord together?
Last year, Elise, the kids and I, had the humbling privilege of worshiping with brothers and sisters across the United States! We lifted our hands and voices together with untold thousands walking through all kinds of experiences, good, bad and ugly. In all, with our eyes fixed on Jesus, we surrounded ourselves in that great cloud of witnesses and trusted in the love of the Father. What a privilege to “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” together (Hebrew 12.1)!
If we had the opportunity to worship with you this year, thank you! Thank you for the privilege to stand shoulder to shoulder with you before our great and awesome King! And now, we are back in Senegal, with our family here. We humbly rejoice that we are your personal link from the local church to the unreached. We celebrate that in the years to come we will see new men, women and children meet with Christ and join the chorus.