“My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip—He who watches over you will not slumber;”

Psalm 121:2,3

As we prepared for our “expulsion journey,” I was worried about the dangerous, three day, arduous drive from our Middle Eastern country to Germany—we had come that way before and knew how difficult it was—and I had to constantly give it over to God.

While struggling with the situation, Psalm 121 came up in my daily reading. The last verse promises, “the LORD will watch over your going out and coming in, both now and forevermore.” He has declared that He will guide us through all circumstances, and this is exactly what I needed to hear at this point.

Looking back on it now, the whole trip was one long demonstration of God’s faithfulness. Most of the road we traveled to Germany was just one lane each way and, being the main route between Europe and the Middle East, was crowded with large trucks. It was a constant game of “catch up and pass:” coming up behind a long line of trucks, then finding opportunity to pass them, often one at a time. Along the sides of the road were wrecks of cars and trucks whose drivers had miscalculated in their attempts to pass, a reminder to be careful.

Since many of the truckers stopped for the night, we decided to continue driving right through until the next day, and made it to Munich by the morning. There we went by the Word of Life castle where Barbara had worked years before and found a reunion of students from her Bible school going on! What a wonderful God sighting, a pleasant gift from the Lord!

Our time in Germany helped us to see more clearly the strain that we are constantly under in our country of work: having to be careful in what we say, write and do, while having so little fellowship. It is a gift to be again with more believers who share our vision. And it confirmed that God was watching over our going out and coming in. His Word is true, His character is pure, His protection is sure. “The LORD will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life…” (Ps. 121:7). We will trust Him for the return trip also.

Prayer: “Praise you, Heavenly Father, for your faithful, constant love. Forgive me for often forgetting your unseen protection. Help me to walk in the certainty that you are my great and powerful Shepherd, protecting, providing and proceeding before us through the day. Thank you for what you will do today. Amen.”

Picture our faithful old car on the trip back to the Middle East

In Psalm 73:21-25 is a description of God’s response to our rebellion. In His love he rebukes and disciplines, revealing to us our sin. As the author of Psalm 73, Asaph, said when God brought him to his senses, “When my heart was grieved, and my soul embittered, I was senseless and ignorant, I was a brute beast before you.”

Even when we are so, God consistently draws us on to repentance: “Yet, I am always with you.”

You, Lord, constantly guide, direct and protect us: “You hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterwards you will take me into glory.” Our future is secure.

And your great love creates in us an ever-deepening response of love for you; as Asaf said: “Whom have I in heaven but you, and earth has nothing I desire besides you”. Praise be to you, Lord Jesus for your great, unquenchable, ever flowing love!

Prayer: “Lord Jesus, develop in me that intense first love for you which the author of Psalm 73 had, so that my passion for you will eclipse all the world has to offer. Amen.”

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

2 Corinthians 1:3,4

This week we have been operating under the “lay aside” plan. That is, the Lord has seen fit to lay us aside so He can have some undistracted time with us. We all have gotten some kind of powerful flu bug, which seems to run 5 to 7 days with fever and great weakness.

As in all things, the Lord is working out several purposes in this. For one thing, our team leader took the two little local girls living with us, which gives us a break. Then, we were able to relax some in the midst of being sick because we can’t possibly be involved in anything outside of surviving.

A more significant reason is that I’ve been too busy with work and have neglected undergirding everything by prayer. Now I’ve been able to spend some good hours in intercession and prayed about some things that have been gnawing at me, but I hadn’t taken to the Lord. What a relief to lift my soul to Him concerning these burdens, getting out the jumble of thoughts and feelings so I could process them in the light of Scripture..

I praise God for His patience and persistence with us. He knows exactly what to do to get our attention and bring correction. And if we don’t pay attention, He will turn up the volume until we do hear. “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Heb. 12:6).

I see how I subtly began to place more emphasis on doing and less on praying. Even though my prayer life was still there, it was not of the over-riding importance that it should always be. Now we have some more days of prayer ahead of us, as we will probably be down for a while longer. But we know, “…this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9).

Prayer: “Lord, help me to always have your perspective on the happenings in life, to praise you in and for all and to cooperate with what you are seeking to accomplish in me. Amen.”

What can we do to nurture, strengthen and deepen our first love for Christ? Here’s what I’ve found effective in rekindling that love.

First, repent: acknowledge that our relationship is not what it should be.

Second, remember: take the time to think about the early days of our walk with Him, the delicious sense of freedom from condemnation, the giddy wonder of having a new start, the soothing warmth of being fully accepted by God.

Third, reveal: practice lifting our souls to God, regularly telling Him honestly what we are thinking (mind), wanting (will) and feeling (emotions), then evaluate these by the Word, surrendering each to Him.

Fourth, rejoice: spend time daily in personal worship, extolling Him for who He is without thinking about how that benefits us. This kind of worship is standing in the light of God, seeing more and more of Him, having sin exposed, being transformed (2 Cor. 3:18), reveling in His love and grace.

As I do this, usually by writing my worship thoughts in my journal, there is continual renewing of my first love, there is a growing passion for Christ—and Barbara can see the difference!

Written in 1980

“The Lord is my shepherd…He leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.”

Psalm 23:1-3a

“What are you doing now?” asked John as I took a clean sheet of paper from my brief case.

“I’m going to make a list of the new words I learned today,” I replied without looking up. “You said that we may be here a long time and I don’t want to waste the hours!”

John smiled and continued his conversation with the policemen who were holding us under arrest.

This was typical of the need to utilize every opportunity for learning the language of our new country. Since there are only four of us in our group, many tasks fall to us that wouldn’t normally be given to language students. Our goal of 6 hours of study a day is rarely met—personally I felt that 3 hours of book study was enough—but the exposure we got through ministry more than made up for the lack of formal study, for we got to learn new words from the myriad of interesting experiences that came each week.

On this particular day, certain grammatical forms and vocabulary were lodged permanently in my mind. For instance, the passive form of the verb “to apprehend or arrest,” was graphically illustrated as the police led us away. We had come to this remote village in the north of the country to give help to poor families. However, since there are rarely any foreigners in the area, the police assumed we must be doing something wrong and arrested us.

We spent several hours in the police station, drinking lots of tea while they investigated our activities. But finding no evidence of wrongdoing, in the end we were released. At that juncture I learned another word meaning “they were embarrassed,” for the police were forced to admit their mistake.

God has a way of guiding and providing for us that is beyond normal human thought. This was language learning at its best, disguised as trouble, which was uncomfortable and disquieting–and would later to lead to bigger difficulties–but was very effective for both language learning and spiritual growth.

The question we always need to ask ourselves is: “Am I willing to look at things from God’s perfect perspective so I can thank Him and take advantage of the opportunity that is offered in my present problem?” Such times are the opportunity to live the truth that “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

Prayer: “Lord, help me to live today in the light of your presence, seeing your gracious working in all that happens. Help me to have a heart that praises without knowing how you are going to work things out. Amen.”