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What a change you are bringing in my being through memorizing and meditating on your Word, Lord, especially Psalms 18, 34, 37, 62 and 86. This is certainly a foretaste of heaven as you bring me out into an ever more spacious place, into growing freedom, into a greater joy. Glory be to you for these changes that carry me forward in every area of my life.

I praise you for what you are going to do today, Lord, as you orchestrate the flow of events, protecting me from evil and exposing me to the challenges as you know are best for me.

I praise you for the negative feelings that may come: frustration, a sense of uselessness, failure in my plans, anger, impatience and a feeling of worthlessness. Each of these is an opportunity to replace these feelings with Truth, to surrender to you, to get up the shield of faith and quench the fiery darts of the evil one, a chance to use negatives as a stimulus to respond with a positive that I’ve memorized from your Word, to be a glory-giver rather than a glory-stealer.

Before anything happens today, I give you glory for it now, Lord Jesus, trusting in your Great, Good, Glorious and Gracious character to bring what is best.

 

As I continue to memorize and meditate on your rich and powerful Word, Lord, you continue to transform my being.

There is a growing grasp of your great supply of significance and honor, poured out upon me every day. This is part of an ongoing, deep, transformation that flows from basking in the truth, listening to Scripture telling me that

— I am yours (Eph 1:3-10),

–that I am with you, treasured by you,

–delighted in by you (Psalm 18),

–invited to join you in your mighty purposes (Eph. 2:10),

— that you freely and consistently give me worth, belonging and competence (Ephesians 1:18,19).

There is also an ongoing shift away from the fear of man to a fear of God: a desire to please you and a corresponding ability to reject what people think–to be free from their disapproval, their denigration, their disrespect. Your approval is enough to rest in, live in, die in.

Another aspect of this is a better grasp of the joy of being weak, the opportunity to trust you to work where I am without influence, leverage, or power. If I want adventure, trusting you in my weakness is it!

This, combined with the daily reminder that our battle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces of evil, brings me a changed perspective of those who oppose me: a compassionate, forgiving, positive view–even a warmth as I think of them.

Truly, “The way of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining on ever more brightly until the full light of day.” Prov. 4:18

 

I praise you, Lord God, for the way you are using Scripture to transform me, bringing change in my thinking, my will, my emotions, my responses, my values and my motives.

To memorize your Word and meditate on it is powerful. It is pouring your perspective down into my soul, into secret areas where it brings cleansing, transformation and a greater grasp of your glory.

It also brings a wider picture of your power, purposes and plans, which results in a greater trust of you. And this leads me to praise you all the time, knowing that you have a design to use each event for good, especially those that, humanly speaking, are unwanted, uncomfortable and distressing.

It is clear that this trust and the resulting praise are the way to trigger the flow of your patience in my life. When I see the big picture of you having absolute control over where the events of the world are going, I am reminded that my times are in your hands. You are molding every event to fit your overall plans, so that whatever comes to me comes with your permission and purpose–then I can lay aside my natural impatience and take up your Patience so I can move through each event with calmness, trusting you to work it out.

This is the outcome of drawing my security from you, Lord Jesus. You who are my Rock, my Fortress, my Deliverer, my Shield, my Strength and my Stronghold. (Psalm 18:1,2). In you I can rest, sure that you will shield my head in the battles of today, that in you is all I need and that my soul can find complete contentment in you.

As it says in Psalm 62:5-7, “Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge.”

You, Lord Jesus, are the God of Wisdom, the King of Knowledge, the Lord of Understanding, the Ruler of Insight, able to see into the next million years and know all that will come to pass. In all this You have a plan and will bring it to pass.

I praise you that with your complete and rich knowledge you make all the decisions concerning what will come today: what opportunities you will provide for glory-giving in obedience, what challenges, problems, pains and persecutions you will allow for our good, what successes, achievements and victories you will bring in our lives for your glory.

You are trustable, you are worthy of praise in it all, for you are the God of Glory, of Goodness and of Grace. You are always holy, holy, holy, the Three-in-One, Author of all.

I praise you now for all that will come today and for what you will do in your plan for me. To you be honor and glory in my life at each juncture. Amen.

 Praise you, O God, my Three-in-One Lord: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Within your Trinity is a great demonstration of unity and diversity, of submission in equality, of humility in cooperation, of perfection beyond comprehension. I praise you that in you there is no lack, that you are totally self-sufficient, that there is nothing in all of creation that is necessary to you.

You are the One who exists outside of time, outside of space, outside of all other relationships, outside of need. All that you give, all that you do flows from a self-sufficient heart of love, for the good of others, out of perfect motives and pure desires.

Praise you for your engaged, committed, consistent, unwavering and intimate love for your twisted creatures and creation, demonstrated clearly in not destroying all evil immediately after the fall. Despite your great grief at this terrible failure of mankind, you press on with the creation story because you have higher and deeper, longer and wider purposes than your and our own comfort and ease.

Help us to join you today in your plan for us, for the world, for history, for eternity.

[Written in early 2011 while living in Germany to care for Omi, Barbara’s mother.]

Praise you, Lord, for the knowledge that you are the manager of my life. In your goodness, wisdom, grace and love you are constantly at work, arranging events, filtering out evil, giving guidance, protecting and directing.

Thank you for the surety that, as I pray about each day, you hear, you answer, you reach down from on high and take hold of me, you draw me out of deep waters, you rescue me from my powerful enemy, from my foe who is too strong for me. You bring me forth into a spacious place. You rescue me because you delight in me (Psalm 18:16-19).

What wonderful, rich, peace-giving, joy-providing, rest-producing Truth. Whatever comes I can praise you for it and wait for your wise and good timing in bringing me through.

In relation to Barbara’s mother, Omi, and the potential end of our time here, whether we leave in August or December or April, it’s fine: your timing is perfect. I can trust that you will work things out, all the things that need to happen: Omi’s accepting the change; a place opening up at the right time in the nursing home; the selling of her house; the outworking of disposing of all her goods; the shutting down of all utilities; the closing up of our apartment; the actual leaving.

Praise you, Lord, that you have all these things in hand, that you will guide us through the maze and will cause each thing to happen at the right time. Praise be to you ahead of time because you are always good, gracious and righteous.

Epilogue: the Lord answered and brought every one of these events to pass, later than we expected (almost a year later, by March of 2012), but at the right time and in the right way, including providing Omi a place in a brand new, beautiful nursing home, with her being willing to go and then in the very last week of our time in Germany, the selling of Omi’s house for the price she wanted, above market value.

Truly, Lord, you are the God of hope, who wants to fill us with all joy and peace, if we will only trust in you. Then you will cause our lives to overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit, blessing all those around us (Rom. 15:13). Help us, Lord Jesus, to trust in you continually, fully, richly and willfully so we can be carriers of hope to all those around us.

New  Installment of my autobio:  more ministry in Germany

At times I was asked to speak in different churches. This was far more demanding than everyday chats.  My German was understandable in a personal conversation, but I was a grammatical cripple. The complexity of German was beyond me.

First, there are thirty-two forms of “the” (der, die, das and variants) and you have to choose the correct form depending on the role of the noun in the sentence.

Second, every noun has a gender:  masculine, feminine or neuter, but I could see little logic behind this. For instance, skirt is masculine, wall is feminine and girl is neuter!  You have to memorize what each one is, then figure out what case the noun is in and use the corresponding form of “the.”

Well, I just basically ignored this whole minefield of complexity and threw in whichever form came to mind. The people I conversed with understood this and readily grasped what I was trying to say, even if it did not fit exactly correctly. However, such an approach was not adequate for public speaking, so Barbara would translate for me.

She is a marvelous translator. She does it so easily, quickly, fluidly moving my words and thoughts from English to German. And she doesn’t just do a grammatical translation, but “Germanized” the concepts in the process.  Really amazing.

At times we would speak in a small Turkish fellowship in a nearby city. The older folks spoke Turkish, while their children, who had grown up in Germany, did not. So I would speak in Turkish and Barbara would translate into German, again doing a wonderful job. Near the end of our time in Germany, this group asked me just to preach in German. Since most of the attenders spoke German as their third, fourth or fifth language, my inexact grammar wasn’t a problem and we all shared a narrowness of vocabulary that kept us focused. They had no trouble grasping what I was saying.

Another role the Lord had for us was in the Baptist church where we had met Dr. Christian and Melanie. There had been problems brewing there for many years, and they boiled over shortly after we came.

As a result of these conflicts, there was need for a total change in leadership and I volunteered to be part of the new leadership council. This meant I had to function entirely in German! Since the business was confidential Barbara was not allowed to translate for me. If I could catch the gist of the discussion, then I could usually follow it, but it was a struggle, especially when the meetings went so late at night.

At one point I was asked to mediate a conflict, totally in German! While praying about this, the Lord gave me an idea for a framework, and as the discussion roiled and boiled, I was able to keep it within these guidelines with the Lord bringing a positive outcome. I was impressed what the Lord can do through such a weak vessel!

During the three and a half years we were in Germany I kept up visits to our “focus groups” in the Balkans, our former country, Northern Iraq, Germany and our Iranian work. In addition, every January and June I would go to the States to train new workers for our organization. When she could, Barbara came with me. This kept us in touch with all aspects of our work.

One unexpected benefit to being in Germany was having time to write. In our former country I had so many relationships that my days were often spent entirely in interaction with fellow workers, believing Turks and seekers.  Here in Germany I had fewer direct demands on a daily basis, so could dedicate an hour or two a day to working on the several books that I’d sketched out.

The first one grew out of classes I’d given for years on spiritual warfare. After about twenty revisions, it emerged as Knowing Jesus Is Enough For Joy, Period!  Later I changed the title to Equipped! Ready for Every Day Spiritual Warfare. This and my other books are available on Amazon.com.   I was thankful to be able to pass on in this book the many lessons God gave us in the years of meditating on Scripture in the midst of the pressures of life in the Middle East.

Personally, I continue to use a good number of these lessons every day: praying through the steps of “putting on” the armor of God; memorizing, meditating and praying Scripture; confessing in layers to get to the root my sins; forgiving in obedience; praising in and for all things; letting go of what is temporal, holding on to what is eternal and rising above circumstances.

Above all is choosing, moment by moment, to live in the truth that knowing Jesus is enough for joy in any circumstance.

I continued to write daily an hour or so, working on the next three books simultaneously: a devotional book (EDIFIED!), a book on leadership (EFFECTIVE: Learning to Lead Yourself Well), and this autobiography.

Picture: in our last weeks in Germany, 2011

Psalm 20:9 “O LORD, save the king!”

[Praise you that you saved king David in every battle—there is no report of him being wounded in the dozens if not hundreds of battles he fought. And you saved him in every difficulty—in the struggles with King Saul, with the Philistines, with his son Absalom, with Abner, with intrigue and betrayal, you carried him through. And then through his line brought us our Savior!]

“Answer us when we call!”

[Every day we pray, and every day you answer in your faithfulness, although we may not see it at the moment.

You are my Rock in whom I can take refuge (Ps. 18:2);

you are my high tower in whom I can hide;

you are my hope in whom I can rest (Ps. 62:5).

For this I give you praise and honor and glory, Lord. I give you exaltation, worship and thanksgiving. In your faithfulness you are worthy of all surrender, all obedience, all submission.

So I bow before you now, the Mighty Creator, the Powerful Sustainer, my Strong Defender. I rise up into this day so that, by your power, I can obey you in praise, in patience, in trust, in thought, word and deed. Glorify yourself in my life today, O Lord God. Amen.]

Psalm 20:8 “Some trust in chariots and some in horses…[but] They are brought to their knees and fall,”

[Horses die, chariots shatter, people pass, strength subsides, and every person in the world at some time comes to the end of his or her rope where there is no further hope. Human help is limited, fickle and untrustable.]

“but we rise up and stand firm.”

Why can we rise up and stand firm? Because  in you, Lord Jesus, strength endures forever: your love is everlasting and your grace goes on through all eternity. You never waver, change or forsake us. When we come to the end of our rope, we can switch to your infinite and eternal rope, crying out to you, surrendering to you, trusting in you.

In you and in your power we will be able to advance against a troop, to scale a wall, to fight the battle, for we are shielded by your goodness (Ps. 18:29). We will always be able to stand firm in you, if we have on the full armor of God.

Help us to live in the tower of your Name and protection, rejecting Satan’s attempts to get us down on the ground where he can defeat us. In you we are safe!]

Here is a picture of a woman and her husband who was abusive to her. She came to the end of her rope and sought help from my friend Imtiaz. He went and talked with the husband and gave him a copy of the book Equipped. When Imtiaz visted them a while later, the man was transformed, having become a positive, supportive husband. He, too had switched from his rope to God’s. In his own words he described his transformation thusly.

• After listening to this  book, EQUIPPED and God’s Word
• Ø I started to be happy
• Ø The fight in my house is over
• Ø People started respecting me
• Ø Sickness left my house
• Ø I grew stronger in God
• Ø I learned to forgive
• Ø I strengthened my children in the Lord
• Ø I felt the presence of God in my life
• Ø I came to know the Word of God
• Today I am living a happy life with my family.
•  I am thankful for this book which transformed my life. I intend to work with distinction for the glory of God’s name

 

Psalm 20:7b   “but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.”

[You are the only One who is trustable to the end: you are the eternal God of all might, the everlasting Lord of all power, the undying Creator of every creature, the ongoing Ruler of all dominions and kingdoms, the endless Lord of all principalities and powers. No one and nothing can stand against you.

You have a plan for each of us and you will bring it to pass, as we follow you: “The LORD foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations” (Ps. 33:10,11).

You, Lord God, can do no evil, no wrong, no sin; you only do what is good and righteous and wise–therefore in you we can trust. In your Name we can exalt by believing and obeying your Word, for “the LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (Ps. 18:2). Praise be to you!]

Help us to walk today in the greatness of who you are, Lord Jesus, rejecting our tendency to primarily trust in other helps, which are feeble and futile.

Help us to trust in you instead, coming to you immediately in prayer and dependence. We will believe you to use whatever you chose to protect, provide and guide us through this day. Praise be to you now for how you will work, our great eternal King and everlasting powerful Savior.