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Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your kind and constant working in me when I am not faithful, for your unceasing love and goodness in spite of my rebellion and unbelief. I praise you that you never give up on us and will pursue us to the end.

Thank you for your wide, comprehensive and complete plan for our lives: you miss no detail, your timing is perfect and your grace is more than sufficient. “ His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3.

Thank you for the powerful and perceptive work of your Spirit in and for us: teaching, convicting, rebuking and leading. Help us to be more and more wholeheartedly obedient to the Spirit’s leading.

To you belongs all honor and glory, Lord Jesus. Your great and deep love, shared with the Father and Spirit, is now shared with us. It is so good to be in your kingdom, in your family, in your warm embrace. You are to be praised for “the glory of your grace, wherein you have made us accepted in the beloved.” Eph 1:6

I praise you for the power of your affection–that you can and do love all those who are your enemies, who seek to bring you harm, who are destructive and dangerous to your cause. “But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” And now that we are redeemed sinners, you continue to love us.

Thank you that we can rejoice in your love, Lord Jesus, knowing that in you we are cleansed, forgiven, adopted, embraced and delighted in. Help us to live in that reality as the world tries to beat us down and make us victims—when we are actually more than conquerors!

 

More on the conferences in 2008

 

At the end of the first conference, some attendees left and others arrived for the next two conferences.  The difficulties with transportation continued. In addition, we found out that the hotel had overbooked and some of our people had no place to stay, so we put them up temporarily in nearby hotels.

On Friday evening, two days into the simultaneous running of the second and third conferences, the hotel owner called me to his office. “Your travel agent owes me money from a different deal and you will either pay the agent’s bill, or we will put you out on the street!” he said with a smile—but the intensity of his demand was clear from the sweat beads on his forehead.

I felt the heat of anger rising in my chest. After all that I’d done for the hotel to make these conferences a success, this threat was the opposite of what I wanted to hear. I managed, however, to keep my voice calm. “What my travel agent does with you in another deal has nothing to do with our conferences,” I said, “You have to work this out with him.”

The hotel owner frowned, sweat glistening on his forehead, “No, either you pay his bill to me, or I’ll put you out. I have my own bills to pay and I need that money now!” It was obvious that he was under great pressure and speaking out of fear.

I called my travel agent. He confirmed that he hadn’t paid his bill for other customers, explaining that it was because of all the complaints that he’d had from those he had sent there. His plan was to send a commission down to prove that the hotel was not up to three star standards and hoped that their findings would free him from his contract. “Just sit tight and nothing will happen,” he said.

Several of our leaders met with me.  We prayed about it and talked more with the hotel owner. He wouldn’t budge an inch on his demand and got even more angry and belligerent. It seems that he had already passed along the postdated check he had from the travel agent, and if that check bounced, he would be in big trouble. There was probably some mafia connection mixed in, a common factor in this business. That would certainly explain the fear he had which, in turn, displayed itself as anger towards us.

I, too, had fear, fear of everything going down, fear of what others would think of my organizational failures, fear of being taken for a lot of money. So, I turned to Psalm 37 which gave me perspective.

“Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers!

For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.

Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.

He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.

For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land.”

With this heavenly perspective I could then sleep, resting in God’s goodness and faithfulness

By Monday the hotel owner upped the pressure, taking all the possessions of some of our people out of their room and dumping them all in a pile in the middle of the lobby. Next, during the morning conference meetings, the security guard came in and told us we were being expelled from the meeting rooms.

We sent someone to appeal for help from the Gendarme, the local military police, but they did not respond. In such a small town all the locals work together behind the scenes, so we had no chance as outsiders to get any help to fix our problem. Anyway, in their eyes, we were rich Americans who could pay whatever was necessary.

During lunch the security guards came around again to tell us that all of our people had to stop eating and  go to their rooms. The air conditioning had been shut off and the hot afternoon sun soon had the rooms sweltering. Drinks were denied. Families with small children were especially feeling the pressure.

Our agent called several officials in the area and two of them, along with a representative of the hotel association and a reporter, came to talk with the hotel owner. By God’s grace I saw them come in and went uninvited into their meeting. The hotel owner, of course, gave his side of it, making us look like the guilty ones. I then gave our side of the story.

The group conferred and then said the only way to resolve the situation was for us to pay the bill for the agent. They, of course, were all in the same business and we were again the outsiders with no recourse.

What they were suggesting meant paying almost double the price we had originally agreed to. However, there were several factors that contributed to our leaning toward doing this.

First, we had already paid a large deposit, and if we paid the bill for the travel agent, he could and should pay that back to us.

Second, although the travel agent had found some other hotels that could take us, we knew nothing about them, and would certainly be scattered among several, making it very difficult to continue the conferences. There was no assurance we would have either meeting rooms or childcare rooms available to us.   In contrast, this hotel had more than an acre of grassy lawn enclosed with a good fence, which made it a great place for the hundred or so children of our group to play safely.

Third, our people had come from all over the world to attend these conferences; they had already spent a  great deal of money on transportation alone, which could potentially be wasted if we were to leave this place for an unknown and potentially unsatisfactory situation.

In the end we agreed to pay.  A number of us pooled our credit cards to make this possible and the hotel owner gave us a signed and stamped paper describing the situation and his receipt of the money.  So the conferences were able to continue as planned.

In hindsight, it was clear that all these difficulties were used by God to make the conference one of the best ever. We were totally dependent on Him and He did a work in us. Our schedule was frequently disrupted, which caused us to be more flexible. This brought some great times of prayer along with some open, honest sharing, and spontaneous sessions that were very helpful to all of us.  By the end of the week we left, having been challenged, changed and cheered by the Lord’s work among us.

 

The whole hotel story did not have a happy ending. Although the travel agent sued the hotel, the signed statement we’d gotten from the owner validating the extra payment  we had made was worthless. It turned out he wasn’t the actual owner after all. He had built several legal layers into the hotel’s ownership to protect himself.  He then sued the travel agent for another bill, and in the end the small claims court took everything from the travel agent’s office which housed two other businesses, including a film making studio.

Interestingly, the travel agent viewed this debacle as being my fault! He believed that if I hadn’t given in to the hotel’s demands, his financial situation would not have degenerated so badly. This was the exact opposite of my understanding of it all.

We chose not to take legal action against anyone including the agent.  The result for me, personally, was that the Lord set me free from my desire to be right, from my “need” to win, and from my inclination to care too much what other people thought of the whole situation. This was certainly for me a step out into a wider place, one of greater freedom.

At the end of the whole saga, along with all I’ve already mentioned, there were three other positive outcomes.  First, the travel agent graciously forgave me and our relationship was able to continue.   Second, the hotel owner told the agent that if he paid his last bill, he could get back all his computers, cameras, software and furniture so he could continue his work.

Third, the travel agent came back to us and asked if we would help. Humanly speaking this was backwards: he caused us to lose a large amount of money, then wants us to give him more to help him out of his mistakes! However, this was a chance to turn the other cheek, to act against the wisdom of the world and to glorify God. So, against all natural logic, some of us gave him gifts out of our personal money and he was able to redeem all his goods.

The whole event had been one long experience of spiritual warfare, but I believe that the Lord–and therefore we–won in the long run. Not materially, but on a spiritual level, through giving praise in difficulty, doing the right thing when it cost us and by turning the other cheek.

 

 

 

Psalm 18:50b The Lord “shows unfailing kindness to his anointed, to David and his descendants forever.”

[You, Lord, have proved faithful in protecting the line of David down through the ages, from Abraham to Moses, to Judah to Joseph and Mary. You brought the promised Savior at just the right time, confirming your unfailing kindness to all people, both Jews and Gentiles. You are tender to the twisted ones, Lover of the lousy, Redeemer of the rebels, Savior of your evil enemies and Shepherd of the scattered flock.

Praise be to you for your, humanly speaking, unreasonable Love, your illogical grace, your outrageous kindness, your amazing goodness–all poured out upon us day by day when we actually deserve the opposite. Glory be to you, the Great and Good God. Help us to walk in the light of these shining Truths every day.]

When we are in trouble, your unfailing kindness sustains us. This morning I thought of numerous times that you in your faithfulness preserved my life, my family, the ministry you gave me. I remember  one time on a long trip with a friend we came up behind a slow truck. I looked around it down the very straight road and saw an oncoming car a long ways away. “Plenty of room,” I said.

I stepped on the gas of my little volkswagan station wagon with the motor in the rear. It didn’t have a lot of power so it took some time the speed up enough to begin passing the truck. As I got about halfway by, I realized that the oncoming car was going way faster than the speed limit and that I wasn’t going to make it by the truck in time. I stepped on the brake planning to get back behind the truck, but instead of slowing, the weight of the engine in the rear caused the back end to sling around and I was sliding sideways down the road right in the path of the oncoming car!

I made the proper correction, but nothing happened! The oncoming car didn’t slow down and the truck didn’t pull over. Then at the last second my car swung back and slammed into the side of the truck. The oncoming car sped by on the shoulder and we all kept going! When I stopped to check the damage, there was only a dent in the passenger side door and the stationary glass on that side was broken.

Without the Lord’s faithfulness protecting me, I would certainly have been killed. Yet here I am 44 years later, still enjoying the Lord’s faithfulness. Good to remember this when other troubles appear: as He was faithful in the past, so He will be faithful in the future. “I will call upon the Lord in my day of trouble for He WILL help me.”

 

Psalm 18:50 “He gives his king great victories;”

[You, Lord, give us opportunity to participate in your victories each day, in every temptation, every stress, every desire to grumble–each an opportunity to take up your grace and glorify you with the sacrifice of thanksgiving.

You help us in each situation, making it possible to deny self and obey Truth, to let go of what is temporary, to hold on to what is eternal and to rise above the frustrations, disappointments and problems of life.

And in so doing you help us fulfill the purpose of our lives: honoring you, revealing you to those around us by our trusting you in every circumstance. You are sufficient, you are powerful and you are loving, fully worthy of our complete obedience.]

“he shows unfailing kindness to his anointed,”

[Your faithfulness endures forever, your grace endlessly flows, your goodness never fails. In your kindness you are ever the trustable One, always carrying us through the battle as we rest in you and, as we keep on your armor, you carry us onto the heights and to new victories beyond.]

This is so good to know right now as I am faced with being sued (unjustly), accused (unjustly) and “turned in” to the authorities (unjustly). But immediately the Holy Spirit brings Psalm 43 to mind: “ Vindicate me, my God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation. Rescue me from those who are deceitful and wicked” [and He will]…. And it ends with, “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” He will come through! Praise God, He is our hope, our only hope.

Psalm 18:48b  “You exalted me above my foes;”

[Yes, Lord, “You rescue me from my strong enemies, from my foes who are too strong for me.” (Psalm 18:17)]

“from violent men you rescued me.”

[They “confronted me on the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place. He rescued me because he delighted in me” (Ps. 18:18,19).]

Psalm 18:49 “Therefore I will praise you among the nations, O LORD; I will sing praises to your name.”

[You are Lord, the God who fights for us. I remember the many times you protected me from many dangers: false accusations, from being put on trial twice for my faith, from legal attacks from a mentally ill lawyer, from the head of the national police personally pressuring me to leave, from an expulsion order from the attorney general of the country…and the list goes on. So now you can fight for me in my present danger. And you will!

You are worthy of glory and honor and exaltation and praise, for you are the Savior of all, especially of those who believe in you. You are worthy of being lifted up among the nations. You are the Most High, you are Lord, you are Sovereign, you are Good, all the time.

In every circumstance I can trust you, bow before you, follow your Word and know that you will work it all out. To you be glory and honor today.

As Psalm 18:46,47 tell us, in the midst of his battles, David could shout:

 

“The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God my Savior! He is the God who avenges me, who subdues nations under me,”

 

[As far as we know, David was never defeated in battle and never was seriously wounded–because God protected him. “The LORD is my rock…my deliverer… my shield” (Psalm 18:2). And David remembered this, giving God the credit.]

 

Psalm 18:48 “He is the God…who saves me from my enemies.”

[Yes, O Lord God, it is true that when “I call to you, who are worthy to be praised…I am saved from my enemies…You reach down from on high, you take hold of me, you draw me out of deep waters” (Ps. 18:3,16). You are the faithful One who constantly watches over me, not primarily for my comfort, but for my being able to give you glory before the nations.]

So in the midst of my own troubles,(the nasty neighbor has announced today he is suing me because he fell down the stairs, conveniently on the day he got his eviction notice!)

I can place my trust in the Lord, for as David wrote In Psalm 34:15-17  “The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their cry; but the face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to blot out their name from the earth. The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.”

 

 

Psalm 18:42 “I beat them as fine as dust borne on the wind; I poured them out like mud in the streets.”

[David knew this is your doing, Lord Jesus, for you are his  shield and strength].

18:43-45 [David could say in his situation] “You have delivered me from the attacks of the people; you have made me the head of nations; people I did not know are subject to me. As soon as they hear me, they obey me; foreigners cringe before me. They all lose heart; they come trembling from their strongholds.”

At the moment I am facing an unpleasant situation with a nasty neighbor. He thinks he’s my enemy but it’s really Satan who is my enemy. In this situation, like David, I will choose to walk in the fear of the Lord: “depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.” The hope of this man coming around in reason is very small, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.

My prayer is from Psalm 86:16,17 “Turn to me and have mercy on me; show your strength in behalf of your servant… Give me a sign of your goodness, that my enemies may see it and be put to shame, for you, LORD, have helped me and comforted me.” And I know He will answer somehow, someway. And I am waiting.

[Your power, Lord Jesus, always triumphs in the end. Praise be to you, O Triune God, for you are faithful to protect, provide and lead us through our daily battles.

Help us to keep on your armor and use well the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit, so that Satan may be defeated and you be honored today.]

As King David wrote Psalm 18, he faced human foes; we more often face the unseen ones of the devil and his minions. However, the reality of the battle is the same and the One who vanquishes the enemy is also the same.

As we follow you, Lord Jesus, our Warrior King, I praise you that in the spiritual battle before us, our true enemies, Satan and His hordes, will be defeated as we submit to and trust in you, joining you in what you are doing. Then we can say with David,

Psalm 18:37 [By keeping on the armor of God] “I pursued my enemies [Satan and his demons] and overtook them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed [by praise, prayer and persistence in obedience].

18:38 I crushed them [with the Word of God] so that they could not rise; they fell beneath my feet” [because I joined God in what He is doing].

[This is possible, Lord Jesus, because]

18:39-41 “You armed me with strength for battle; you made my adversaries bow at my feet. You made my [spiritual] enemies turn their backs in flight, and [in your power] I destroyed my foes [Satan’s servants]. They cried for help, but there was no one to save them—to the LORD, but he did not answer [for they had rejected Him and His ways].

And so it is when we keep on the armor of God and fight the enemy with praise, prayer and persistence in obedience. Praise be to God for His provision in the battle.

Summer of 2008

 

The summer of 2008 proved to be an incredibly stressful one for me. We were finishing up a big construction project for the business, one that had promise of a good profit. However, that  was the year the world-wide financial crisis crashed onto the scene, and our hopes of good sales were dashed. This left us unable for the moment to pay back all the interest-free loans we’d been given. Fortunately the men who had made the loans were willing to wait for repayment.

Then my car was stolen. It was an old one, a 1993 Fiat station wagon, a model no longer in production. Used parts were hard to come by, so it is probable that the thieves immediately chopped it up to sell for parts.

At any rate, we never saw it again. I was sad to lose it, for we had hoped to sell it and use the money to buy a car in Germany. We would just have to trust the Lord to work that out. So we praised Him and moved on.

 

That summer we had responsibility for organizing three big conferences. One was for all those members in our group who were working with Hindus. The second was a leadership training conference for our leaders from all over the world. The third was the annual conference for our folks here. All three were to be held in the same hotel in late July and would overlap with one another.

I began work on finding a hotel more than a year in advance, and soon, through a Christian travel agent, found one at a good price. We signed the contract and everything looked like it was ready.

However, in early July, the month the conferences were scheduled, the travel agent called and said that they were having trouble with the hotel, should we switch to another place?

Finding an available hotel in high tourist season to take three large groups was unlikely. It was a certainty that the prices would be considerably higher and beside all that, all of our people had been given the address of this hotel and some had already left on long trips, expecting to stay there at the end of their travel.   A change at such a late date just didn’t seem feasible.

 

The travel agent and I decided to check out the hotel ourselves, making the nine hour drive during the night, arriving in time for breakfast.

What we saw did not look good. The boiled eggs still had chicken manure on the shells; although the plates had been washed, many still had the remains of grease and food from the previous night’s meal on them. The water in the swimming pool was murky. The place in general did not look clean.

We talked with the owner and he assured us it would be in better shape when we came for the conferences, so we decided to stick with it.

 

The day before the conference was to start, Barbara and I took a bus down to the hotel. This particular bus did not allow cell phones to be used, but at rest stops I kept getting calls from people arriving at the airport who could not find the drivers assigned to pick them up and transport them to the hotel.

I felt really bad about this, but could do nothing. Fortunately these early arrivers were experienced and godly types who eventually found their own way to the hotel.

When we arrived, the hotel was, if anything, worse than before. It was supposedly a three star hotel, but had, in my opinion, become a “no star” hotel.

I found some of the employees who would work with me and in two days we were able to move it up at least two stars. The dishwasher got fixed, the food improved, the pool got cleaned, air conditioners were repaired and extra beds were found.

We bought fans for the meeting rooms as the promised air conditioning was woefully inadequate, and  did what was necessary to clean things up, including buying air fresheners .

At one point I had to go down to the laundry room myself and find sheets and pillows for some of our arrivals, and for several days I worked until 1 or 2 am to get everyone settled.

The difficulty with the transportation company not finding the incoming attendees at the airport continued. There was obviously some spiritual warfare involved.

.  In one case, I sent one of our Hindu workers, an Indian himself, to meet someone he knew. He is quite dark, so he stood out in the crowd, and also held a sign, but still he and the new arrival did not find each other. Similar incidences happened a number of times.

All my work to make the hotel more habitable took place while the leadership training conference was going on.  In addition to this work I was expected to attend this conference and also was scheduled to do some of the teaching.

I was glad that after all the effort of making  improvements in the hotel’s initial condition, that everything seemed to be going  more smoothly. I had no idea that events were going to take us on a drastic turn for the worse.

 

Green is the color of Spring: vibrant and lush, full of life and promise. And so it is again this year. The leaves came out slowly, warm days interspersed with cold ones, making the opening delight last longer. I love it, this is my favorite time of the year.

We are also witnessing a new Spring in the life of one of our friends, Dan, a former drug addict and wild young man. He has been forced into a corner by his own bad choices and is now thinking about God.

In fact, the other day he came and told me about a double God-sighting in his life. His money disappeared and this forced him to stay home for the day, during which time he had a good talk with his estranged wife. And at the end of that good conversation, he looked over at the TV and there under it was his missing money! The fact that he recognized these as God sightings means He sees God cares for him.

This is an indication of the effectiveness of sharing about God sightings as part of our witnessing, leading to insights of how God loves the individual personally.

Today he indicated that He has either crossed the line into the Kingdom or is in the process. His first question confirmed his forward movement, “What do I do now?” A good question. What would you say to that?

He needs more revelation, so, get into the Word. I told him to start in Matthew and read at least a chapter a day. At that pace he will read the whole New Testament in nine months.

He took the next step on his own, asking about going to church and showing interest in a small group. Another sign of new life.

This conversation reminded me of a picture of a field with some stripes of verdant green, others of shorter yellow grass. What made the difference? Fertilizer. Yellow grass had little nutrition, while the green was well fed.

This is a picture of the Christian life: if we are in the Word regularly, our lives can be verdant, growing, fruitful. Without it we will be yellow, weak and fruitless. The choice is up to us.

How are you doing with being daily in the Word, feeding yourself well, being fruitful for Jesus?  I often ask people if they have a regular quiet time (many don’t) and if they do why. Most answer that they should, or it is the right thing to do.

But one young man answered, “Because I want to know God better!” Now there’s a high-level motivation which  gives his quiet time focus and energy. May that be ours, leading us to spending time with Him every day.