Tag: king david

God looked down…

·

This week I’ve learned some more about spiritual warfare. All of us in training have thought, prayed, and read about how the Father fights his battles, and what to do when we look around and find ourselves in the place of a foot soldier. God is, right now as I type, at war with the Enemy. Because of these battles, persecution pushes back on the growth of new believers around the world. Many hearts are hardened to Father’s stories of repentance, grace, and salvation. Strong believers fall daily into sins they knew to flee and avoid. But also because of these battles, the lost are freed from the Enemy’s traps. Father triumphs over people who would oppose the spread of the Truth. Strong believers are daily freed from sins which would eat them alive, given the chance. Satan is already bound and has no power except that which God gives him. And we who believe have victory in Christ.

We’ve studied this week about how Father wins his battles on our behalf through our weakness. Think back to stories of actual battles in the Old Testament. Whenever Father shows himself to be the Lord of Hosts, the Lord Almighty, it is when his people are vulnerable. Father won for Gideon when his men had all deserted but a few, and those left were either in the band or banging together pots and pans. Not the most effective battle strategy, last time I checked. Father won for Joshua when the people marched around the city more times than they cared to count and then shouted like maniacs. The Israelites escaped the Egyptians by waiting like sitting ducks on the shores of the Red Sea while chariots and horses charged at then. Hezekiah’s troops won by never even leaving the city of siege. All they did was quake in their leather sandals as men hurled insults over their walls. In all of these stories, the people Father fights and wins for look… utterly ridiculous. They have no room to claim a piece of the victory. God clearly did ALL the work. His people only had to stand up, vulnerable but trusting, waiting for God to act to win their battles. That’s how spiritual battles are won. That’s what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12. God’s power is perfected in our weakness. If we go into spiritual warfare knowing the God who we represent, and knowing we don’t stand a chance against the enemy in our own power, God fights for us, to show off his power. We just have to be ready and trusting for him to work.

As a story example (I do love stories), let’s look at David. David the boy stood up to a giant who defied the armies of the Lord. He refused armor. He refused good weapons. He refused sly tactics or anything that would help him win against the giant in his own power. He stood, a little boy with no shred of armor, and boldly opposed the enemy. He knew he had no power of his own, but that the Lord would fight and win for him. But David the king became a little more trusting in his own might. When war threatened, David did not always turn to his God to fight for him. One time he took a census of all the young men who could be warriors. The Lord punished David for taking stock of his resources and relying on his own power to save him from enemies. One of our teachers told us always to seek to be David the boy in the midst of spiritual warfare. Realize your failures and faults and call on the Lord of Hosts to fight for you. When we are like David the king and try in our own might to win, it’s then that we fail. If we leave no room for God to show off, he simply won’t do it. It isn’t in his nature to force himself upon us.

I have been overwhelmed the past few weeks by all of the mission work I don’t know how to do, all the things I can do wrong, all the ways I could get in the way of the Father doing mighty things. I haven’t as much been focused on myself, as I have been widening my focus and seeing how little I am and how much work there is to be done. But I have also seen how great our Father is, that he would use someone like me, with issues of fear, pride, doubt, self-absorption, not enough experience, and social skills leaving something to be desired. He doesn’t need me. In fact, I will most certainly cause more problems that he has to solve. But he chooses to use me. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. He shows himself powerful, the victor of the spiritual wars raging around us, when he uses someone as foolish and naïve as I am.

One of my favorite missioanries I’ve read about is Gladys Aylward. The woman was a firecracker. When she shot sparks the world around her lit up. She grew up in London, a little slip of a woman, not an inch over five feet tall. She took what schooling she could, read everything she could get her hands on, and didn’t stop trying to make it to China when mission boards declined her for her ‘inability to learn language.’

She scrimped and saved her earnings as a housemaid, sold her hope chest, and bought a one-way ticket to take her to China. She traveled just as she was, single, unprotected, and unsure of what lay at the other end, over war-torn train tracks and through frozen wastelands. When she finally did make it to China, the woman had an incredible ministry. She adopted orphans, stopped prison riots, marched a hundred children out of a warring country, and made friends and disciples of criminals and government officials alike. She lived an incredible life, and the Kingdom was grown immensely for it.

Father didn’t ask of Gladys a seminary education, a linguist’s background, an anthropology degree, or a hundred converts before he used her. He asked only her obedience. And in her weakness, God showed himself mighty in power. He provided Gladys with the skills she needed. He took her background and what training she did have and he used her mightily. I don’t mean to belittle her abilities, or mine, by comparison, but I do mean to point out that any effectiveness she had, Father gave her for the sake of His Name. He supplied her with people skills and language learning, and discernment and faith. HE made her into something special. And everyone knew that the God who stood behind this little 5-foot foreigner was powerful indeed.

God has begun to equip me with skills to use for his glory. I don’t mean to smother you in false modesty, though. I truly have so much to learn and so many places to fall before even this two-year assignment is through. Let me always be David the boy, standing naked of armor, small and unprotected, with only a leather strap and a stone before a fortress of a man. Let me continue to look absurdly comical as I face the Enemy and bring the Light into his darkness. For it is then that God’s power is unmistakable. Let me be weak, for His power is made perfect in weakness. When I am weak, the God who used a tiny single woman from London, triumphed over Goliath, won for Gideon’s men, and toppled the walls of Jericho stands behind me to win the battle for His sake.

Gladys Aylward said, near the end of her life: I wasn’t God’s first choice for what I’ve done for China. There was somebody else…I don’t know who it was—God’s first choice. It must have been a man—a wonderful man. A well-educated man. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn’t willing…And God looked down…and saw Gladys Aylward…And God said — “Well, she’s willing.” There are other people far more equipped than me to carry out the work I am going to do. Maybe they have seminary degrees, winning personalities, or already know the language I will butcher for the next two years. But God looked down… and he saw Caroline. And he said, “Well, she’s willing.” I know God will triumph in my smallness and inadequacies. And I know he asks of me nothing less than tireless obedience. The Lord has many better options—people more suited to his work—but I’m it. I’m the one he’s sending.

Pray for me, brothers and sisters, as I pray the same for you, that I would always see myself as little boy David standing before a giant. Pray that I would neverforget that battles are won only through the power of the God who stands behind me—the God who fights for me.

Waiting in the Wings

·

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 do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

David wrote those words in the midst of a cry to God about how the wicked succeeded all around him. He was agonizingly frustrated because, even though he had the desire to do good, he seemed to fail more often than those who worked wicked deeds. His godly desires did not match up with reality—yet. This passage comes from Psalm 37, which is one of my favorites because I can identify with David. I have prayed that scripture many times before, because the more time I spend with the Lord, the more I grow closer to him, and my desires conform to his. As my desires have changed, my heart has grown to seek God’s glory among the nations. Yet I am continually frustrated in my works of righteousness. As much as I desire to be overseas, God has planted me here, in the States. David wrote these words after learning from experience that, in time, godly desires will prosper. The thing is, God fulfills those promises because they glorify him, not because they are my desires. He cares about me, yes, but he wants me to be content in him and with his timing. In the end he will let my righteousness shine like the dawn, and the justice of my cause will be undeniable to all those who care to look because of his Name’s sake.

I know analogies from the theater are often overused and abused, but sometimes they are the clearest way to communicate a point, so here goes. Most of my theater experience came from musical theater productions in grade school. I know it’s difficult to imagine, but I was a very dramatic child. 😉 I always loved the part of the play when I was on stage. I got to perform and play my part to help tell a story. I was always anxious when my cue was near because I had to wait in the wings, paying close attention and waiting for my moment to shine. If I did the waiting and listening part right, I would walk in on cue and everything went off smoothly. I am beginning to realize that there are times in my life when it’s my lot to wait in the wings. I am called to pay attention to what’s going on around me and to be prepared for the action after my cue. I am learning that, in fact, without the waiting in the wings, I might usher myself on too early and mess things up. I might come onstage ill-prepared.

In my times in the wings as a child I sometimes got frustrated with the long wait. I remember wondering if I would have time to leave and come back or to begin a conversation with a friend waiting alongside me. I think I do this in my walk too. As strong as my desire to serve and love overseas is, sometimes I get frustrated with the in between times when I feel unused and not a part of God’s global work. And instead of waiting on the Lord to see what he has planned for my waiting periods, I try to leave and forget about my calling. Instead of following the lamp for my feet and the light for my path that is God’s Word, I try to stumble around in the dark, bumping into things in my blind rush to find something else to do.

In times like these I find myself identifying with Jeremiah, my favorite prophet. After continual frustration about his reception, Jeremiah tries to shut up God’s Words inside of him and not let them out. He tries to move on from what he perceived as a lost cause:

But if I say, “I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. 

Jeremiah simply could not leave his calling. He couldn’t forget about it. He couldn’t hold it in. He couldn’t refuse his life’s calling without feeling the pain of his unfinished mission. Like Jeremiah, I too have tried to keep it in and go on with my life. But by God’s mercy, I was chivvied onstage for a minor scene again before I exited once more to await my next cue in the wings.

Like Jeremiah, too, I have also tried ignoring my calling. After being deeply wounded by the sins of his people and feeling unbearable pain because he knew of their judgment and coming destruction, he could not keep quiet. He knew of the disaster coming, and he spoke of it in spite of the agony it caused him. Just as Jeremiah, I cannot escape the reality of my calling because I am sometimes crushed with the weight of God’s grief for the condemnation of his people.

Oh, my anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain. Oh, the agony of my heart! My heart pounds within me, I cannot keep silent. For I have heard the sound of the trumpet; I have heard the battle cry. 

I’m coming to realize that I am part of the story even while I’m waiting in the wings—a part God is using and preparing. He wrote the play, and he knows every little thing that will happen before he draws the curtain. He knows when each actor comes and goes, and he know just how long it should be before each character walks onstage to shine like the noonday sun to play their part in telling HIS story. So for now, I am content to wait in the wings. I can watch the story close by and prepare myself to fully understand the part I will play when I hear my cue.