Archive January 2010
Desert Places
Most of us know firsthand what it is to pass through dry, desert phases of life. My first reaction during such times is to think, “What did I do?” Could it be that sometimes God himself has led us directly into those times in the spiritual desert?
Motivational speaker and author Os Hillman offers some insight into this based on a passage in Hosea. Check out these couple of paragraphs.
Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. – Hosea 2:14
If you have an important message to convey to someone, what is the best means of getting the message through? Have you ever tried to talk with someone who was so busy you could not get him to hear you? Distractions prevent us from giving our undivided attention to the messenger. So too, God has His way of taking us aside to get our undivided attention. For Paul, it was Arabia for three years; for Moses, it was 40 years in the desert; for Joseph, it was 13 years in Egypt; for David, it was many years of fleeing from King Saul.
God knows the stubborn human heart. He knows that if He is to accomplish His deepest work, He must take us into the desert in order to give us the privilege to be used in His Kingdom. In the desert God changes us and removes things that hinder us. He forces us to draw deep upon His grace. The desert is only a season in our life. When He has accomplished what He wants in our lives in the desert, He will bring us out. He has given us a mission to fulfill that can only be fulfilled after we have spent adequate time in preparation in the desert. Fear not the desert, for it is here you will hear God’s voice like never before. It is here you become His bride. It is here you will have the idols of your life removed. It is here you begin to experience the reality of a living God like never before. Someone once said, “God uses enlarged trials to produce enlarged saints so He can put them in enlarged places!”
Sobahn Revisited
You might remember my transcendental experience at a new Korean restaurant called Sobahn. I raved about it in a post last month that you can read right here. Several of you have told me personally that you have eaten here and enjoyed it as much as I did. Some of you have become regulars.
Tonight Cheryl and I took our breakfast club to Sobahn for dinner. When they heard me go on and on about this place, they voted to skip breakfast this month and have dinner there instead. We invited Sam and Helen Kim to join us and we all had a blast! Once again we did not order off the menu, but allowed the chef to fix us a several course meal of her choosing. Great decision!
Everything we had tonight was different from our first experience, yet every bit as tasty and exciting. The owners’ daughters did a wonderful job of explaining each course to us. The evening’s offerings included traditional Korean dishes as well as some Asian fusion. I love it when nothing tastes like what I expected and yet I am always pleasantly surprised.
This family run restaurant is truly amazing. These are wonderful people and they make you feel right at home. If you haven’t been yet, put this at the top of your list of things to do.
Sunday Odds and Ends
Well, our team made it home yesterday around noon. We were all ready to get home and the cool temperatures actually felt great after the heat of the past two weeks.
I was very proud of of our team. And, I was very glad we put our tourism days up front before we went to CIMA in Cordoba. Had we reversed the order they would have too tired to have enjoyed their time in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The temperatures in Argentina were in the upper 90′s and around 100 every day. Arriving at the international fair grounds our student team discovered that their assignment was to keep the bathrooms clean and help with the trash detail. Keep in mind the hot temperatures, no air-conditioning, and the fact that several days the water was off for hours at a time during the day. 1,800 students had registered and over 2200 showed up. After working hard all day and participating in the activities, they retired to “sleep”on the floor of giant pavilions where bodies were crowded side to side. Several staff members and the CIMA founder were quick to tell me how valuable our team was and that their attitude was exemplary.
In the next few days I hope to post a few pictures on FaceBook, and I am sure several of the team members will, too. I’m not sure if it was the extreme contrasts of temperatures, fatigue or the contamination of airplane air, but I came home with a cold. Whatever the case, I was delighted to gather together as the church this morning, thankful for the wonderful experiences and also thankful to be home.
Cordoba – Packing Up!
It’s over, CIMA 2010. Three years of work on the part of many people. Over 2000 students from the five countries of southern South America and beyond came together in Cordoba, Argentina to explore God’s mission and the implications for their lives. Over 400 made decisions regarding cross-cultural missions.
What makes this student event unique is not only the high quality of every detail, but the fact that approximately half of these students will leave tomorrow to put into practice what they have been challenged to do. They will go to short term missions in strategic ministries in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Peru, Japan, Austria, Germany, Senegal and Nepal.
Last night Argentine Pastor Gerardo Ferace preached one of the deepest and substantive sermons I’ve heard in a long time. Tonight was CIMA Fest, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Cristian Training Center (CEC) that is force behind the CIMA events.
Tomorrow morning our little team will meet at the airport for the flight to Buenos Aires. We’ll have quite a long layover before flying out shortly before midnight tomorrow evening (Friday) to arrive back in Kansas City around noon on Saturday.
You can be very proud of this team. CEC founder Thomas Vogelin told me this evening that his staff has given glowing reviews of their work and attitude, saying that they saved the day when it came to taking care of the logistical cleaning needs. I’m sure they are all very tired, but content that God has stretched them and that their lives will be forever changed. See you Sunday!
God in the Darkness
In an earlier post I mentioned the difficulty of getting news reports while in Argentina the past couple of weeks. It’s funny how significant news sometimes takes on personal faces as our mind process the information. In my mind, the news of the Haitian quake wore the faces of Michelle and Danielle, two Haitian sisters in our church.
The first thing I wanted to do Sunday morning was to look for Michelle and Danielle where they normally sit and tell them I was praying for them and for Haiti. I learned that their immediate family comes from an area to the north of the affected area and is safe. Michelle’s best friend lost her husband, and they have other friends and extended family members still unaccounted for.
A sensitive young woman in our church had sent me an email Saturday night asking me to join her in prayer that other survivors would be found. I thought of her and rejoiced in answered prayer tonight as I saw on the news the rescue of a 35-year-old man who had been trapped in the rubble for two weeks.
My Bible reading Sunday morning was in Exodus and even there I saw the Haitian quake. I was in chapter 20 as Moses ascends Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments on two tables of stone. Here is what I was reading when the last phrase caught my attention.
My normal mental image of God is one of blinding light. Psalm 104:2 tells us that God has clothed himself in light. First John 1:5 says that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
What struck me is that Moses went into the thick darkness where God was. God is not darkness and there is no darkness in him. However, as God, he is everywhere, even in the darkness.
The people of Israel were terrified by the darkness and begged Moses to mediate for them. Moses drew near and penetrated the darkness. In the darkness Moses would find God. Later we read that God even hid him in the cleft of a rock, covered him with his hand and passed by so that Moses could get a glimpse of his glory.
God was in the darkness that engulfed Sinai, and God had a purpose in the darkness. He is always in the darkness and he always has a purpose, even though we never understand it all.
Somewhere in the darkness of Haiti, God is there and is working out his purposes. My God grant us the courage of Moses to penetrate the darkness and discover glimpses of glory, not to sit back and merely tremble.
Practically, what can we do? Our church does not have a network of contacts in Haiti equipped to receive help.
Maybe it is a quake in your own life that is the focus of your attention right now. All of us know what it is to have the foundations of our lives shaken from time to time. Just remember that God is also in the darkness. Don’t just stand and tremble. Penetrate the darkness in search of God’s purpose and glory. It may seem hopeless, but I promise you that God is in the darkness. Look for him there.