Oh, Those Faithful Waiters

Our church recently started a study on the book of Luke. In the first two chapters there are three people mentioned that brought to mind a struggle I used to have with waiting. First, there was Zechariah who was a priest. Him and his wife Elizabeth were righteous in the sight of God and faithfully observed the Lord's commands and decrees. They were, in God's own words, very old and childless, which in those days carried great shame as people in their culture assumed being barren was a result of God withholding blessing from a couple because of sin. In spite of their childlessness and all that would come with that, they remained faithful for years and years. 

Second, there was a man named Simeon who was living in Jerusalem. He was waiting faithfully for the consolation of Israel. That would be the equivalent of believers like us living with an expectation and a longing for Jesus's return. Simeon was filled with the Holy Spirit, who had revealed to him that he would not die before he had seen the Messiah. 

Third, there a prophet named Anna. She, like Simeon and Zechariah, was very old. She had not had an easy life. She had the joy of getting married, but her husband had only lived for seven years after the wedding. She was a widow for eighty-four years and had never left the temple after he died. She was someone who worshipped night and day, and someone who fasted and prayed. Before I tell you more about these people, I want to tell you why I am so drawn to and in awe of them. 

For years I had struggled with the waits we all have in this Christian life we live. When I prayed for something, I could easily accept yes or no answers. But it was the waits that would cause me to spiral into a funk and I didn't know why. Then one night at our couple's Bible Study the pastor said that instead of our usual discussion he wanted to talk about waiting on God. After he opened us in prayer, he asked us what was hard about waiting. Everyone was giving great answers, but I couldn't identify what was so difficult about it for me. As he progressed through the Bible Study, he shared a verse from Psalms that says that God has His ear turned to those who wait on Him. I immediately blurted out that's it! The pastor asked what I meant. I told him, that whenever I prayed for something or discovered a promise that had a wait attached to it, I often felt unheard, overlooked, maybe even invisible. I am an extreme extrovert and as a young person if I made a request or asked for something and no one responded I believed I didn't matter enough for others to meet the needs and didn't matter enough to make the request more assertively. 

That night I realized that if God had His ears turned towards me in the waiting that it was an open invitation to keep asking. It was also an invitation to keep talking to Him until all the lies I had believed about Him or myself , had been replaced by truth. It was an invitation to keep talking until all the unbelief with which I struggled had been identified and replaced by a much deeper faith and until I had expressed to Him any pain experienced and let Him melt it away with the soothing balm of His perfect, extravagant love. I admit I haven't always been as faithful as Zechariah, Simeon, or Anna, but I am getting better at it. 

Let's look at the results of our faithful trio of waiters. In Zechariah's faithful waiting he got to meet an angel at the altar of incense. The angel told him he and his wife would have son named John who would bring great joy to them and be filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother's womb. John's job was going to be to call Israel to return to the Lord after 400 long years of silence and He would pave the way for our Jesus. Because of Zechariah's faithfulness, John, leapt in his mother's womb, immediately recognizing Jesus in Mary's womb. John wrote beautiful words, declaring that the God of Israel had visited and redeemed his people by raising up a horn of salvation for them and that they might be able to serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness and that his son as a prophet would give knowledge of salvation to his people for the forgiveness of their sins. 

Simeon in his faithful waiting, was able to take Jesus into His arms and bless Him who he had been faithfully looking for, declaring that he would be able to depart this world in peace for he had seen with his own eyes God's salvation prepared in the presence of all people as a light for Gentiles and the gory of God's people the Israelites. 

And then sweet Anna, who as a widow faithfully served in the temple. She, like Simeon, was in the temple when they brought the baby Jesus for the purification ceremony and immediately recognized the Christ and gave thanks to God and began speaking of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Israel. declared for all to hear. 

And there are others we know who experienced long waits. Abraham and Sarah waited a long time for a child, Israel waited a long time for a land for His people, and the host of faithful people listed in Hebrews 11, many of which waited for God to save them. Some of them suffered and died in their waiting. They were tortured, refused to accept release, knowing in the resurrection they would have a better life. Some were stoned, some sawn in two, some killed by the sword, and some were destitute, afflicted, and mistreated. And God, Himself, commended their faith and declared that this world was not worthy of them and that they had been made perfect. 

It was important that I shared that not every faithful waiter has the same outcome in this life as Zechariah, Simeon, and Anna because so often we are a people who attempt to bargain with our God, believing that if we serve Him, if we attend church every week, if we have quiet times built into our lives, if we pray often enough, and a host of other religious activities that God is obligated to answer our prayers as we want him to. 

What if it is the waiting that purifies our faith and takes us from a people who are content with God's benefits to a people who are not satisfied by anything but Him?  That is what we see in the faithful waiters described at the end of Hebrews 11 of the people who were found faithful even unto death. 

     

From Fear to Faith

 In 2012 one of the pastors who had a huge impact on my life passed away. I wrote a note on Facebook called "From Fear to Faith" and thought I would edit it and share it here as we are living in times in which fear covered in anger is rampant. I hope that may someone struggling with fear might be comforted and find courage and peace in Jesus, just as I did.  

In January of 1977 my husband and I moved to Mississippi so he could get his doctorate from State. Oh, we were young and moving across the country while I was pregnant with our first child. The night we arrived in Starkville, it was freezing cold, and I was very sick with a kidney infection. We followed the hospital signs to get to the emergency room. The doctor kept me in the hospital for several days, leaving my husband to unpack the U-Haul. A guy he had met at a conference happened to drive and see Joel unloading the trailer. He stopped and helped him and then invited him to dinner with some guys from his church. He got there and met their pastor, who was nicknamed Nap. For a year, we attended another church that had more young student couples and forged some great friendships, but after a year most of them were finished school and left. One of the men we knew told us that because I had such a thirst for Bible knowledge that Emmanuel Baptist Church would help me find the answers to the questions I had. We to the little Baptist Church, where Nap taught verse by verse at least four times a week and stayed there for seven years.

When we first attended, I was very fearful, but if anyone would have asked if I was a believer I would have said yes. Maybe I was a believer, but if I was a believer, I was a terrified one. Every time I sinned or even thought I might have sinned, I confessed over and over and asked Jesus into my heart again and again and again. Right after we married, we had heard some preaching on the Book of Revelation, and I woke up several times crying from nightmares about end times. When I arrived at Emmanuel, I was still fearful and trying desperately to be good, thinking I could earn God's love and bet to heaven.

About the time I began to relax and enjoy our new church, Nap announced he would begin a series on the book of Revelation. I was struggling with my parent's divorce so I went in to talk to him about that and during that conversation I also told him about my fear of the Book of the Revelation and told him I wasn't sure I could handle the series. He suggested I read the little book, Come Lord, Jesus by Mark G. Cambron and then come talk to him. I began to see the grace of God in that little book on Revelation and how it matched what Nap was preaching on Sundays. We met many times and talked about the gospel and eternal security and a bunch about the love of God. Over time, I realized I believed what God said in His Word and that Christ's payment for sin was enough to secure my salvation.

I fell in love with Jesus during the time I spent at that church. I hungered and thirsted to know everything about Him and had to have driven Nap crazy with questions, but he was patient and loving and kind to this needy young believer. I loved his bear hugs as they were tight and purely given. I loved his love of the Savior. It never ever waned, no matter what came his way. I loved his love of God's grace and a pure gospel. I loved his style of teaching and answering the questions I and many others had, because his answers were never his thoughts or opinions, they were straight from the Word! I loved the consistency of his teaching; the truth never changing as he moved from book to book...it was always grace. And he lived out that grace even in the mundane parts of his life. He fiercely protected the flock with which God had entrusted him. His heart grieved as many of his flock were moved to other parts of the world, but he still considered us a part of his Emmanual family.

I remember one time he was preaching on the persecuted church, I went up to him afterward and told him, "Nap, I don't have to worry about anyone persecuting me, because I always prostitute myself." He responded with, "I know, Babe!" but his eyes were twinkling like crazy. So, I quickly thought through what I had just said and got embarrassed. I screamed, "NO!" and he chuckled and said, "I didn't think you meant what you said." I typed the bulletin for several years and I often made him special bulletins with funny announcements he could not read to the church. But I knew he saw them when he came out with twinkle in his eye and a great big smile on his face.

The last week I lived in Starkville, I went by to see him one last time and I asked him some hard questions I had never voiced before about God's sovereignty over things like abuse. There were no glib answers give, but as I turned to leave, he called my name and I turned around, "Wendy, God is Good! Don't ever forget He is Good!" And I heard his voice say those same words over and over in my head when I went into counseling to recover from the pain in my past! Nap also listened to my pain when my best friend lost her babies then again when I lost her. I loved the sound of his voice when he taught. It was a slow southern drawl that calmed my anxious heart after someone broke into our home and comforted us as a church when we buried our loved ones.

One more thing I loved about Nap was that He never said things like, "Jesus, is coming back, you better get ready." He simply lived His life always excitedly looking for our Jesus to return. He was faithful until the very end. Nap was at a camp preaching and sharing the gospel and passed away later in the evening. That very night I was in a worship service, here in California and we sang one of his favorite songs, "Nothing but the Blood of Jesus" and my heart was full of joy as it reminded me of Nap and his impact on my faith, not realizing our gracious God was orchestrating that moment in my life at the time He was welcoming him home. I love that Jesus has riches to share with His faithful servant that bore so much fruit in His life.

I have lived in California with a contentment that is still slightly overshadowed by a homesickness for people who had become a loving spiritual family for this homesick, pregnant, scared wife. This last week I have seen a lot of pictures from Ikthoos, the Camp Nap and others started. The kids who were little campers when we lived there are all adults who are faithfully filling his footsteps as they love kids and teach them how to study the Word to lift their beautiful voices in praise.

Beautiful Body Parts

"For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do you think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully."
- Romans 12:3-8

Paul begins this passage by telling the Romans to not think more highly of themselves than they should. Paul realized he had been transformed from being a man who hated and tortured believers in the name of God into a missionary who introduced people to Christ. He reminded them and us to realize we are sinners saved by a holy, righteous God because it is His nature to be gracious. It is only because God loved us and has invited us into a relationship with Him that we are His children.

Next, he takes us to a more outward perspective as he reminds us we are all part of the body of Christ – the church. He reminds us the church is made up of many individuals who have different functions within the church. God gives each of us a unique blend of special abilities, passions and desires to do things nobody else can do. He names some of the gifts in this passage (others are found in 1 Corinthians 12). The gifts Paul lists are: prophecy – telling forth the truth according to the word of God, ministering – coming along side of people and helping them, teaching – being able to understand and communicate God's word, exhortation – encouraging people to live lives that are obedient to God's word, giving – the ability to see needs and give to meet those needs, ruling — shepherding or the ability to help believers mature, mercy – the ability to be merciful and forgiving and the ability to come along side of people and help them to live in the light of God's mercy. It is interesting that spiritual gifts flow over into our everyday lives. If we mature and react to a given situation, it is often partly controlled by our spiritual gift. For example, when a child spills his milk the prophet might confront him for his carelessness, the person with the gift of ministry would bend down and help the child clean the mess, the person with the gift of exhortation would try to help him understand what caused the spill, the person who is a teacher would try to discern why the milk was spilled and help the child see what he could do differently, the person who has the gift of mercy would care more about the child's embarrassment and try to alleviate that, and the person with giving would probably replace the milk!

One of the friends with whom I used to do a Bible Study had the Spiritual gift of faith. When we first started meeting it was funny because in her honesty she shared how she could not understand how people had doubts about God. She, from the time she became a Christian, never doubted God, His love, or His sovereign plans for her life. We grew up in very similar family structures and did not experience Christ in our childhood homes. Yet, I love God's word and often wrestle with the truths contained in it before they actually become a part of my heartfelt faith. Every time we met I could show her things from the scripture she hadn't noticed before, because I have grown in my faith by wrestling with what I read in His word and because my gift is teaching. She in turn exhorted me to trust God in the way I never had before. During one of our early studies I encouraged her to give the freedom to let people express doubt so she could see God use her gifts to speak faith into their lives. Oddly, I probably reaped the most benefit of that advice. I could express my doubts to her freely without fear of rejection or admonition. I knew she loved me and accepted me and I was blessed by the encouragement she gave me to trust God. I always walked out of our study together full of hope and a whole new perspective on life. She in turn told me that she felt free to tell me she doesn't know how to say something to someone who doubts and we looked in scripture and found answers. She also asked me for insight into a passage and if it was one that I had struggled through I could give her all the ramifications of what that passage meant in my life. It was a really blessed “body” relationship! 

What are your passions, gifts, and abilities? How do you use them to build up the body? Do you accept other's gifts and view them as important as your own? Do you encourage other people to their gifts? Do you realize how valuable your own gifts are to the body of Christ?

Prayer: Father, thank you for your grace and for taking each of us out of the muck that we use to live in. Thank you for gifting people with special abilities and placing them in the body of Christ as You would. Thank you for the prophets, teachers, helpers, givers, and merciful people You have put in my life. Give each of us the courage and strength and insight to use our abilities and passions in ways that will honor and glorify You. Amen.