“I have put before you a task that is so great and so monumental that it will force you to your knees to call upon Me and to lean and depend upon Me, that you might realize in your hearts and minds that without Me, you can do nothing. In that moment, in realizing your own lacks and weaknesses and inability, My strength and power will come through for you.”—Jesus, speaking in prophecy
About a year ago I wrote a small article in response to the request on the Good News Blog for articles with the theme of “This Year…” which I filled in with “This year… I had my world fall apart.” In it I briefly told the story of how the Lord closed the door on us being in India after 38 years on that mission field and was leading us back to North America. Here’s a bit from that article:
“Since 1974 my wife, Hannah, and I have lived on the mission field. We met in Goa, India, in 1974. Were married in New Delhi in 1975 and then spent the next 36 years serving the Lord in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Iran, Kuwait, Greece, and Sri Lanka.
“I must say that although the initial thought of leaving India and moving to North America, where I have absolutely no job experience, credentials, nor credit history, etc., was overwhelming, the Lord has led me very gently step by step and has been there right beside me each step of the way whenever the waves and billows threatened to overflow me.”
Before I start this article I want to apologize for not writing this testimony sooner. I hope this is a case of better late than never and that it can still be an encouragement and faith builder to any of those who may find themselves in similar circumstances. I know I’ve shared it with nearly everyone I’ve come in contact with, whom I’ve talked to about the Lord, and it’s always been an encouragement to them and a testimony to the Lord’s remarkable ability to answer our deepest heartcries in our times of deepest distress and anguish of spirit.
Rereading what I wrote back then, I now see how much I “toned down” what I was going through at that time. When I said “the waves and billows threatened to overflow me,” I can honestly say that it was one of the biggest upheavals I had ever weathered in my entire 40+ years of serving the Lord. Like the disciples of old, in Matthew 8:24–26, I found my inward self in the “midst of a very great tempest, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves,” and my spirit was crying, “Lord, save me, I perish.”1
As King David expressed in Psalm 42, my spirit was “panting as a hart after a water brook,” thirsting for God’s answer and presence in the situation I was in. I needed an answer. I needed faith. My life and my future depended on it. To project my thoughts into the future was overwhelming; inside my being it was like I was constantly seasick with emotion, apprehension, uncertainty, and fear of the future. “[As] with a sword in my bones”2 I was desperately seeking the water brook of God’s leading and will in my life.
In the testimony I wrote, I said: “For three months I closed up our work and turned over our contacts for good and shifted to Canada.” That closing up consisted of closing two houses, selling three cars, and closing up our work in a city in which we had lived for 16 years. (Note: Our daughter and two grandchildren had moved to Chennai, and I sent her ahead to Canada to prepare a place for her and children, while I stayed back with my 18-year-old son, 21-year-old daughter, two grandchildren, and two dogs, and took care of the closing up.)
After I had closed our house, I moved to my daughter’s house and started the clean-up work there. I was already pretty much exhausted, so before I started the second phase of the closing up I went to a nearby beach town and took three days just to read and relax and get strengthened for the battle ahead. When I returned the battles didn’t stop, but I felt a bit more buoyant. But the waves kept coming in the form of overwhelming thoughts of fear of the uncertain future. I was trying to find something to hang my faith on, some twig of hope that I could grab ahold of, but there was nothing.
On top of all of the spiritual and emotional tension, there was also the physical strain. The constant heat and humidity of the summer months in Chennai, plus the daily 3- or 4-hour power cuts were so debilitating that they left me feeling wrung out like an old Indian floor cloth.
One day, while everyone else was out, I was going through an old briefcase my wife and I have had for over 20 years. It was so old that the synthetic rubber handle had melted years back and we had fixed it with electrical tape. This briefcase was the collect-all for all our important papers and mementos; the bag we would grab in case of an emergency. In it were birth certificates, home schooling records, report cards, achievement certificates, medical papers, new and old passports, etc. I’ll add here that we have 11 children. That day I had decided I was going to purge that case. I wasn’t taking it with me.
Sitting on the floor in a small room under a slowly turning fan with only a pair of shorts and a singlet on, I started the purge. Paper by paper, note by note, document by document, I placed the contents in three piles: things to keep, things to scan and then destroy, things to get rid of.
During this process I was battling in my conscious and subconscious with those overwhelming fearful thoughts. It’s funny to me now that King David referred to them as “waves,” because I often felt as if I were seasick. I remember as a child being out in our small boat. Sometimes we’d get caught in bad weather and our small boat would start rocking just a bit too much, and that slight tinge of nausea would come over me. Well, that was the feeling I had in my gut nearly all the time—a deep, sunken, sickening feeling.
So there I was, sweating, sitting on the floor surrounded by these piles of papers. When I was done I decided to hold up the briefcase and give it a good shake just to be sure everything was out of it, when a piece of paper, 8 x 4.5 cm, came fluttering out and landed on the floor directly in front of me. I looked at it but didn’t remember ever having seen it before. It was old and worn, a pale green color, with text on one side covered with a thin sheet of contact paper. It looked like one of those old Promise Box quotes we used to have. I picked it up and began to read:
“I've got your back covered. I'm watching out for your interests, as you are watching out for Mine. Thank you for so cheerfully doing My work, taking care of the things I have committed to your trust, and trusting Me to take care of the personal situations you have committed to My trust. I won't let you down! I'll be a good business manager for you. I'll work things out the way I know they should be. Just leave it all in My hands and I'll make you happy. Wait and see.”3
I crumbled. I just lay on the floor and cried and cried and felt so loved I can’t explain it. Like Thomas of old, my spirit cried out “My Lord and my God.”4 This time I was overwhelmed not with fear, uncertainty, and apprehension, but rather with joy, love, and light. I was washed. I was cleansed. Faith replaced fear. Light drove out the darkness and my future suddenly became as bright as this promise of God.
I don’t know how long I lay there crying and thanking Him. Time just no longer seemed to exist. I felt as if the Lord literally had His arms around me and was holding me, telling me not to fear and how much He loved me, encouraging me that everything was going to be okay. After some time I rose from the floor and I was a different person. All I can compare it to is when I was born again. I now knew that everything was going to be okay and there was no need to fear. The Son of God was at the helm of my ship, and with Him at the helm my small unworthy vessel could weather any storm or tempest the Enemy might blow across my path.
It’s been nearly two years now since this experience, and they have been rewarding and adventure-filled years. I feel like I have grown so much in the Lord and that my relationship with Him has been transformed. I know this would not have been possible without that major upheaval. The waves have mounted pretty big but His promise has proven true. I’ve learned not to try to take the wheel from Him but just to let Him work things out the way He knows they should be. He hasn’t let me down. He has been a good business manager for me. He has made me happy. And I face each day with anticipation as I wait and seewhat He has for me.
As for where the paper came from and how it got there, we don’t really know. All I know is that the Lord kept it for just such a time as this to get the desired effect, that only He may be glorified.
1 The word translated as “tempest” here was seismos, the same word we get the words seismic andseismology from, having to do with earthquakes, or in my case a major shakeup.
2 Psalm 42:10.
3 By Jesus, speaking in prophecy.
4 John 20:28.
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