What wilt Thou give me?

Hi everybody!

There was a specific reason I wanted to write on my blog today, but I can't remember what it was, so I just thought I'd do a little update about how things are going lately.

Yesterday was my art history midterm.  I am seriously being over and over again shocked at God's goodness.  I have been dreading this midterm ever since the semester began.  It was the only midterm I had for any of my classes (for all the rest I have periodic exams), and this is the only test we have besides our final for this class, so it's pretty just based on those two tests.  I was so nervous about it, in fact, that I memorized the first four pages of vocabulary words I needed for the midterm within the first two weeks of starting school. :) But I was so ready for it!  Over the weekend I was feeling a little nervous because I didn't even really know what to study (we were going over ten chapters--was I supposed to everything about every one of them?), but when I woke up I read the little devotional for the day that I have in this devo book by Amy Carmichael.  I've talked about it before; it's called Edges of His Ways.  I wanted to post the devotional for yesterday because it was just so cool how God ordained it for that day.

*Gen. 15:2: Lord God, what wilt Thou give me?

   When thinking of the further reaches of prayer I came on this, the simplest of all, like the words of a small child before is has learned not to ask for things for itself.  If the friend of God could speak so to his God, we may in all simplicity do so too.  "Lord God, what wilt Thou give me?"

   Just as a child passes from the less to the greater in desire, so we find in our Bible that the desire of man, as he walks further on with God, grows and grows till we come to such words as Paul's, words that reach far beyond any earthly good--"That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings"; and soon that other word follows, so often forgotten in hurried prayer: the first good thing promised is not the thing for which we prayed, but peace.

   "Lord God, what wilt Thou give me?"

   "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and mind through Christ Jesus."  Is not peace an answer?

Isn't that awesome?  I'm not saying that I wasn't a bit anxious throughout that day, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be (plus, I think I did really good on the test!).  God is so faithful!  He gives peace and strength and whatever else I may need, all the time.  He is so good.

Start considering joining The Voice of the Martyrs on November 13th, the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.  To learn more about it you can go here.  I'm posting a video from their website below; I think it's sort of a promotional thing for this day of prayer, to get you started thinking about it.  I thought it was really interesting.

I also wanted to post another little thing from Amy Carmichael (I love Amy Carmichael; she was such an inspiration!).  This one is from A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael by Elisabeth Elliot.  It's not really inspirational or anything, but it just stilled my soul and made me stop for a moment to pray for those little children around the world that evil people use for harm.

**Just how horrible [what she was saving little girls from] she (Amy) did her best to put into words.  Things as They Are has a picture of a half-naked holy man.  "This photo is from death in life," she writes, "a carcass, moving, breathing, sinning...  I knew something about the man.  His life is simply unthinkable.  Talk of beasts in human shape!  It is slandering good animals to compare bad men to beasts.  Safer far in a tiger's den than that man's monastery.  But he is a temple saint--earthly, sensual, devilish.  Now put beside him a little girl--your own little girl--and leave her there--yes, leave her there in his hand."

Take some time today to lift up to the Lord those helpless, little children and the people who do them harm, as well as the people who work to help them.

* excerpt taken from "Edges of His Ways" by Amy Carmichael, page 193
** excerpt taken from "A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael" by Elisabeth Elliot, pages 170-171

A Tea Against Suffering

I looked out at the silent congregation. It was, for a moment, as if I were back in my church during the war on the day when the Iron Guard bullies filed in with their guns. Menace was around us, not only in the place where Rugojanu was taking notes.

I continued, “Don’t let suffering take you by surprise! Meditate on it often. Take the virtues of Christ and His saints into your life. The pastor I spoke of, my teacher who died for his faith, gave me a recipe for a tea against suffering, and I will give it to you.”

I told them the story of a doctor of early Christian times who was unjustly imprisoned by the emperor. After some weeks his family was allowed to see him, and at first they wept. His clothes were rags, his nourishment a slice of bread with a cup of water every day. His wife wondered and asked, “How is it that you look so well? You have the air of one who has just come from a wedding!” The doctor smilingly replied that he found a remedy for all troubles, and his family asked him what it was. The doctor told them, “I have discovered a tea that is good against all suffering and sorrow. It contains seven herbs, and I shall number them for you.”

“The first herb is called contentedness: be satisfied with what you have. I may shiver in my rags as I gnaw on a crust, but how much worse off I should be if the emperor had thrown me naked into a dungeon with nothing at all to eat!

“The second herb is common sense. Whether I rejoice or worry, I shall still be in prison, so why fret?

“The third is remembrance of past sins: count them, and on the supposition that every sin deserves a day in prison, reckon how many lives you would spend behind bars—you have been let off lightly!

“The fourth is the thought of the sorrows that Christ bore gladly for us. If the only Man who ever could choose His fate on earth chose pain, what great value He must have seen in it! So we observe that, borne with serenity and joy, suffering redeems.

“The fifth herb is the knowledge that suffering has been given to us by God as from a father, not to harm us, but to cleanse and sanctify us. The suffering through which we pass has the purpose of purifying us and preparing us for heaven.

“The sixth is the knowledge that no suffering can harm a Christian life. If the pleasures of the flesh are all, then pain and prison bring an end to a man’s aim in living; but if the core of life is truth, that is something which no prison cell can change. In prison or out of it two and two make four. Prison cannot stop me from loving; iron bars cannot exclude faith. If these ideals make up my life, I can be serene anywhere.

“The last herb in the recipe is hope. The wheel of life may put the emperor’s physician in prison, but it goes on turning. It may put me back into the palace, and even put me on the throne.”

I paused for a moment. The crowded church was still.

“I have drunk barrels of this tea since then,” I said, “and I can recommend it to you all. It has proved good.”
* excerpt taken from "In God's Underground" by Richard Wurmbrand, pages 194-195

Ready to die

Pakistan has announced three days of national mourning after a Christian government minister who decried Islamic blasphemy laws was gunned down.

Police investigators say they are on the trail of the suspected extremists who killed minority affairs minister Shahbaz Bhatti outside his mother's house in Islamabad, in a brazen attack that has drawn international outrage.

Mr Bhatti, who left a chilling video prophecy of his assassination, had vowed to fight to the death in defence of Pakistan's persecuted minorities.

One police official said on condition of anonymity that investigators are looking into the security team assigned to Mr Bhatti, who became the second high-profile victim among opponents of the blasphemy law.

Two months ago, Punjab province governor Salman Taseer was shot dead by one of his own police bodyguards, who cited the politician's opposition to the draconian statute as justification for killing the "apostate".

Despite official condemnation of the January killing, Mr Taseer's killer continues to be feted a hero by Islamist hardliners and the government says it has no plans to revise the law.

However, prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani issued tough words as he ordered flags to be flown at half-mast and says security will be stepped up after Mr Bhatti's slaying.

"Anti-state elements are making their last-ditch efforts by targeting important personalities in the country in order to fulfill their evil designs," he told his interior minister, Rehman Malik, according to a statement.

The extremist threat was underlined on Thursday when a car suicide bombing and an ambush by militants targeting police in north-western Pakistan killed 15 people including nine policemen.

But Mr Gilani says the "government through fool-proof arrangements would safeguard the lives and properties of all citizens of the country, particularly to make sure they could play their role in the development of the country".

The prime minister's comments came as a video - said to have been recorded in December - spread online in which Mr Bhatti said he was being hunted by the Taliban or Al Qaeda.

Extremists wanted to kill him because of his opposition to the blasphemy law and to Sharia legislation, and because of his work for "the oppressed and marginalised", the Catholic politician said sombrely into the camera.

In the video, posted online by the European group First Step Forum, which promotes interfaith dialogue, Mr Bhatti said: "I want to share that I believe in Jesus Christ who has given his own life for us".

"I'm ready to die for a cause. I'm living for my community and suffering people, and I will die to defend their rights," he said.

Mr Bhatti's assassination rekindled international fears about extremist violence in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation that is a crucial if fractious ally in the US-led war in Afghanistan.

US president Barack Obama said he was saddened by the "horrific" assassination.

"Those who committed this crime should be brought to justice, and those who share Mr Bhatti's vision of tolerance and religious freedom must be able to live free from fear," he said.

Up to four assailants sprayed a hail of bullets at Mr Bhatti's car in broad daylight on Wednesday. Police said a letter was found at the scene, purportedly from supporters of Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban, claiming responsibility.

"Bhatti, a Christian, was in charge of a committee set up to amend the law against blasphemy," police quoted the letter as saying.

"This is his fate. We will not spare anybody involved in acts of blasphemy."

Senior police official Muhammad Ishaq Warraich cautioned on Thursday that the letter might "be an attempt to divert our investigations".

His colleague Bani Amin says police are confident of a breakthrough.

"The investigators were busy all night. We hope to solve this case soon," Mr Amin said.

One line of inquiry appeared to be Mr Bhatti's security detail, which was not with the minister at the time of the morning attack.

Mr Malik said it had been Mr Bhatti's decision to visit his mother without guards so as to keep the location secret. But the interior minister called the decision "wrong".

Uproar over the blasphemy law, which carries the death penalty, flared both in Pakistan and abroad after a Christian mother of five was sentenced to hang last year for making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed.

Critics say the law is often used to settle personal or business scores.

* taken from ABC News; read it again here

Four Questions

“That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” Philippians 3:10 (NASB)

This was the second group of leaders we had trained in two weeks.  The training had been going well even though many of the believers were young: some young in years and some in their faith.  A couple of them were only 15 and 16 years old.  Some had only been Christians for a few months.

The teaching for the morning was on baptism, and a 15-year-old girl wanted to be baptized.  She had been a believer from a young age but had never been immersed.

Four questions are asked during a baptism: (1) Do you believe in Jesus? (2) Has He forgiven your sins? (3) Do you promise to walk with Him always?  But there is one more question.

I watched and listened to the father, who would be performing the baptism.  Calmly, and with much joy, he asked the first, second and third questions.  Then I heard a surprising question.  The father asked the fourth question, “When they come into our house and take us away, when they beat us and try to get us to deny Him, will you still follow Jesus?”

There before my eyes, a father was asking his daughter to be willing to be persecuted for her faith in Christ and to be willing to see him persecuted for his faith.  With a sense of awe, I prayed that I might be more like them.  I think they understood more clearly what the Father felt when He sent His Son to die for us.

* excerpt taken from "Voices of the Faithful" by Beth Moore, page 192