Releasing Your Child to God

"As Hannah embraced her little Samuel one last time, what thoughts must have filled her mind? As she placed his timid fingers into the hands of the old priest, Eli, . . . and let go, . . . what questions did she surrender to the Lord? (1 Samuel 1:2-2:21) 

As Hannah looked back toward her home, what did her mother’s heart feel? How could she walk away from the answer to all her prayers? How could she release this dream she had so desperately longed for—this dream that was now a real little boy looking up at her with questioning eyes and a quivering lip, trying to obey her loving instructions, and trying to hold back his tears?

If only Hannah could have known at that moment how the story looks from our perspective. We know her Samuel would soon hear the audible voice of God, he would impact the entire nation of Israel, and this very act of her obedient surrender would be recorded and recalled for generations.

But Hannah didn’t know the future. She only knew it was time to say goodbye and go home—childless once again. She must have turned her face quickly so Samuel wouldn’t see her mixed emotions.

As Hannah walked away, she released her little one into the mighty hand of God and chose to worship. As she did, God’s plan began to unfold. For this child was not just Hannah’s dream; he was God’s dream. At the time, the nation of Israel desperately needed a new spiritual leader, and God had found a mother desperate enough for Him to willingly yield to His plans.

As parents...we don’t always realize the importance of our vital role in the kingdom of God. Will we equip our children to fulfill God’s purposes and to reach for God’s potential? Will we train our children to reach their world for Jesus?

Through this (website) I desire to light a spark for world missions (like God has lit in me) that will grow into a fire for the unsaved like you’ve never had before. I want God’s love for unreached people to burn so strongly inside you that it will start spreading to others, specifically to your own children and to the young people you come in contact with.

Over the years I’ve seen many of our world’s appalling needs. I’ve had opportunities to travel to dozens of countries. However, in this particular season of my life I’m primarily called to be at home. I love being a mother, raising a family, and teaching children. But sometimes, I admit, I get frustrated.

Many days I wonder if I am “doing” anything of significance and I often struggle with a horrible “striving” mentality in my flesh. When I hear of “big needs”—like the “big need” for world missions—I feel a striving to want to do something “important” (for God, of course!).

I want to be busy!

I want to go!

But sometimes it feels like I’m meeting only “little needs”—like helping a child with homework, cooking a meal or reading that bedtime story (again!), and simply watching my children grow.

Yet, deep inside, I do know the truth. Raising and training children (and serving my husband) is important! “Striving,” or mere “busyness,” is not the same as “fruitfulness,” and all God really requires is for me to stay close to Him and obey Him, day by day.

Today the Lord is simply showing me to be faithful—that is, to love God and to support my husband here at home; to be fruitful—to be a mother and to teach and train our children in the ways of the Lord; and to keep my eyes on the future—to eagerly anticipate the Lord’s return and keep living in His joy.

As parents and teachers, we must “train up a child in the way he should go” (Proverbs 22:6), and in the Great Commission; Jesus said the way we should go is “into all the world and preach the gospel” (Mark 16:15).

David Livingstone said, “God had only one Son, and He made Him a missionary.” Jesus came as our missionary to earth. He relinquished everything in heaven to provide the way for us (and all people) to come into relationship with Him. He knew the cost before Him, and the price He paid was beyond anything we could imagine.

In Hebrews 12:2, the Bible says we are to look to Jesus, “the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.” Jesus’ incredible love compelled Him to the cross. His burning desire was to fully obey the will of the Father, providing a way for humanity to be reconciled back to God. Jesus was willing to sacrifice whatever it took: His position in heaven, His unsurpassed riches and glory, His reputation, and even His very life. Jesus was whipped, beaten, tortured, and despised—all for the joy that was set before Him.

Isaiah 9:2–3 describes the joy of harvest as a light shining through darkness. There is rejoicing when a lost coin is found! There is joy when a shepherd finds a lost sheep or when a prodigal finally comes home! Luke 15:7 tells us that “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.”

This is the joy that led Jesus to the cross.

How many of us are so captivated by God’s love that we would be willing to lay down everything to follow Him?

We should take a moment to consider our lives and our priorities from God’s eternal perspective:

- As we teach and train our children, what are we hoping they will achieve?

- As we steward God’s resources, what are we saving toward?

- As we influence the next generation, what dreams are we instilling?

- As we talk to God, what is the primary focus of our prayers?

As Christians, we must realize that God’s love, His passionate love, resides in us. Are we willing to allow this love to flow through us (and through our children) to the world? Second Corinthians 5:14–15 says, “For the love of Christ compels us . . . that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.”

Like Hannah, we must realize that our child is actually God’s child—entrusted to us for only a short time. We need to release our child to God and then follow His guidance to raise His child for His divine purposes!

My prayer is for the simple words in this (website) to penetrate deep into your soul and spirit. I know you don’t need more information; but we all need more inspiration. I pray that God’s love for the world will explode in your heart like a blast of dynamite. I hope you will be moved by the things that move God’s heart and that you will allow God’s precious Holy Spirit to impart this heart into your child.

We’ve all heard the famous saying, “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” I say, “May the child in our cradle reach the world . . . for the One who rules it all!”

* Taken from the book The Mission Minded Child: Raising a New Generation to Fulfill God's Purpose by Ann Dunagan

EE-Taow

A friend of ours, Riki, shared a video that had been shown at her church. It is called EE-Taow which means "it's very true" in the Mouk language.

The Mouk people are a tribe living in Papua New Guinea. This is the story of what happened when two missionaries went to live among them and teach them the Gospel.
The missionaries took about two years to study the Mouk language and way of life, to educate the Mouk people, and to translate the Bible into the Mouk language. When the missionaries were ready to present the Gospel, they invited the entire village to a series of Bible teachings in which they explained the Bible in the language of the tribe.
For three months, the villagers would gather together twice a day on Monday to Friday where each session lasted about an hour, while the missionaries chronologically walked through the key points of the Bible.

This video is the amazing story of what happened when they heard about Christ's love for them!!! Click on the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjRTBQcf-uc

Eternity in Their Hearts

Who were the Magi who brought gifts to the baby Jesus, and how did they know that a Messiah was coming?

Who was Melchizedek, the contemporary of Abraham, who was a priest of the one high God?

How did a fifteenth century Peruvian king named Pachacuti, recognize that there was only one true God, before the coming of the Europeans? In his own words, Pachacuti described the one true God, they called Viracocha: "He is ancient, remote, supreme, and uncreated...He manifests himself as a trinity when he wishes...otherwise only heavenly warriors and archangels surround his loneliness. He created all peoples by his 'word.'"

God has "made every nation of men...so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us" (Acts 17:26-27) Think about that for a moment...every nation of men...not just the Jews or the Americans or the Europeans or the Chinese, but every nation. Paul tells us that God has made them in such a way that men from every nation would seek Him.
But do they? Is there any proof that when missionaries enter a new culture/nation with the Gospel of Jesus, that they may find a people who are already prepared to hear and receive the Gospel? The answer is an astounding YES!!!

I read a book called Eternity in their Hearts by Don Richardson. Don Richardson and his late wife, Carol, spent 15 years among the Sawi, a Stone Age tribe of Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea. Don designed an alphabet suited to the Sawi language, authored 19 primers, taught the tribesmen to read in their native tongue and translated the entire New Testament. More than half of the Sawi accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior!

The premise of his book is that in every culture God has preserved for Himself a testimony. In His mercy, He has permitted every culture in the world to retain a portion of the truth. If a missionary goes into a region, searching the culture for its grains of truth, and then affirms that these ideas ARE true, and then presents the Gospel as the REST of the truth, he and the Gospel will quite often be received. The book is heavily documented with specific examples of missionaries finding and utilizing these culture keys, and seeing large numbers of people become Christian.

I'd like to share some of the many examples of this. I pray they will hearten any of you, including me, who agonize over the question of God's justice in regard to people who have never heard the Gospel.

In 1867, a Norwegian missionary named Lars Skrefsrud found 2.5 million people called the Santal living in a region north of Calcutta, India. Once Lars learned the language and began proclaiming the Gospel to the Santal, he wondered how many years it would be before he saw converts. "To Skrefsurd's utter amazement, the Santal were electrified almost at once by the Gospel message. At length he heard Santal sages, including one named Kolean, exclaim, 'What this stranger is saying must mean that Thakur Jiu has not forgotten us after all this time!'" Kolean then went on to explain that their forefathers had taught them that "Thakur is distinct. He is not to be seen with fleshy eyes, but he sees all. He has created all things. He has set everything in its place, and he nourishes all, great and small." These were people who had never met a Christian or Jew nor had seen any part of the Bible, yet their understanding of God was Biblical! Once Lars explained the Gospel to them, they began to experience "eighty baptisms per day (which) signified that young Santal churches in 'Hindu India' were growing more than 500 times as fast as churches in 'Christian Europe.'"

Before I share a couple more examples, I must admit that reading this book shattered a belief that I held. I believed that the folk religions (the native religions of a people group, distinct from the major world religions - Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hindu, etc.) of the world were almost entirely pagan and held very little hint or understanding of God. But according to Richardson, "We have been wrong. In actual fact, more than 90 percent of this world's folk religions acknowledge at least the existence of God. Some even anticipate His redeeming concern for mankind."

"The Chinese call him Shang Ti - the Lord of Heaven...In Korea he is known as Hananim, The Great One. Belief in Shang Ti/Hananim predates Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism by an unknown number of centuries." When missionaries entered China and Korea, they discovered this ancient belief in Shang Ti/Hananim and used it to explain a further revelation of God. Just as Paul pointed to the altar to the "unknown god" in Athens (Acts 17:22), the missionaries pointed to Shang Ti/Hananim. Today, "more than 3 million Koreans belong to Protestant churches...and Seoul contains the world's two largest Protestant churches." I can attest to this fact after living in Seoul for two years...there are crosses on the tops of churches everywhere! And in China, more than 23,000 people come to Christ a day!

The Karen of Burma were another group of people magnificently poised to receive the Gospel with open arms when it was presented to them. They had been searching for centuries for a "white brother who was supposed to bring them a book...(whose) author is Y'wa-the Supreme God...that the white brother, having given them the lost book, will thereby set them free from all who oppress them." Their folk religion's hymns bear striking resemblances to God's character and "the Karen story of man's falling away from God contains stunning parallels to Genesis chapter 1: Y'wa formed the world originally. He appointed food and drink. He appointed the 'fruit of trial.' He gave detailed orders. Mu-kaw-lee deceived two persons. He caused them to eat the fruit of the tree of the trial. They obeyed not...they believed not Y'wa...when they ate the fruit of trial they became subject to sickness, aging and death." Wow! This was a remote group of people who had never come in contact with Jews or Christians before, yet their own religion, thousands of years old, had an incredible witness of the Lord! The Karen nation was thus poised like an 800,000 member welcoming party, ready for the first unsuspecting missionary who approached them with a Bible and a message of deliverance from God." When missionaries finally brought the Gospel to the Karen in the early 1800s, thousands accepted Christ almost immediately and "almost as quickly as Karen were converted and baptized, they became missionaries to spread the good news still further among their own people" and neighboring tribes!

There are so many more examples of people groups with prior knowledge of God, being prepared and ready to accept Jesus as Savior, once He was presented to them. It is truly amazing and so very comforting. It is our job to do all we can to bring them the Good News.

Malachi 1:11  says, says "'My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations,'the LORD Almighty." May this be our prayer:

Lord, You are the true and living God, You rule over all things visible and invisible. The nations belong to You, and you have woven into the fabric of every culture a testimony to Your name.

I bring the unreached people groups of the world before you now, and I ask Lord that You would reveal those things in their culture, that reflect who you are and Your son Jesus. Cause the hidden treasures of Your truth to be brought up and displayed for all to see. Lord use these keys of insight to ignite a curiosity and hunger among them to know more about who You are. Give Your servants wisdom and strategy to use these keys to promote the Gospel among this people group. In Your name we pray, Amen.

What's on the Other Side?

There are a lot of touching emails out there these days. But this one really made me think and it reminded me of one of the main reasons I write this blog:

A sick man turned to his doctor as he was preparing to leave the examination room and said,

"Doctor, I am afraid to die. Tell me what lies on the other side."

Very quietly, the doctor said, "I don't know."

"You don't know?  You're, a Christian man, and don't know what's on the other side?"

The doctor was holding the handle of the door. On the other side came a sound of scratching and whining, and as he opened the door, a dog sprang into the room and leaped on him with an eager show of gladness.

Turning to the patient, the doctor said, "Did you notice my dog? He's never been in this room before. He didn't know what was inside. He knew nothing except that his master was here, and when the door opened, he sprang in without fear. I know little of what is on the other side of death,  but I do know one thing... I know my Master is there and that is enough."

That is enough! We are so incredibly privileged and blessed to have heard the name of Jesus and to have been given the grace to believe in His name. We don't know what lies beyond the grave (the details, what our bodies will be like, what we will do all the time, what it will look like, etc.) but we know who lies beyond the grave...Jesus Christ!

But there are billions who do not know what lies beyond...billions who fear death with every ounce of their being...who live in a very dark world and who will go to an even darker world when they die. Friends, this should not be!

I spend my early morning hours reading the Bible, praying and just getting to know Jesus more. I can't WAIT to see Him face to face and be with Him forever! I want the unreached people of the world to get a chance to be with Him as well. I can't imagine life without Jesus!!!

I encourage you to pick one unreached people group and start praying for them daily. Find out more about them... https://www.unreachedoftheday.org has a list of just about all of them with links to lots of information. I have been praying for the Hui of China and the Bahing of Nepal for awhile now.

They need our prayers! They are people just like us. There, but for the grace of God, could be each of us. They are God's children too and He is asking us to pray!