From my friend, a medical missionary in Kudjip, Papua New Guinea I am sure many of you are already praying for the Philippines and the disaster there. We just wanted to add a special personal request for our friends and coworkers, Dr. Andy and Judy Bennett, who will be heading there from Kudjip Hospital to go help through Nazarene Compassionate Ministries (see the NCM website at ncm.org ). They are leaving tomorrow to be gone about a month to help in the relief work there. There are many questions that linger in our minds when we think of such tragedy. I sat there tonight as missionaries and nationals gathered in their home to pray with them and send them out. The question flashed in my mind how we can pray for their safety and protection and send them out. Where was the God of protection when the typhoon flattened whole towns? Can I ask for protection for the ones I love amidst such loss? The Bible doesnt shy away from the hard questions or sugarcoat it with the pie-in-the sky mentality sometimes attributed to the religious. The whole creation is subjected to frustration - to suffering to pain. Bad things happen. I have been teaching the teen Bible study and challenging them to ask the hard questions. Those are the ones that matter - that make us wrestle with God, to find a faith that matters. And I realize even as I pray that indeed God offers no such false hopes as what we may ask for. God doesnt give them any more assurance of safety than when he called them (or us) to Papua New Guinea. The truth is missionaries going to a devastated area could indeed fall victim to robbery, disease, accidents, etc... If they go they go as Christ, ready to lay down their lives in whatever way that means. If they go and serve and return we praise God for their work and safety, if something bad did happen we would know they willingly laid down their lives to help others. Paul uses the same language in 2 Cor. 1:6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same suffering we suffer. Whatever happens good or bad, Paul wants to be sure God gets the glory - if we suffer it is for someone elses benefit, if we are comforted it is to comfort others. This is the mission life - this is the Christian life. As I prayed these section of verses were going through my head about suffering and I came home and read them. I will sum up. Romans 8:18-39 (in parts) our present sufferings... the creation was subjected to frustration... groaning as in the pains of childbirth..., we ourselves... groan inwardly... eager for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies...we hope for what we do not yet have... in the same way the Spirit helps in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words can not express... the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with Gods will. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those that love him... He who did not spare his own Son.... how will he not also along with him, graciously give us all things... Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors. For I am convinced neither death nor life,... will be able to separate us from the love of God. God did not turn his back on our tragic state, though self inflicted. He sent His son to die, to be grace. And God is still sending His sons and daughters into places of persecution and famine and danger - to be grace to a hurting world. No promise of safety -only the joy of reckless abandon. Only the sharing of comfort we ourselves have received. Only the joy of knowing nothing in death or life can take away what we have found in Christ. It is the same in all of our lives isnt it? There are no promises that life will be a walk in the park (sometimes you get mugged or you find someone who has). Bad things happen to good people, to people we know, and people we dont know. The earth is subject to frustration and pain and all of humanity is in that. Do we live our lives in such a way that God receives glory in all of that -in the protection and the suffering. The breaking and the mending? Can that pain produce in us a yearning for redemption - amidst the hurt to be willing to enter the pain and bring the healing only God can give? Go be Christ in a hurting world and continue to pray for our ministry in the hurts here and the many ministries going to the Philippines to help in the hurt there. In Christ Scott for the Dooleys
Posted on: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 21:46:12 +0000
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