Every year for the past 3 years, my husband has bought a planner for me for Christmas.  Before that, I had a big, lovely homeschool planner, but since our children are now seeking higher education, I’ve been able to downsize.  It’s kind of like moving from the minivan to the cute, zippy car.   

But this year, I told him that I didn’t want a planner.  I didn’t see the point.  My 2020 planner was filled with penciled in meetings, Work & Witness trips, vacations, celebrations, and visits.  In March, I started what would become a pattern of erasing.  Month after month, I rubbed out ministry opportunities, team meetings, the performance for the show I’d helped direct at the international school, and my kids’ trips out to see us.  

Fortunately, everything was in pencil.  There are always last minute adjustments to be made, things change. Be flexible is the missionary motto, but this was getting ridiculous. By June the planner sat empty and neglected in my desk drawer, our joint calendar on the computer now marking the many Zoom meetings that attempted to replace an active life.

This difficult year/season hasn’t really caused me much trauma.  I’ve been very fortunate, but in this area, I found myself affected.  Although I’ve always known that we need to hold our plans lightly, in open hands, and though I’m not the kind of person who soars on the wings of expectation with hopes high, the empty hands and cessation of activity were foreign.  The stillness felt forced and maybe I was bit resentful.  I didn’t want to plan.  I almost felt like I couldn’t plan.  So, no planner for me this year, thank you! I’ll just roll with whatever comes, free-spirit style.

The Proverbs have a several things to say about our planning tendencies:  “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”(19:21).  It can be hard at first to read this verse.  Were my cancelled plans part of God’s purpose? Is this all part of God’s plan?  No.  Instead this verse reminds us that the fulfillment of the Lord’s purpose does not depend on my plans.  His work continues and is completed whether what I have planned comes to pass or not.  

Proverbs 16:9 reminds me that my plans are not necessarily God’s plans, and that the Lord also has a hand in my planning.  It reads, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”  I’m so grateful that my steps are determined by the Lord.  And I’m grateful that the Holy Spirit guides my heart and mind as I plan my course.  

My very sweet husband went ahead and bought me a planner anyway.  And I decided that I am going to use it.  I will still pencil in meetings and ministry plans, visits and celebrations, but this year I’m also writing in Ink.  

This year, I’m writing the Words that never fade or perish in my planner, the Words that direct me in God’s purpose, the Word that establishes my steps.  I’m recording the Word of God each day in Ink: God’s promises, character, wisdom, and my prayers based on the Word.  I’m inking in the blessings that God has given, and my gratitude.  

While my plans will change and fade away, the Word of God will never fade, the promises of God will never fail to come to pass and the purposes of God will prevail.  I can confidently record them—in ink.

God will not love you any more than He already does right now. Let that sink in for a minute. God’s love for us does not grow or change. He does not love me more now than He did yesterday and He will not love me more (or less) tomorrow.

The full measure of God’s love is directed toward you right now. You are fully and completely known and fully and completely loved.

God does not sanctify us, form and transform us, and make us holy in order to make us lovable. He does not prune and discipline, guide and grow us in order to make us worthy of His love.

We are worthy of God’s love because God decides we are worthy. He decided that mankind was worth the time and attention and sacrifice at Creation and He proved it in the life death and resurrection of Christ. Remember, Christ proved his love by dying for us “at just the right time…while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:6-8). Our worth or “worthiness” is determined by our Creator. God alone chose the price that needed to be paid for our ransom and it was a high price. The price was paid through Jesus Christ because of God’s love for us.

Remember the story of the prodigal son? In Luke 15:11-32, Jesus tells this story…

A much beloved son asks his father for his portion of the inheritance early (the equivalent of telling his father he wished he were dead) and then sets off to do his own thing and live life on his own terms. It’s fun for a while, but then it all goes downhill and he ends up feeding pigs just to survive—and it’s not working… he’s tempted to eat the pig slop. At this point the son wakes up and realizes how good he had it at home; he remembers how even his father’s servants are treated well and cared for and he decides to go back home and ask to be taken back in.

Now here’s the truly beautiful part of the story.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.”

There are a couple of important things to note here. First, the Father was watching for him, hoping for his return, waiting for him. Second the Father ran to him. The one who had been wronged ran and embraced the offender. Here’s where it gets really amazing. This was told to a Jewish audience. Feeding pigs, eating with pigs, having anything to do with pigs automatically makes you unclean—sinful. “Clean” people, righteous people, good people, didn’t embrace (or touch, or eat with, or associate with) unclean people. Why? It made them unclean. But this father does not care. He runs to his son, wraps his arms around him, effectively taking the sin upon himself and then covers his son with his own cloak and places his ring on his son’s finger. He then orders a celebration feast because his son had come home.

This is exactly what Jesus does for us. The minute we turn, he is there. Jesus took our sin upon Himself and covers our shame with His righteousness. He restores the relationship and makes us right with God. And!! And He places His seal on us, claiming us as His children. The love has nothing to do with our actions or behavior and everything to do with who God is. So what about our behavior?

Would a father who loved his son that much have been okay with his son continuing to feed pigs or live in any way that diminished who he really was? No way! That life that the son turned from was not good enough for his son.

God sanctifies us, cleanses us, makes us holy—grows us in Christ-likeness not in order to love us, but because He loves us.

Because God loves us, our Lord, the Author of Life, has decided that remaining in sin is just not good enough for His children. God wants us set free from fear, anger, bitterness, anxiety, hopelessness, addiction, selfishness, pride, lust, and all the other things that hold us captive and tie us up. These things are not what He wants for us… because He loves us.

God wants us to live in complete freedom, in complete joy, in fullness of life. He sanctifies us and molds us into the image of Christ to make us true versions of ourselves—the self our Creator intended for us to be. The Lord’s desire for holiness in us is the culminating expression of God’s love for us. As if mercy and salvation were not enough, God goes further and offers us the grace of healing, wholeness and completion, and it begins, not in eternity, but right now.

So, when it feels like the pruning is painful or the refining fire is too hot, on the days it seems like you will just never “get there,” remember this: if you trust Jesus for salvation, you have already arrived where you are meant to be… you are in God’s hands. The hands that formed you are the hands that love you.

And what does Jesus ask of us? He asks us to remain in Him and in His love. He asks us to abide there, to make Him our home. Remaining involves the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit; it means that the Holy Spirit will convict us of our sins and we must respond by confessing and renouncing those sins and walking in a new way. “Jesus loves you” means that God will keep working on us. And that’s a good thing.

God is still forming us and working on us because He still loves us.

“I’m praying for you.” A phrase that carries so much weight and meaning. Sometimes it’s something that’s said when we don’t know what else to say or do for a person. But hopefully, we mean it. We are actually praying for those in need.

Being missionaries far from home, we believe that the prayers of the Church, of our brothers and sisters in Christ, have carried us through difficult times and have been catalysts for provision and protection. We also believe that the prayers of the Church open doors and hearts to the Gospel of Christ.

I don’t claim to know the mystery of how prayers work (we can’t make God do anything, He has His plans and will fulfill them, so why us?), but I know that they do. But here are a few things I do know about prayer.

Prayers are how we talk to God. In the Psalms, David cried out to God when he was in distress, when he was angry, when he was excited and happy, when he was in deep sorrow, and when he was afraid. He took all of his emotions, needs, and circumstances to God and laid them before His feet and in the end, declared, “But as for me I trust in God.” and “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.”

Prayers are how we wage war. After setting us up for battle with the full armor of God, the apostle Paul tells us to “pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of requests. With this in mind keep on praying for all the saints.” (Ephesians 6:18) We put our armor on, stand firm, and then we pray.

Prayers are how we intercede for one another. To intercede basically means to get involved on behalf of someone else. It means to be in someone else’s business. We go to God asking Him to intervene on behalf of others. This interceding was the job of the priest. The people took their sacrifice to the priest and the priest offered it to God on their behalf. At one point the first Levitical priest, Aaron, physically stood in the gap for the people of Israel. In 1 Peter 2: 9, we are told that we are “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation…” We are to be priests. We bring people before the throne of God and intercede for them. We ask for salvation, for protection, for God’s will to be done in their lives.

Prayer works best when we pray according to His will. So, we all agree that God is good, right? That He knows best, right? That He has a plan? So, why don’t we pray for that plan? Too often we forget about God’s plan and pray for God to bless our plans. God is so much more likely to say yes to something we know He already wants to do. He wants your family and friends and neighbors to come to faith in Him; He wants to heal marriages and broken homes, He wants to restore; He wants to establish His throne in our hearts. He wants peace and unity in the Church. He wants to reveal Himself and His heart. He wants to heal our land. He wants holiness and goodness for us. A great way to do this is to actually pray the Scriptures. A good place to start? “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” or “Not my will, but Yours be done.” Even Jesus made a request, but then submitted to whatever God wanted. We can ask whatever we want, but remember, this is a conversation, not a wish list. We are talking to the God who has the power to change everything.

Prayer changes us. As we pray God’s will, as we talk to Him, our hearts and minds are changed and transformed. As we have conversations with God, we come to know Him. We allow Him to speak to our hearts through Holy Spirit and through the His Word. We even come to listen for God’s voice in the wisdom of His people.

Prayers are always heard because we are His children and He loves us.

We are praying for you. We know this is a hard time. None of us have ever had to live through anything like this before. We are praying for your safety and for your provision and for your peace of mind. Most of all we are praying that God will use this time to make Himself known to those who don’t know Him. God often makes Himself known through His Church… and that’s you. So we are praying that the love and truth of Christ will shine through you and that you will have the right words to say at the right time as you fearlessly make known the Gospel of Christ. We are praying that as you lift Him up, He will draw more people to Himself.

We pray these things for you, please pray for us, too.

We have a prayer request and a confession. Most of you know that we have been asked to move to Cambodia. Kevin was appointed DS of Cambodia; we are supposed to be moving there… any time now. The problem is that all the borders are closed right now due to the pandemic. We are currently in this strange waiting place. All of the plans we made have changed. Most of our Work & Witness teams have been cancelled or postponed and our move is on hold… indefinitely. In fact, this morning we heard from a friend in Cambodia that the country will not be allowing Americans in particular into their country until the the COVID-19 situation in the U.S. in under control. Now, we are not in the U.S.; this should not affect us, but we do hold U.S. passports and so we are lumped together with all other Americans.

Waiting is hard… frustrating. We’ve been challenged to ask ourselves what God wants to teach us during this waiting season. So we quiet ourselves, we ask, and listen. We are learning Khmer online and we have plenty of time to study it, but somehow we know that isn’t all we are meant to learn.

I mentioned that I have a prayer request and a confession. I believe the confession should always come before the prayer, so here goes… we have not prayed for the borders to open. Yup, you read that right. We have groused about how frustrating it is to wait; we have talked about how we just want to get on with it, to move and get started; we have talked about how long this might last and what we will do if we are stuck in this waiting place indefinitely, and we have even prayed that the borders to Thailand would open so that our kids can come visit us as planned. But, we have not prayed once that the borders to Cambodia would open so that we could begin the work we’ve been tasked with. Why? If we are honest, it’s because we don’t really want to go.

Cambodia is a very spiritually dark place. We’ve felt it every time we’ve visited. In my mind, I think I’ve equated it with the very gates of hell. And who wants to go there? No one. Sometimes we think of hell as this permanent place where all those who have rejected Jesus go when they die. Perhaps that’s true, but hell is also the place where living people suffer without hope and without God. It’s the place where sin and depravity reign and where the love of Christ has not been shared. No one can blame us for not wanting to step into that, to live in that. Except… there are souls behind those gates. There are people there who need to be rescued, transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of light. There are people dying without Jesus.

Today as I was thinking/praying about the situation, I believe the Lord put an image and a question in my mind. The image was of a barrier at a border crossing. The question: You can’t go? Have you tried? Upon walking up to the barrier, I could see that it was made of paper, like the large paper banners high school football teams run through with ease. The answer… we haven’t tried at all. We’ve been told we cannot and we have just left it at that. Now it’s true that we actually are not physically allowed in Cambodia right now. But things are opening up. It’s true that Cambodia is restricting Americans, but we’ve been in Thailand since last October. It’s true that this job, this task is bigger than anything we’ve ever tried. In fact, it’s something we are seriously under-equipped to accomplish. But none of that is actually the point.

The point is those things, those realities are not the Truth. The truth is that God’s Word says that the gates of hell will not prevail against His people, His Church. The truth is that we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we possess the same power that raised Christ from the dead. Truth: If we pray, Church, those gates don’t stand a chance. They are nothing but a paper banner. Failure is not a possibility.

You’ve heard the confession. Here’s the request: Pray with us. “Lord, forgive us for talking as though we want what you want, but for not wanting it enough to even ask you for it. Realign our desires to match your will and open your way before us and give us the courage to walk in it.”

Pray and then watch with us as God claims the nation of Cambodia as His territory and His people. Pray Church. The victory is ours.

What does the Bible have to say about looking back?

The first thing that comes to my mind is Lot’s wife.  Looking back at what she was leaving was not a good thing for her.  It completely hindered her from moving forward.  She was forever stuck right where she was because she could not take her gaze from where she had been.

The Isaraelites looked back after God delivered them out of Egypt and it did not make God happy. They compared their present to the past and wanted to back to the known and familiar, even if it meant slavery.

Jesus said that whoever puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for service. (Luke 9:62)

Paul says that we should forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead, pressing on with our eyes fixed on Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14)

Clearly, there is a theme here.  Looking back can really keep us from moving forward.  Why?  I think it’s because we hold on to the things we find in the past, good and bad.  We hold on to hurts and offenses and debts owed us.  We long for wrongs to be righted, for things to turn out differently.  We all too often waste our energy on the past, going over what we could have done differently, what we should have said or done. We want a do-over!  Sometimes, we hold on to precious times spent with wonderful people and often spend valuable time trying to somehow recreate the good old days.  We seem to think the blessings we had were a result of something that we did… we sang the right songs, said the right prayers, or had the right schedule, or something… and if we could only recapture that formula, things would be just as good as they once were.  We also all too often waste our time and energy and focus on trying to keep yesterday’s blessings.  And like the manna kept until morning, these efforts end in rot.

But, is there a time for looking back?  Biblically speaking, I mean?  I think so.  The Psalmist recounted the past over and over again.  Why?  To remind people of who God is, of what He’s done and what He has promised to do.  The writer of Hebrews looks back to reminds us of the Heroes of the faith who have gone before us.  There is a time to look back and be grateful for what God has done, for the blessings He has given, for the promises He’s fulfilled, and to see how far we’ve come and the things we’ve learned.  There is a time for looking back to learn and reflect… but never to shame or obsess.

One church that we went to early this year happened to have a pretty a small crowd that day.  The New Year is a big time for travel here.  So, those of us who were there sat in a circle.  The pastor asked us, “What has God done for you this past year?  What are you thankful for?”  We went around the circle and everyone shared.  Some told of answers to prayer, some of times of healing or protection, some shared about blessings, stories of people coming to faith in Christ, and some shared about failures and heartaches, about God’s presence and faithfulness in those times, about lessons learned.

Then Ajaan Phanom (the pastor) asked us what we were expecting God to do in the New Year. What were we praying for, hoping for?  Again we shared.  Some shared hopes of new businesses and ventures, some shared of prayers for friends to know Christ, all in expectation of what God was going to do.  It struck me that while we spent time looking back, this wise pastor didn’t allow our thoughts to stay there, he pointed us toward the future.  He looked forward with us to what God has in store.

Hebrews 12:1 tells us to throw off everything that hinders us, the sin that so easily entangles so that we can run the race marked out for us.

Did you get that?  There is a race marked out for you, a path prepared, an adventure waiting.  And it’s a race you were designed to win.  It’s rigged, if you will.  This adventure here in Thailand… God has designed it so that I will be successful if I keep my eyes on Him.  He never sets us up for failure or calls us to something that isn’t going to either build His Kingdom or bring Him glory.  He sets us up for success and gives us all we need.

You may be looking back and thinking, “Jeni, that sounds nice, but it isn’t always true.”  I’ve failed in the past when I thought I was doing what God asked me to do.”   I know what you mean.  I’ve felt the exact same way.  Things just don’t always turn out the way we think they are going to.  But, when I look back at my life in the light of God’s Word I can only view those circumstances in a one of two ways:

1. I wasn’t actually called to what I was doing.  I talked myself into it because it’s what I wanted to do and what I thought would be best.  God did with it what He could, but it wasn’t really what He had planned for me.
2. I may not be able to see the successes, but they are there nonetheless.

This last one, is very often the case, I think.  That same part of Hebrews that I mentioned gives us a long list of people who were faithful and who obeyed God and never got see what He promised, but they behaved as though what God promised was a reality.  They were sure of what they hoped for and certain of things they could not yet see.  Their faith was in God, in who He is.  Their eyes were fixed on Him, so they knew—really knew—that He would bring about what He had spoken.  That kind of faith totally affects the way we behave.  If I know that God is going to move in Southeast Asia, if I know that He has determined that people will come to Jesus here, if I know that His will is salvation for these people, if I’m sure that He did not bring me here to waste my time, then that changes everything.  I can begin walking in that reality right now.

How?

1. By throwing off anything that is distracting me from being fully in the calling He has for me. For me this is my desire to be home. Being in a place that is so different than where I came from can be hard.  The desire to be in the familiar, especially when God blessed us with so much while we were there, is still a strong pull.  I have to continually realign my thinking. Those blessings were God’s gift to me for that time.  He has new blessings for me here and now.  Holding on to what was will slow down my race. The other thing I get tangled up in are my inadequacies: all of the things I can’t do well, the things I’m not qualified to do. But that isn’t the truth of who I am, who Christ knows me to be and what He qualifies me to do.
2. Look around.  I have to keep my eyes fixed on Christ and on what He’s doing in me. He’s perfecting my faith, growing me in holiness, making me more like Him.  I have to keep my eyes open for what He is doing here and now. God is working. He is moving. He’s moving when people ask questions about my faith and about church, or express a desire for the life that I have. He’s moving when a Thai friend says she believes in God, but isn’t a Christian, He’s moving when we meet Christians who believe but lack Christian fellowship and teaching. He’s moving when random strangers strike up conversations with me. But I will miss it if I am not present in the here and now.
3. Look forward. When I pray, I ask God to go before me. I’m supposed to be following Him. That means that in order to follow, I must be forward focused. This year, I’m asking God for inspiration, for a vision of what He can do through me. I want to catch that vision (even if it’s only a vision for the day or week I’m in) and run that bit of the race with enthusiasm.
4. Look Back and Remember. Look back for encouragement.  Remember who He is, what He has done and what He has said He will do.  And remember that all those wonderful things in the past were all surprises, things that didn’t work out just the way we thought they would, but turned into greater blessings than we could have imagined. Remember that those things that didn’t work out were ways God grew you and formed you and taught you to be more like Him.
5. Pray continually for His guidance and help. The future is His. If we want to live it to the full, we have to stay connected to Christ at all times in every circumstance and trust in His timing, wisdom, and goodness.

So, as we come to yet another new year, let’s ask ourselves… What has God done this past year? Who do you now know Him to be? What have you seen and experienced Him do?  What is He doing now? How are you walking in a truth you cannot yet see? What has He promised you? What is He waiting to do for you in the future?

What are you praying for ?