Traveling

This weekend, my family drove across the country to visit our family.  It was a long drive--20 hours!--but we have done it many times and look forward to our long family car trips.  They give us plenty of time to read, study, listen to sermons, and stare out the window.  This year, the ride was relatively uneventful.  Last summer, it wasn't, but that's another story=)  We pulled in the driveway after 3 a.m., and several very sweet cousins were still awake to help us unload.  For the next few weeks, we will be visiting a state that, although very familiar and "homey" from many years of visiting, is still not quite our home. 

It's a good reminder of what we began our summer thinking about in 1 Peter: The pilgrims, strangers, and aliens scattered around the world (1 Peter 1:1).  We can settle down here and enjoy being with family--some of our best memories were made here--but we won't be at home.  We're travelers.

During the drive, my older sister was reading and old edition of Pilgrim's Progress.  In the book, she noticed that Bunyan used the verbs "travel" and "travail" interchangeably (don't you love reading olde English!).  We were traveling to our grandparents.  Pilgrim was travailing to the Celestial City.  Traveling means we are going from one place to another on a journey; travailing means we are laboring and toiling.  When our traveling is difficult, we travail.  When we travail, we travel.  Our suffering doesn't leave us in the same place!  We travel from one place to another!

2 Corinthians 7:10-11--For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.  For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner:  What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication!  In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.

Godly sorrow, or suffering, is not in vain!  Sometimes when our travailing seems in vain and we pray for strength, it still seems like we can't get through...things don't get easier.  But, as my pastor says, God's answer to prayer may not be taking the trial away.  It may simply be the strength to get through the day so you return to Him the next day and ask for more grace.

As we enter the last 20 days before the local Bible Bee competition, our travailing is getting more intense.  It's almost time!  Yet our journey is nowhere near over--Bible Bee is only the beginning.

Keep traveling and travailing to the Celestial City, Pilgrim!

Nothing can separate

The Voice of the Martyrs put out a calendar, to pray for persecuted Christians aroung the globe. For the next ten days, I will be praying for China. Today, I pray specifically for Chinese Christians as the government "attempts to slow the spread of Christianity by controlling the media". But we know that the world can never stop the spread of the gospel!! The Word of God stands FOREVER! And yet, although they cannot blot It out, they still hinder others who NEED God's Word-- and who know NOTHING of it-- from getting it! And they persecute our fellow believers just because they trust in Jesus Christ! Why does the Lord allow that? Well, He says in 2 Tim. 3:12 "Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." And yet Rom. 8:35-39 says "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

You see? The world can persecute us all they want, but the can never EVER seperate us from the Love of God! That's what it's all about! God loves us, He sent His Son to die for us, He made us His children, and no communists or anybody else can take that away from us! We are GOD'S CHILDREN. He said that nobody is able to take us out of His hand! Now I kinda went off on a rabbit trail with that, but it does tie in, really! So, we suffer, but they can't really harm us. I mean, they can, but it's only a physical harm. They can't take away our eternal life, and as Paul said, "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain." The only thing the world can do to us is to speed up our moving date! We get to move in to our home that Jesus Christ himself made for us! yippee! I'm not saying we'll enjoy persecution. It IS persecution, after all! But we know that we are safe in the arms of our Heavenly Father, and that's such a comfort! We just have to make sure we don't reject Him when we suffer, like the parable of the sower: "But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the Word, immediately he stumbles." Dig your roots deep! Do not be swayed! KNOW YOUR STUFF! And not only know, but BELIEVE! And the Lord will bless you! "Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life."

So now I ask that you pray with me for the persecuted Christians around the world. That the Lord would give them strength, courage, and that they would not give in. Also pray for our own country, that there would be a great revival and that our once Christian-based homeland would not persecute believers here. Stand strong!