The Sweetest Calling

It is sweet to submit to a man you trust
       when both of you rest securely under the wings of a sovereign Lord.

"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior." (Ephesians 5:22-23 ESV)

"Indeed, none who wait for You shall be put to shame..."

(Psalm 25:3 ESV)

"Only the Help of God" - Pioneer Missionary Charles Gutzlaff

Take a look

Robert Davey has put together an excellent book on China and missions - The Power to Save - A History of the Gospel China - which I have lately begun reading.

The third chapter tells the story of Charles Gutzlaff, a pioneer missionary to China the fame and significance of whose work Davey compares to David Livingstone's later work in Africa. I had never before heard of this man. The excerpts that Davey shares of his writings are full of spiritual truth and zeal, and worthy of being re-quoted many times over.

Gutzlaff had His Saviour's burden for the lost souls of the world. This is clearly seen fom a plea Gutzlaff wrote for the Missionary Register:


"Are the bowels of mercy of a compassionate Saviour shut against these millions? Before him, China is not shut! He, the almighty conqueror of death and hell, will open the gates of heaven for these millions.  He has opened them. Neither the apostles nor reformers waited until governments were favourable to the gospel, but went on boldly in the strength of the Lord. We want no gentleman missionaries here but men who are at all times ready to lay down their lives for the Saviour and can wander about forgotten and despised, without human assistance but only the help of God."


Here is a missionary spirit that is nothing less than beautiful. "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!...who say unto Zion, 'Your God reigns!'"

Charles Gutzlaff had close biblical philosophy of missions that I admired. Davey summarizes the philosophy:

The mission was based in Hong Kong and grew out of Gutzlaff's daily Bible teachings. Recruits were to go forth, two by two, into inland China as colporteurs [literature distributors] and evangelists. They were to distribute the Scriptures, tracts and also an essay on the nature of saving faith. Each had to learn whole chapters of the Bible, the Ten Commandments and the Creed. The principles of the mission were advanced for their day...China could only be evangelized fully by the Chinese themselves. The function of foreign missionaries was only to train, as servants of the Chinese church...Foreign missionaries must dress and live like Chinese as far as possible and must live and work among them.  Chinese churches should autonomous form the beginning. Anglo-Saxon culture most not be imposed on the Chinese churches. Charles Gutzlaff urged Christians everywhere to pray for a thousand native evangelists to reach all China.


Gutzlaff believed firmly in the necessity of self-supporting missions work. He wrote, "As no worldly prospects are attached to their profession, we have had very few hypocrites...one of the most necessary things to introduce true Christianity is to keep the idol of the world - money - entirely out of view."

I want to close this sketch of a newly-beloved hero with his statement of vision for Christian life and work:

"Nothing can be done without the Spirit of God, and unless the prayer for His powerful assistance is constant and earnest there can be no success...The love of Christ in and through us must actuate all our thoughts and actions...it must be love from first to last, real ardent, never-failing love, flowing from the great fountain, Jesus Christ."

Is this not the heart of all that a Christian will ever do in this world? True, constant prayer and real, Christ-like love will accomplish much for Christ's kingdom in any circumstance, and without them, our labors are in vain.

Thank God for you, Mr. Gutzlaff.

All That is Good for Man

In the early 1800's, after a serious illness, the Rev. Richard Cecil (1748-1810) spoke of a clarified vision for his reading pursuits. His advice, while especially useful to those in ministry, is a noble reminder to me of how I ought to value my soul and my Savior more entirely in the books and media I choose.

"If God should restore me to health again, I am resolved to study nothing but my Bible. Literature is inimical to spirituality if it be not kept under with a firm hand. A man ought to call in from every quarter what may assist him to understand, explain and illustrate the Bible, but there - in its light and life - is all that is good for man.  All important truth is there; and I feel that no comfort enters sick curtains from any other quarter.  My state is an admonition to young men. I have been too much occupied in preparing to live and too little in living.  I have read too much from curiosity and for mental gratification.  I was literary when I should have been active.  We trifle too much. Let us do something for God. The man of god is a man of feeling and activity. I feel, and would urge with all possible strength on others that Jesus is our all in all. " 

From The Later Evangelical Fathers by Mary Seeley on books.google.com

Such was thy charity...

I would that in the end, the words William Cowper wrote of a kind friend could be said of me.

"And though in act unwearied, secret still,

As in some solitude the summer rill

Refreshes, where it winds, the faded green,

And cheers the drooping flow'rs, unheard, unseen.

Such was thy charity; no sudden start

After long sleep, of passion in the heart,

But steadfast principle, and in its kind, 

Of close relation to the eternal Mind

Traced easily to its true source above,

To Him whose work bespeaks His nature, love."

Smiles

Reading from Mary Beeke's book "Kindness" today, I was struck by the beauty of this ideal for our relationships with loved ones:

"I read of a man's description of his mother, and one thing that stood out in his memory was that, every time his mother looked at him, she 'brightened.' Let's make a more conscious effort to smile.  It should be simple. A smile chases away the shadows in the heart of both the giver and the receiver...Let's not let the drudgery of everyday life overshadow the abundance of blessings we enjoy."

the boy I love...

...the man I love

I pray for you "that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." ~ Ephesians 3:14-19 ESV


I love you.

The Pain that Love Will Choose

In the rush of changed plans than have come to Caleb and me, I've thought through what our decision to marry in March before his year of deployment will mean. We may have less than two weeks together, and both know that the separation will probably be harder because of being married, yet don't want it any other way.  Tennyson's well-known line of poetry has been coming to mind:


"I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."

 A year's absence is not a complete "lost" (though I can't imagine any woman has watched her boy leave her side for a war zone and not had the "What if..." thought cross her mind) but it is a loss nonetheless - it is the loss of a year together, a loss of sharing that year's sweet spring, that year's long-dayed summer, that year's crisp autumn, a loss of 365 suppertimes, read alouds on the couch and washing dishes elbow to elbow, a loss of 260 "Welcome home" hugs and kisses after a day's work. And the pain of all that loss could be lessened by staying outside the love - by not weaving our lives into another's so we cannot be hurt by a separation.  But this is not why God gave us hearts - to be only kept safe.  Our hearts were given to reflect God's heart and to fellowship with Him. When I open my heart to love another human being - not in an idolatrous way, but in a devoted and sacrificial way - that love, desire for their welfare and delight in their presence, that connection of my good with theirs - opens a million avenues for joy and pain that I cannot have apart from love. And in each of those avenues, Jesus wants to walk with me and show me more of His heart.  He wants to reveal His incredible grace in love's joys and His tender mercy in love's pain. It is because I want to experience that tenderness of the Lord that I would choose the pains of love rather than the ease of not caring. I want to love, lose, mourn and be comforted in His presence - rather than to withdraw to myself and keep my own comfort. I want to see Him do through me what I cannot do on my own.

After Caleb's first deployment, when I started to know and care for him more, I thought how glad I was that I hadn't known him during the former deployment until he came back - because of how much harder it would have been to care. As it was, I passed many weeks and months without a thought or concern about his welfare while he was gone. I had not loved him - or even known him. And when I said those words later, after I thought I loved him, I did not love him still - I loved myself, and was only glad to spare myself the pain. Now I can say that (though I do not wish to change anything about God's perfect plan for our lives) I would gladly have gone through that deployment too,  knowing and caring about him, giving to God a hundred times my anguish for his safety, writing to him and encouraging him, and allowing him to bear the burden of my own concerns. Why? I love him. I want our lives woven together, even if the strands of my life must now touch strands of his life that hurt, and his mine - and he has loved me in the same way.

Yes, I'm also idealistic and proud and want to be a hero (can I deny it? I'm just stinkin' proud of my soldier and being his support as he goes out to serve) but I write here what I want to be most of all true about the life of love I am entering into with a man who will not always be here.  And I think this vision of experiencing God through sacrifice should be true of other loving relationships besides marriage that exist for God's glory.

"No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

"

(1 John 4:12 ESV)