11252018 Eternal Rest

Dear Missionary Lady,

Greetings. I hope you and your families are well. I've had a crazy few days and am still recovering, but I wanted to send at least a brief note to let you know I am thinking of you and praying for you.

I live a little more than two hours away from my parents and just traveled there  and back to spend a few days with them. Four of the five siblings were there, along with five grandchildren (my nieces and nephews). We had a house full most of the time I was there, which led to much more chaos and considerably more activity than I am used to. It was nice to have the visit, though somewhat hard on me physically. I returned yesterday to try to recuperate before the work week. I thought I would share a few spiritual thoughts that parallel my trip.

First, the joy that we share with earthly family is just a small taste of what heaven will be like. What joy it will be to gather with our Savior and our brothers and sisters in Christ in perfect, eternal fellowship! As good as family sharing is, that will be far better.

Second, my earthly body is weak, but in that heavenly gathering I will never have to be careful or concerned about wearing myself out. Life on this broken earth will come to an end, and heaven will be uninterrupted joy and bliss. We can deal with this life's troubles when we remember what awaits.

Third, sometimes temporary pain and discomfort is an acceptable trade for some kind of pleasure. I wouldn't have sacrificed the family time in order to avoid the physical challenge Likewise, this earth does present its pains and challenges as we serve God, but when we consider the conclusion, we would not avoid the earthly burdens at the cost of losing the eternal significance.

Fourth, as I take some time to rest, I know that my rest is short-lived. I will have to go back to work and will get tired again. But the day of eternal rest is coming. In heaven the rest will not be temporary, fleeting, or insufficient. Earthly frailty and imperfection will be abolished permanently.

Whether thinking of physical discomfort, the challenges of ministry, or any other struggle, the hymn is wonderfully true, as it states,

"It will be worth it all when we see Jesus!

Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ.
One glimpse of His dear face, all sorrow will erase.
So, bravely run the race till we see Christ." (Esther Rusthoi)

Keep on this week. Try to look past the temporary trials to see the eternal rest. What you do today matters for eternity. "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18).

Love in Christ,

Peggy Holt
member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA
www.pressingontohigherground.blogspot.com

11162018 Thanksgiving Protection

Dear Missionary Lady,

Happy Thanksgiving! Holidays on the mission field are interesting. Depending on the holiday (like Thanksgiving), it may be a holiday that is not even celebrated in that culture. It can be hard, if not impossible, to find items you are used to having - like turkey or Christmas trees. And on the upside-down part of the world or in tropical climates, the seasons don't match up with what you are used to!

Because so many holidays are celebrated somewhat uniquely in the U.S., it is common for missionaries in a given area to gather together at these times. The fellowship can be special, as the co-workers take on the role of family while providing a venue for celebrating together in familiar ways. I pray that God will give you something special this week and that you will be able to truly rejoice in God's goodness to you.

I remember one Thanksgiving in Mexico. One of the missionary families was hosting several other families, and I was invited. Each family or individual was contributing something to the meal. Since I didn't have a reputation for cooking much, I was asked to bring the rolls. The missionary wife specifically asked for a particular style of roll that I planned to purchase the day before.

Wednesday was a day for running errands after school ended. I picked up a bookcase I had ordered and a pair of glasses. Additionally, I probably stopped at the post office and got some groceries for myself, as well as looking for the rolls for the next day. I went to three different stores, trying to find the requested style of roll, but without success.

As I left the third store, I pulled into a center turn lane where I waited for the traffic to clear. Suddenly, a car struck my driver's side door. I was able to move across the lanes of traffic to the side of the road, and the offending driver made the turn also before speeding away. I couldn't open my door, and the window was shattered, with bits of glass all through the car. I was uninjured except for a small cut on my leg and some whiplash. A couple bystanders came over, and one of them stole a pair of sunglasses from my car while "helping" me.

Needless to say, I gave up on my quest for rolls and made my way home. At the Thanksgiving gathering the next day, I had an unexpected item for which to give thanks - God's protection. Driving in many countries is an adventure, and Mexico is no exception. With all the miles traveled and the risks inherent to that country, I had just one other incident, which caused even less damage than the Thanksgiving accident. There certainly were opportunities for more serious incidents, but God protected me.

There is a commonly-given statement, with perhaps some variations, but the basic idea is this: You are safer on the mission field in the will of God than you are at home out of the will of God. While I appreciate what that teaching wants to emphasize (that being in the will of God is most important and that God can protect under any circumstances), the statement is not entirely accurate. Some mission fields are quite dangerous. God certainly can protect and often does, but sometimes mission fields are dangerous even to the point of death.

This was recently true in the life of Charles Wesco. I assume most if not all of you have heard his story. After less than two weeks in the war-torn country of Cameroon, he was shot and killed, leaving behind a widow and eight children. My heart was so burdened for that family and overwhelmed with the enormity of what had happened. It was too much to try to comprehend. I was sensitive also to those of you serving on foreign fields. If I briefly entertained the thought that it could have happened to me while I was abroad, I'm sure some of you also considered the potential danger for your family.

Wow, I didn't intend to make this letter so somber! My intent is not to overwhelm you with negative feelings or fears, but rather to remind you of what you already know. First, it is worth it to follow God's leading. There is always a cost in following God, and we don't know what that cost will be, but we will not regret any of that cost when we stand before our Savior. There is also a cost in not following God, and none of us want to pay that. There is also reward in following God, and your ministry is motivated by that reward. What you do today matters for eternity. We have no way of knowing all that God will do through us, but there is no better option than to follow His plan and allow Him to use us.

Second, God can protect. I suspect you have your own stories of protection - both first-hand as well as stories that have been related to you by others. God is not limited. He can protect young men in a raging fiery furnace, a man in a pit of hungry lions, and people surrounded by attacking armies. True, some have died for Christ, but that is never because of God's inability to protect.

Third, God uses all things for our good and His glory. This is hard for us, because we are human. We feel loss and pain, sometimes very deeply. Also, we can't see eternity, so we can struggle when we don't see the purpose. We can trust God, however, that He is using everything for His good purposes. He says He is. Even if we suffer and even if we do not see the good, God is doing His work.

Don't be afraid. Trust the Almighty God who is always watching over you. You are safe in His hands, both now and in eternity.

Love in Christ,

Peggy Holt
member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA
www.pressingontohigherground.blogspot.com

11102018 Matters for Eternity

Dear Missionary Lady,

As the season of Thanksgiving approaches, I trust you are finding many things for which to thank God, both in your ministry and in your personal life. God is so good to us and showers us with so many blessings, both spiritual and temporal. Certainly, He is worthy of our thanks, praise, and service.

You may have noticed that in each letter so far, I have written this sentence: "What you do today matters for eternity." I have included this statement deliberately, because it is hard for me to think of a more appropriate reminder for those in God's service. Of course, the thought is true for all Christians, but it is true in a special way for those who have dedicated themselves to labor for eternal investment.

To some degree, this reminder serves as a challenge. If what we do matters for eternity, then we had better make good choices, doing the right things and evaluating our activities and efforts to be sure they have eternal significance. We must be sober in this life, not carelessly expending our time and energy on frivolous and valueless efforts.

My intent in sharing the reminder, however, is not so much to challenge as to encourage. Life and ministry are filled with many tasks, some of them repetitive and time-consuming; sometimes the big picture gets lost in the tangle of routine life. God has called you to a life with an eternal focus, and all the details required for living that life contribute to that eternally-focused ministry. Therefore, those tasks do matter.

For example, cleaning the church building may seem a drudgery, maybe even a waste of your talents and a drain on your energy that could be devoted elsewhere. But cleaning the church is necessary for the effective functioning of the church. Many other routine tasks could fall into this same category. I'll let you enumerate the specifics in your situation. While it is natural to think that you could accomplish more valuable types of ministry if you did not have to spend so much time doing these mundane things, your practical service is also important.

If God provides others to do some of those routine tasks, wonderful. If not, I hope you will remember as you do them that they do matter. I think of the early church in Acts 6:1-6. It wasn't expedient for the apostles to leave off teaching the Word in order to wait on tables, but waiting on tables and thereby meeting the needs of the church members was an important task also. Someone had to do it. Perhaps that someone is you, and perhaps your carrying some of those responsibilities frees your husband or your co-workers to carry out some of the ministry aspects of the church.

My consideration of this statement about eternal value in daily tasks also takes into account your service to your family. Women who work a job outside the home often despair at the challenge of juggling everything; even for those who devote themselves to the home, the tasks are never finished. Laundry is unending, meal preparation is constant, and caring for the children is incessant. In a foreign country, those tasks can be even more time-consuming, depending on the culture and available conveniences. I can imagine the challenge of trying to add ministry responsibilities to an already full schedule. "If only my home responsibilities didn't require so much of my time," I can hear the sigh.

This aspect is also an important part of your calling and has tremendous impact on the work of God in your location. In impacting your surroundings with the gospel, the proper and harmonious functioning of your family is critical. What you do in your family matters. I illustrate this with two common sayings. While secular sayings often conflict with biblical principles, I think these two have some agreement with Scripture and therefore some valuable insight.

The first is "Behind every good man is a good woman." While the world might use this to exalt the role of the woman as superior to that of her husband, the Bible teaches that a good wife is extremely valuable. God's purpose from the very beginning was to provide a helper meet (suitable) for the man. Proverbs 31 describes the benefit and blessing of a wife to her husband. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 shares some poignantly powerful verses about how two are better than one, as they have reward for their labor, and as one can lift up the other who has fallen.

The second saying is "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world." This recognizes the enormous impact that a mother has on her children in training them. As they go on to live their lives in arenas the mother never experienced, her influence expands greatly as the children reflect the mother's training. Deuteronomy 6 shares the importance of biblical training in the home, and the Bible shares examples in Jochebed (Moses), Hannah (Samuel), and Lois and Eunice (Timothy). Your children can become your most faithful and active co-workers, and they can also become the next generation of missionaries in an age when the missionary supply seems to be dwindling. These results come through your love, training, and nourishing.

Your work with your family matters. It provides an intrigue for the unsaved and an example for your church families. It gives needed support and encouragement for your husband and critical training and nurturing of your children. Yes, there are some days when the most important interactions you have with respect to ministry will happen within the walls of your own home. Wherever your energies are needed today - in your home or in your church - in the mundane or in the spiritual - know that your labor matters.

Love in Christ,

Peggy Holt
member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA
www.pressingontohigherground.blogspot.com

11032018 The Faith Kept

Dear Missionary Lady,

"I have kept the faith" (II Timothy 4:7). This third statement in Paul's testimony gets very personal and quite poignant. Probably every one of us has seen a friend, family member, or even a respected leader, who has walked away from the faith, quite possibly totally unexpected. There is a strong likelihood that it has happened in your ministry to someone in whom you have invested hours of training and prayer.

It is painful, disappointing, and disheartening to see such desertion from the faith. Perhaps it is saddest when the person has passed difficult tests already and has continued strong, but in the face of yet another test, he walks away. The Bible often addresses the danger of such a thing, and it should not be surprising. The battle of the Christian life is about faith, and there is no doubt that our faith is sorely tested at times. "That the trial of your faith, being more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire" (I Peter 1:7).

The Bible warns of the danger in walking away from the faith and gives strong encouragement to continue faithfully. "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God" (Hebrews 3:12). "Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck" (I Timothy 1:19). "If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the gospel" (Colossians 1:23). "Stand fast in the faith" (I Corinthians 16:13).

The temptation certainly exists. The epistle to the Hebrews was written because of the surging tendency among those Jewish believers to leave the faith, reverting to their previous traditions. When the Bible talks about the temptation to leave the faith, the basic answer is that there is no other answer. Faith may at times be a challenge, but there is nothing else as solid or as dependable. Faith in God is the only true solution.

The book of Hebrews continually shows those struggling believers the excellency of Christ and the vast superiority of Christianity over what they had known before. "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised)" (Hebrews 10:23). Only God's way is the true way. "Testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand" (I Peter 5:12). There is no other answer. "Then said Jesus unto the twelve, 'Will ye also go away?' Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life" (John 6:67-68).

Can I get very personal? It's one thing to talk about some anonymous person departing from the faith, but we would be naive to think it could never happen to us. We would like to think that we would never come to a crisis point of intense struggle or a crossroads where we battle to decide if we will keep following God or not. I confess that I have been there. I thank God that His grace held me and that I never walked completely away from Him. What nearly happened instead was more of a coldness, a drawing away, reaching the point of merely going through the motions and staying on the fringes. I was disillusioned, feeling that I had served God so faithfully and that life had just been too difficult. I had given too much, and from here on out, I was no longer going to give. I was no longer going to be strongly invested. My heart wasn't in it. It was easier to keep going to church than to face the censure of others if I had stopped going, but there wasn't much motivation to want to go - or to read my Bible or pray. It was empty and meaningless. I had started a drift that if unchecked would have led to eventual desertion of genuine Christianity.

I don't know what your experience has been or will be, but I can tell you that it is possible to reach that position even while involved in ministry. We know how to go to through the motions. We can paste on that smile. We know what to say and how to act in public. We can even (by God's grace and the power of His Word) minister to others when we are dying inside with nothing to encourage ourselves. It is a miserable way to live, and it is an extremely challenging way to try to minister to others. No one else might know; certainly it is easy to hide the extent of our struggle. Others might suspect that something is bothering us but not have any idea of the depth of the emptiness in our souls.

I don't write this presuming that any of you are in this position nor suggesting that you ever will be, but I do know it is possible. So I just want to say, I understand. If now or in the future, you find yourself in such a place of struggle, I desire to share your burden, to pray for you especially, and to offer you a safe place to talk, a loving heart, and a compassionate ear. I know it's not easy to admit such a struggle, but it is also not easy to face that battle alone, and it can be dangerous to assume you can. So I just want to make myself available.

I close with these three practical helps for the struggle of faith. First, a struggling person needs lots of time in the Bible. "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). Second, faith is a choice; it is deliberately telling God that one will believe Him no matter what seems to be true. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). Third, God will answer the heart cries of the one who seeks Him. "And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief" (Mark 9:24).

Do not give up the faith! It is worth it. If you are struggling - either with a major crossroads or with daily discouragement and doubts - please seek help. Fight for faith!

Love in Christ,

Peggy Holt
member at Open Door Baptist Church in Lebanon, PA
www.pressingontohigherground.blogspot.com