Back on December 2, 2001 I wrote a brief devotional thought that appeared in our church’s worship folder. Today, I was rereading that devotional, and I’d like to fast forward it to today because it is still true, perhaps more true now than when it appeared in 2001.

To my little flock I wrote these words,

I can’t get away from something Phineas F. Bresee said almost a hundred years ago: “Our church is a missionary church that knows no difference between home and foreign fields--- in these days all fields are near.”

“These days” for us is the third millennium after Christ and we are, indeed, in the midst of a mission field. Bill Sullivan once said, “We have seen America go from over 200 years of a basically Christian culture to a non-Christian culture that rejects the foundational principles of Christianity.” Add to that, if you would, the words of Kennon Callahan: “The day of the churched culture is gone, the day of the mission field has come; the day of the institutional church is past, the day of the mission outpost has arrived; the day of the professional minister is over, the day of the missional pastor is here.”

Suddenly we are confronted with realities that, in the human outlook, are overwhelming, and we are brought face to face with the fact that the work of Jesus in this world is of a spiritual nature that cannot be accomplished separate from Him. Our greatest need is leaders, who, living in the power of the Holy Spirit and under the anointing of God, will look at our mission field through the eyes of Missionary passion, enter into the arena, pray until God is freely shaping and forming their lives, and then seek to seize the day for Christ.


It is a busy, complicated, angry, distracted, and spiritually hungry world. Keeping up is a full time challenge. Sharing Christ with people in this environment is a great challenge. Also, if our local churches really do sit in the midst of mission fields, we have a whole lot of un-learning to do and a whole lot of new learning to do, and a whole lot of re-tooling to do, and a whole lot of soul-searching to do, and a whole lot praying to do.

At the same time, what a great day to be alive and to be a part of the Church of Jesus Christ. It is a time to let our imaginations loose, trusting the Holy Spirit as He fills us with the visions and dreams of God. As has been through all history, “The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven” (Ps. 11:4). As has been through all history, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). The Holy Spirit still fills His people with divine power to live as witnesses of Christ (Acts 1:8).

May God help us to let Him be God in our lives for this time. The Good News of Jesus is still Good News to people because Jesus is God’s response to the deepest needs of the human heart. May the Church keep on going forth with the Good News. Jesus is still Lord and nothing is impossible with God.

SOLITUDE

No one knows it better than those who dare speak for God, that we live in a noisy world and if we’re not careful and intentional we will begin to blend into the noise. Rediscovering the gift of solitude may be one of the Savior’s divine gifts to us.

Solitude is to purposefully withdraw from the noisy world in order to be with God. It is not to be alone. It is to be alone with God. It is to be with Him in such a way that His presence envelopes our very life and exposes us for who we really are. It is the place of honesty, the place of truth, the place where denial is not allowed. It is the place where we confront in ourselves all that is not of God, and come to the act of unconditional surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Solitude is the place both of struggle and of release. That is to say, in the solitude, where the struggles of our lives are faced, Jesus comes to us and we discover that in reality we are not fighting ourselves. We are fighting God. Yet, in the discovery we find that God is not fighting us. He is present to reveal to us that if we will let go, He will dismantle destructive forces which fight within us and without us, and give us a healed and whole, new self.

Solitude is the place where we learn to say, “for to me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21). So, the solitude becomes what Henri Nouwen calls the “Furnace of transformation,” where we are set free from the entanglements of “The seductive compulsions of the world” (The Way of the Heart).

Solitude is the place where we choose to run away no more, but to stand and fight the enemy within. It is the place we go to die to things which are destroying us, and from which we emerge saying “…the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me? (Galatians 2:20).

Our journey is calling us to find a way to get alone with God. He is our Creator. He is our best Friend. He is our Confidant. He is our Savior. He is our Counselor. He loves us with an everlasting love. May God help us come within His wonderful embrace and find healing and laughter and joy and peace. May we find in Him, purpose and meaning and value.

Listen. Do you hear the still small voice? “Come to Me, and I will give your rest.”