Author: Dana

It is hard to believe another school year is coming to a close… so this will be my last writing for a while. I want to say ‘thanks’ to Steve Wolf, my techi-friend, poet, and song-writer who lives in Colorado but still helps me out. Friends at school kindly ignore my errors before Steve reads, gently corrects, and sends to others.

This story is a bit long to cover in detail, but my family learned some things this past weekend I’d like to pass along. I had to go to school early Saturday morning to get ready for a camp staff meeting, so Susan was in charge of getting Kinsey to the airport for a medical mission trip to Tanzania, Africa. Her team left on schedule last Sunday but was turned back because of the unpredictable volcano that has disrupted so much travel in the world. Kinsey got to come home for a few days before their re-scheduled attempt to get out of the country. Her trip initiated in Dallas so we purchased a one-way ticket from Atlanta to Dallas where she was to meet two friends. From there the trip was scheduled to go to Detroit then Amsterdam then Africa. Well, due to a few reasons, Kinsey arrived at the gate in terminal D sixty seconds after the gate closed. (She could painfully explain the meaning of Jesus’ parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25. When a door is shut, never to be opened again… and you are late, the feeling is indescribably horrible.) I got the emotional call a few minutes before my staff meeting was to begin. “Kinsey, gather yourself. We just need to solve this problem and get you to Dallas before your next plane leaves for Detroit.”

The problem was… I didn’t know how to solve the problem. The next flight on that airline would get to Dallas too late and no one seemed eager to help. I handed Susan the phone and ran upstairs to my meeting with little hope for a solution. Everyone in the meeting knew Kinsey, so I shared the dilemma and asked my friend, Daniel, to pray. “Lord, we ask for your supernatural intervention to rescue Kinsey in this situation.” The answer to the prayer came when Susan told Kinsey to get back on the train and return to the front of the airport to try to purchase another ticket. On the train, she looked up and saw the father of one of her best friends from high school. He greeted her and asked what was wrong. “Mr. Ramon, I’ve missed a flight and I don’t know how to catch a plane to join my team going to Africa.” Mr. Ramon knew of Kinsey’s trip but little did we know the part he was to play. “Kinsey, I missed three flights on a business trip yesterday due to weather. I know exactly how you feel and we’re going to find a way.”

“He was the perfect person, Dad. He remained calm as he fought for me and he would not take ‘no’ for an answer.” For no charge, Kinsey ended up sitting in the last remaining seat (business class, no less) on a flight from Atlanta to Detroit where she met up with her team for the rest of the journey. Other heroes sacrificed to get her luggage (which did make it on the plane to Dallas) to Detroit and Susan, with tears in her eyes, gave a praise report at the end of our camp meeting.

I had not intended to stress this point with my staff, but God knows what is most important. I recounted, “Jesus says, ‘Seek, ask, and knock’… that is what we all did on Kinsey’s behalf and look at how He answered!” We serve an incredible God! He can overcome our weaknesses and errors; He hears our cries; and He loves to intervene. I have seen this so often and yet I easily forget. If God is this personal and if there is nothing good He can’t do, should I not be at his throne of grace more often? If I plead for a daughter whose important journey was endangered, should I not plead for endangered souls all over the world? If God cares about the small details of our lives, think how He must care about the lost and the captive and the hurting. I want to pray for ‘supernatural intervention’ every day. When I come face to face with the impossible, I want to go straight to God without hesitating. “God, You are able. God, You desire good more than I do. God, You want your incredible kingdom to be witnessed here on earth. So… rescue the perishing, heal the sick, cast out evil, and wake up the sleeping. For your glory, Lord, answer the prayers of your children… and may we not shrink back from asking impossible things. We pray in the Name of the One who lived this way. Amen.”

“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going to wake him up…Take away the stone… Lazarus, come out!…Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” John 11

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations (this includes ours!!), for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21

Jesus lived a simple life of love, trust, and obedience on this earth. His allegiance was to his Father and our allegiance should be to him. Simple… but is it easy?

“I studied the teachings of Jesus in University. Sometimes I thought his words were so beautiful that I cried. I thought, ‘If there is a God full of love and power, surely these things Jesus said are true.’” This was the comment of a Jewish school teacher Susan and I met at a cookout on Mt. Carmel. “His words are true,” I said. “Maybe,” she replied,”but it is impossible to live according to them.” I thought a moment, then answered, “I agree… unless He lives in you… and that is what He promises to do.”

The conversation did not go much further, but I was reminded that Jesus’ words force us to surrender to him, asking him to take over our lives. “With God, all things are possible,”… without God, we have no hope. The beautiful words my Jewish friend talked about were from the Sermon on the Mount. There she also found the impossible ones: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad!” “Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” “Do not worry about tomorrow.” “Do not judge.” “Enter through the narrow gate.” “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

I am convicted as I copy these excerpts… realizing that Jesus calls me foolish if I don’t build my life on the unshakable Rock. “But how, Lord? Your way is not easy!” Paul might have encouraged this way: “Each day I pick up my cross and follow him. His way is not easy, but He is my Lord and I love him… and I want to know him better. Truthfully, I am dead… but Christ lives in me. His grace is sufficient and I am learning to abide in him.”

Oswald Chambers wrote this (Sept 25 from “My Utmost for His Highest”):

The summing up of our Lord’s teaching is that the relationship which He demands is an impossible one unless He has done a supernatural work in us… No enthusiasm will ever stand the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His worker, only one thing will, and that is a personal relationship to Himself which has gone through the mill of His spring cleaning until there is only one purpose left – I am here for God to send me where He will. Every other thing may get fogged, but this relationship to Jesus Christ must never be… The Sermon on the Mount is not an ideal, it is a statement of what will happen to me when Jesus Christ has altered my disposition and put in a disposition like His own. Jesus Christ is the only One who can fulfill the Sermon on the Mount… Our Lord’s making of a disciple is supernatural. He does not build on any natural capacity at all. God does not ask us to do the things that are easy to us naturally; He only asks us to do the things we are perfectly fitted to do by His grace, and the cross will come along that line always.

May Paul’s words also be ours: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

Susan and I took a quick trip to Israel last week. Some of you may remember the story of a little boy named Roy I met on a flight from Paris to Atlanta six years ago. Well, his dad Steve invited us to Roy’s Bar Mitzvah to be held at Massada on April 21 and 22. Susan and I landed in Tel Aviv on Sunday afternoon to be welcomed by a downcast father. “We’ve got to talk,” Steve said. “Due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland, the Paris airport is shut down and Roy can’t get here. We’re going to have to postpone the celebration for a week. I am so sorry. I wanted to inform you but you had already left before we knew for sure.”

So what do you say? The whole reason we made a trip had just been canceled. But I knew Steve already felt horrible and I knew God had arranged for us to be there, so I just said, “Don’t worry about us, Steve. We’re happy to be here and we’ll pray that something works out where the celebration can still take place.” Steve said there was really no hope for the Bar Mitzvah to happen. The dinner was canceled, the rabbi was canceled, the photographer was canceled, and fifty (or so) people were asked to re-schedule for the next week. Thankfully all the guests were from Israel except us and Steve’s sister from New York City.

So for a few days, Susan and I lived with Steve, his wife Anat, two-year-old Hilla, and three-year-old Sagi in Binyamina near the historical city of Caesarea on the Mediterranean Sea. We happened to be there for two national holidays. The equivalent of our Memorial Day was celebrated Sunday night and Monday. On this holiday, all Jewish citizens remembered the fallen soldiers from the past sixty-three years. A television station dedicated the day to the memory of those who had given their lives. Pictures were shown and relatives spoke on camera about their loved ones. Periodically a siren sounded throughout the country and all stood in silence to remember those that had made the ultimate sacrifice for their nation. Monday night the grieving turned to celebration as Independence Day began. Food was enjoyed, flags were waved, and fireworks lit up the skies of the small coastal town. All day Tuesday we were on the top of Mount Carmel for a cookout. Most of the people we met assumed we were Jewish and asked when we were planning to immigrate. When they discovered we were Christians we had some very interesting conversations. Our new friends were very intelligent, very friendly, and very talkative. Children played, people sang and danced, and we all enjoyed delicious food.

Tuesday night, Steve burst into our room yelling, “God may be answering your prayers!” Roy’s mom had found a way to Israel through Spain. For a long time Steve made numerous phone calls to try to bring everything back together. Sixteen hours later we found ourselves at the Dead Sea checking into the Massada Guest House. More people came to the celebration than they had originally planned. Thirteen-year-old Roy was surrounded by friends and family at a huge feast held in his honor. We were wakened at 4:30 Thursday morning to take the cable car up the historic Massada mountain to watch the sun rise. There, at an ancient synagogue, the Torah was read and the rabbi welcomed Roy to manhood before the God of Israel.

To tell you the truth, when I think of this trip, my head starts spinning. We’ve been trying to encourage one another lately to say “yes” to our Heavenly Father… no matter what He asks. I’ve come to the conclusion that God likes roller coasters. In six or seven days our plans probably changed a dozen times. Most of the time the only profitable thing we could do was pray. (I think I hear God whispering, “Exactly! And believe I can do all things!”) But that’s the challenge in walking by faith, isn’t it? It is easy to rejoice when everything’s going according to schedule, but what happens when a little volcano shuts down an entire continent? “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in Me.” Jesus said this to his disciples a few hours before their world turned upside down. His encouragement is the same today.

As Susan and I lived in a Jewish home and walked in a foreign neighborhood and met a diverse people, I felt God’s pleasure. When we arrived home, Steve sent an e-mail that made me think. If we are simply kind… if we will simply pray… if, by God’s grace, we simply say “yes” to his invitations, maybe it makes a difference. “Dear Dana and Susan, Thanks for the prayers and great wishes. They surely did something and maybe thanks to those prayers this whole event occurred after all. Thanks! Steve.”

“In the same way,  let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16