This month I was struck by a paragraph in an update from one of our Mission Dispatch workers who funnels assets into a restricted country…
“When our team reached this new area, we found her sitting quietly inside her hut. She told us no one had visited or spoken with her in months. As our staff listened, prayed, and shared the hope of the gospel, tears streamed down her face. ‘No one ever visits, no one ever asks how I am, no one ever comes. I don’t understand why you would care… Who is this God you serve?’”
That’s a question many of you have heard—and you answer. After all, that’s why you’ve been called to do what you do: to respond in words and with action, “Let me show you who this God is…”
During this month when we in this country emphasize our gratitude, I’m grateful for our Mission Dispatch people who take the risks to live out the good news of Jesus.

“God is much greater at being a savior than I am at being a sinner.”
That statement by my good friend Dr Don Kistler, much earlier penned by John Wesley (1725-1807) and before him Puritan theologian Richard Sibbes (1577-1635).

Can there be any greater comfort, any finer assurance, than knowing that the redemptive work of Christ is complete! Done for us, without our assistance.
To illustrate, this prayer of trust by another lifelong friend Gene Ashe:
“It could be that you put mud on the eyes of the man born blind and told him to wash it off so he would not be an eyewitness. That way, when the Pharisees questioned him how it happened, his testimony would be purely based on “blind” faith. Lord, help my faith to be blind more often.”

How true it is…
So often, more often than we prefer, we’re barred from progress. Maybe a simple delay. And then there are times when we’re overcome by opposition. Sometimes clobbered.
A few years ago I read this in Married and Still Loving It by Gary Chapman & Harold Myra. The image has stayed with me.

It seems a family facing severely challenging times decided they needed to be in their church. During the sermon, the pastor told about a chess expert visiting a museum to study a painting titled Checkmate. The expert decided the painting should be retitled or repainted. The king had one more move.

That morning they heard the message, “We're not checkmated. God has at least one more move for us and our family."

From Psalm 34 msg:
God keeps an eye on his friends, his ears pick up every moan and groan. If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there. Disciples so often get into trouble; still, God is there every time.

May I take this trail following the Christmas holidays?
Dryness.

Haven’t we all been there? It may have spiritual roots. Or it may have nothing to do with our friendship with God. It just might be that our steps take us onto deserts of normal living.

Lethargy. Apathy. We may criticize ourselves for normal human emotions and necessary elements of our journey. After all, this lifelong pilgrimage is an adventure, and adventure must certainly include many arid places, even losing our way.

Not to worry, we say to each other, sometimes glibly, this too shall pass. Whether it does pass or doesn’t, we find ourselves coming back to basic beliefs we hold as assurance.

Those not choosing dependence on God may regard setbacks as only numerous hurdles in life to cross over. I believe we’ve been given a broader perspective. No matter the ease or difficulty of our wilderness steps, our thirst for our living nurturing God is a good thirst.

“Suffering, hunger, poverty, baffling circumstances,” my friend Harold Myra quotes Amy Carmichael, “cannot of themselves make anything but confusion. But if there be the touch of the Hand, all these things work together for good, not for ill, not for discord, but for something like the harmony of music.”

May I take this trail following the Christmas holidays?
Dryness.

Haven’t we all been there? It may have spiritual roots. Or it may have nothing to do with our friendship with God. It just might be that our steps take us onto deserts of normal living.

Lethargy. Apathy. We may criticize ourselves for normal human emotions and necessary elements of our journey. After all, this lifelong pilgrimage is an adventure, and adventure must certainly include many arid places, even losing our way.

Not to worry, we say to each other, sometimes glibly, this too shall pass. Whether it does pass or doesn’t, we find ourselves coming back to basic beliefs we hold as assurance.

Those not choosing dependence on God may regard setbacks as only numerous hurdles in life to cross over. I believe we’ve been given a broader perspective. No matter the ease or difficulty of our wilderness steps, our thirst for our living nurturing God is a good thirst.

“Suffering, hunger, poverty, baffling circumstances,” my friend Harold Myra quotes Amy Carmichael, “cannot of themselves make anything but confusion. But if there be the touch of the Hand, all these things work together for good, not for ill, not for discord, but for something like the harmony of music.”

CS Lewis puts God’s love for everybody in words that may set us back when he says there are no ordinary people, that we’ve never talked to a mere mortal.

That discovery becomes dramatic when we interact with people whose eyes tell us they search for peace and the assurance that they haven’t been abandoned.

Whether giving refugees safety, satisfying hunger needs, pastoring your churches, teaching people by word and example, or taking time to listen to kids and adults considered in their environments not much more than human refuse: thank you for your kindness to ordinary—but really quite extraordinary—people whom God Himself hasn’t stopped loving.

How gracious of God that the manger wasn’t sanitary nor was the infant kept silent.
The year ahead will surely present challenges for each of us. Harold Myra braces us with this from Oswald Chambers:

“The Christian life is gloriously difficult, but the difficulty of it does not make us faint and cave in, it rouses us up to overcome... Thank God he does give us difficult things to do! His salvation is a glad thing, but it is also a heroic, holy thing. It tests us for all we are worth."

Newness awaits us. New chapters, new explorations, new questions. Like the manger, even the new will be messy. Relying on our hands-on Master for direction—for course adjustments, steadiness, tenacity—seems to me to be our best path.

When answers are delayed or obscure, then deliberate, tenacious trust becomes our most heroic act of obedience.

For He shall reign forever.

I’ve quoted author Harold Myra’s perspectives many times. This is from his devotional writings in The Pilgrim’s Progress.*
 
There’s a scene where Interpreter showed Christian a fire burning against a wall. The devil stood by the fire pouring on water to quench it. But the fire only burned higher and hotter. How?
 
"The fire is the work of grace in the heart," Interpreter explained to Christian.
 
But why did that fire keep burning so high and so hot?
 
Interpreter led Christian around to the backside of the wall, and a man with a jar of oil was secretly feeding the fire.
"This is Christ," Interpreter explained, "who, continually, with the oil of his grace, maintains the work begun in the heart.”
 
Harold says, “It is hard for the tempted to see how his work of grace is maintained in the soul. As we determine to follow God's path and to live in the grace and empowering of the Spirit, we can be mystified by what a dynamic, frustrating, marvelous adventure it is…The conflict within us is always there, changing in specifics but raging all through our earthly journey. Martin Luther stressed that God works in the lives of his people even when we can't see what his plans might be. ‘God won't lie to me or deceive me,’ he preached, ‘though at times, nothing in life will seem to make sense.’"
 
As I read this devo, Isaiah 41.10 came to mind:
“Don’t be afraid for I am with you. Don’t look anxiously about for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you too. And with the righteousness of my right hand, I will uphold you.”
 
We do have so much to be grateful for, don’t we?”
 
*https://www.amazon.com/Pilgrims-Progress-Experience-Spiritual-Devotion/dp/1627076751

Each month I read the ministry updates and the gratitude you express to your supporters. I think often about the not-too small army of real people whose employment and income allow them to contribute to the different MD ministries. Some of them give thousands annually, others much less. All add up.

Interesting, isn’t it, how the people who support us give out of their earnings to fund what they’ve assumed to be the real work of the Kingdom? It’s common for them to see their own work as vehicles to promote the formal ministry of others, rather than the open mission fields to which God has called them. As if their work might take a second chair to ours, and we only are the called.

Seminary professor and my fellow retreatant, Dr Larry Peabody, debunks that mindset in his book, God Loves Your Work: Discover Why He Sends You to Do What You Do. You might want to check it on Amazon, even give a copy to a donor. His recent blog: https://www.larrypeabody.com/blog/

Without their ‘secular’ jobs we wouldn’t have the privilege of doing what we get to do. But the thing is, each of us actively works to serve our Master. He places every one of us to fulfill the mission of His calling. How good God is to create a fully functional body of so many to reflect Him in faithful obedience.

First, thank you for praying for my wife Linda during her chemotherapy sessions. We’re grateful to our God for her progress, for answering the prayers of His people. At this time it appears the cancer is retreating. These months continue to prove our dependence, our reliance on the One who calls us to belong to Himself. Again, Thank You!

Going through my files I rediscovered a favorite story.
My good friend Stephen was writing a commentary on John 13.35: “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
As he wrote, he overheard his young grandchildren after their church day camp where they’d learned the song “One in the Spirit”.  
Brother (singing): “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love; yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”
His sister: “That’s not how it goes!”
Brother: “Yes, it is!”
Sister (heatedly): “No, it’s not!”
Brother (intensely): “YES IT IS!”
He resumed singing, “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”
Not one to pass up a teachable moment, Stephen suggested they might be missing the point of the song.
And they looked at him as if he were the dullest of all.  
Interesting, isn’t it, how children tend to behave like children?

I caught myself thinking about the Creator of all there is. Then it hit me. He is the Creator of: us. Not one to abandon the pride of his work, this supreme Artist puts us on display for his own perfect pleasure, even as he continues the process of completion.

These are not easy words to type as my wife faces her next course of chemotherapy. How I wish for a return to the innocence of last year.

During times of upheavals and quakings and fears, our hope doesn’t rest on the desire only for relief from the toughest of times. Yes, it does include that. But even anxious trust is founded on the One who without doubt will see us through our turbulence, and our failings, to what we rightly anticipate as our eternal peace, even our perfection, in our Sculptor’s immediate presence. I believe that thinking otherwise is unreasonable.

I think a lot about servant leaders. In this culture of gaining more, it isn’t a valued quality even among believers. The term was coined in 1970 by Robert Greenleaf.

I’ve read your updates over the years, how you describe attitudes and attributes of people you influence—and by how you serve them. We are sent to do the will and pleasure of our God. We give from our skill sets and giftings. We influence others, passing along what we’ve been entrusted with.

What do we have to show for our service? How do we determine our success? Understandable questions. They just may not be fully answered in this life, and I have a hunch God’s faithful servant-leaders are good with that. Seeing our Savior will be our supreme satisfaction. Hearing his So Well Done will be profoundly glorious.

Here’s my hope in the matter. That the people donating to your projects and to your servant-leading understand your commitment, and they support you for it.

Hi Mission Dispatch friends—
I’ve mentioned the One Year Book of Encouragement by Harold Myra. What a treasure. The devotional for November 29 spoke to me in this way…
The hope we have in our King is genuine. And foundationally solid. In time, but not yet, our hopes will become fulfillment, their reality many, many times more real than what we call tangibly solid in this life. Getting from here to there is in God’s care, and this life of obedience and ministry certainly does have its fill of battling our upstream rivers. So, we cling all the more to the promise that we are, because of Jesus, in fact, made new.
A Christmas thought? I hope so. God has placed us right where he wants us: close to himself.
All glory to our God and to His Son
Ted, for Cindy and the board

Good morning, Mission Dispatch friends,
A few years ago I heard a group of ministers refer to the believer’s life as following the breadcrumbs—from the Hansel and Gretel tale. That’s a weakened image of being guided and blessed and surprised by the Spirit of Jesus. I prefer to think of wending our way with Him, climbing the peaks, plodding through the canyons and picking our way through the tunnels, confronting the towering waves and sitting out the doldrums—all as adventure I’d not thought of in my earlier years. As my good brother Jim Meredith put it recently, “God is indeed the One of surprise, and we learn it over and over again.”
While corresponding with one of our MD Ugandan pastors last summer, the realization hit me again. The heart of the Christian wants nothing less than to be faithful. There are times when serving becomes much more difficult than we anticipated. During especially tough seasons we can only present ourselves to our Lord to remind us that His calling on our lives is certain, that He is always our strength—whether we feel strong or deflated.
No breadcrumbs here. He will not consider abandoning His work in us or withdrawing His Spirit from us, His salt and light.
We are His. He is ours.

Good morning, Mission Dispatch friends—
I picture the image of keeping ourselves under the protection of God’s wing.
Let me say it simply, and I trust with discretion. We professional Christian workers are vulnerable to setting our skills on display—a temptation to guard against. Folks may argue the point, but even at our finest and most talented, we are of little use to our Master without Him at the helm.
From the lyrics of Martin Luther’s A Mighty Fortress is Our God...
Did we in our own strength confide
Our striving would be losing were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is He!
We who serve the King have chosen a deliberate dependence on Him who is also our steady and attentive guide. How good to delight in our need for Him. We are His and His alone. There lies our fulfillment.

Dear Mission Dispatch friends,
Nearly 100 years ago humorist Will Rogers put it this way, “Always live your life as if you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.” Much truth in those words.
Our lives unfold as long letters. We’ve been influenced by parents, grandparents, other older saints we call mentors. So too, each of us leaves a spiritual legacy, most likely not what we think we’re leaving. Our intentionality just may differ from how our successors remember us. Or we may think we have no appreciable history to be shared. Whether to offspring or others who have looked to us as examples of—to quote a friend—“Jesus with skin on”, we trust Him to be the light brighter than our shortcomings.
It really is true, isn’t it: these lives God gives us are entrusted to us. Not so much to make something of ourselves, but to reflect the giftedness of our Savior. At the end of it all we hand them back to our King because we complete the journey he set before us. It has always been all about Him, hasn’t it?
Grateful for His constant guidance!

Dear Mission Dispatch friends— I admit at times I wonder about words we use to describe relationship with the eternal God. Friendship seems presumptuous. After all, he is God.
But one of my favorite verses comes to mind. Exodus 33.11—God meeting with Moses. True, Moses was the leader, so God met often with him. But can you imagine it, face to face? Intoxicating.

It’s that 7th verse that more than hints of an open door to the King. Anyone who sought Him could go to the same place where Moses talked with Him—long before the veil was parted.
Which also makes me ask, what did the high priest do centuries later with the top-to-bottom separation on that Resurrection Day after the sun came out? Hire a seamstress to sew it back together? Order a replacement after Passover? It’s no small thing to stand wide open to the Holy of Holies, is it? I guess it could be called a double exposure: God revealing himself to us, and we to our King who calls us his friends and wraps us in his purity. Miraculous!

Our Christ is risen! Indeed!

A day great it is, MD friends—

It’s so very good to talk to God whenever, however, wherever.

Here’s something I didn’t think I’d write about…
A while ago a colleague criticized anyone for taking their quiet time in the bathroom. He used colorful terms to describe the disrespect of the scene.

At the same time, coincidentally and unknown to my friend, a gentle pastor made a different emphasis to his flock of many years. How good, how necessary that we keep in touch with our Father, not becoming burdened over our wording or our location when we pray. Then he added, for young parents the bathroom is often the only quiet place in the house.

Both spoke in favor of time alone with the King. One held to maintaining order. The other assured his friends that God hears the request of need.

How gracious that God invites both into his quietness.
 

Good morning, MD friends—

Such profound steps we take when we walk with the King. Yes, we can take great, even monumental, steps without acknowledging him—history shows that most people do.

But the reward, the pleasure becomes so much greater, and our setbacks and anguish are that much more meaningful, when we see life through lenses God has given us. I believe you’ll agree, there is only one way to stay the course: by deliberate trust and obedience. It’s a long-term, lifelong matter, isn’t it?

This month I received an email from my older brother in Christ, Jim Meredith, one fine example of revealing God’s grace. I love the way he closed his note.
When you think of me, just give me to Jesus. All will be well. I will do likewise. Since he has all things in His hands, he can handle you and me.

All will be well.
Ted

"Well done. Oh, so well done! Just what I had in mind for you!”

The longing of each of the Master’s bondservants is to hear His final approval.
Have you ever indulged in the fantasy of how you’d reply to your King?

"What did I do so well that you would honor me? I only did what I had the strength and wherewithal to take care of. You led and I followed.”

You’ve heard words like that before. Maybe you’ve imagined them yourself. I think that’s why Paul in 2 Corinthians added a statement to his readers in the middle of his letter, the end of chapter 7: “I rejoice because in everything I have complete confidence in you.”

Pretty strong affirmation for people who couldn’t seem to get much right.

"Oh, but if I only had the gift mix of others.”

Comparison is natural, isn’t it? I am more and more convinced God gives us what we need. The gifted ones we admire just may not gain the hearing our listeners have awarded us, in part because they wouldn’t speak in the same way God has gifted us.

No matter our personal appraisal, our Lord turns the mirror toward us with the reminder that He knows exactly what He’s doing with our giftedness, our talents. After all, these gifts and skills are all for His pleasure, for our own too, and for the others whom He’s pleased to have us walk alongside.

Now isn’t that a reason to shout it again, All glory to the Father!

Dear Mission Dispatch friends,

I remember a young couple at the large conference center where I worked. They loved charting out their personal five-year plan and put great forethought into making the future manageable. They had an excitement about what might lie ahead and how they might prepare for the years before them. Around the same time my wife Linda and I charted our ministry goals on a timeline. During subsequent years we’d refer to that chart and realize the events as they unfolded were much, much different than what we’d designed.

Interesting, isn’t it, how we plan our ways and they seem right and reasonable, logical too. Then something happens when our strategy and timing don’t work out so well, and sometimes it all seems to fall apart. Could it be God’s intervention?

Oftentimes the guidance of God is mysteriously baffling. At the same time—after we catch our breath, we affirm again we want only to be in His will no matter the path or how steep the climb. I've called it following the breadcrumbs. But it’s so much more than that. We ultimately exult in being chosen to walk the paths of His choice.

Yesterday I read 4 reports from our Mission Dispatch people serving the King. The last year brought surprises and challenges for them all, and for one grave distress. For that matter, some of you describe a pressure that is not lessening. I marvel at your tenacity, staying with what you know to be the leading of God. This statement is from one of our African coworkers yesterday:

"We thank God for all these challenges. They increase our worship, love for God's Great Commission.”

People may look at us and say we’re crazy because there’s something in us that simply must be about our Father’s business. When we know our calling, we can do nothing else, nothing less.

Thank you for faithfully serving your Master because you know that's what you must be about. I hope you take satisfaction in knowing your King is in it all.

Good morning, MD friends,
 
We are called, invited, to do the work of the Kingdom. We may find ourselves part of great change, or we may simply be carrying on with our day-to-days. Some folks are eagerly motivated to excel, to accomplish, make things happen. Others are wired to wait and see, taking cautious steps.

Then there are the times, no matter how we’re put together, when we simply hold on tight. Ministry, like all of life, gets exciting, then routine. Predictable coupled with surprise. Whether floating on calm waters or plunging the rapids, these tiny barques of ours sail for only one purpose: the honor, the pleasure, the glory of our King.

This from Richard Halverson.

“You go nowhere by accident. Wherever you go, God is sending you. Wherever you are, God has put you there. God has a purpose in your being there. Christ lives in you and has something he wants to do through you where you are. Believe this and go in the grace and love and power of Jesus Christ.”

Dear MD friends,

Reading your year-end newsletters last month, I saw that many of you navigated the unusual year quite well. Some described very difficult times for yourselves, your neighbors, the people who stimulate your compassion. To summarize all I read from everyone into a short paragraph seems a great disservice to your setbacks and your innovations. May I put it this way: The people of God travel light, making quick adjustments to stay the course. That’s what I read in your letters throughout the year.

A friend here called 2020 the year of all Mondays. He might have something there. An author described it as when we discovered the loss of our cherished notions of how things ought to be.
So now we begin another year, not so brand new for a fair number of holdovers from the last. In time things will change; that’s what time produces. But as another friend put it, we won't head toward a new normal because the old normal wasn’t all that normal. There is no normal in this life, but plenty of abnormal.

With that as a given, how do we live? No matter our calling or our makeup, we are the people of the risen Christ. He leads, we follow.

Some of you told about extreme times of stretching you’ve not experienced before. May I toss this out: it just may be that our current world condition is God-sent in that it’s a time for his people to rest from past activities. A sort of sabbatical within the scatteredness. I would ask that while you continue to stay the course of obeying the call of the King, you also look for moments of rest in preparation for your next chapter of ministry.

My Mission Dispatch friends—

I hope we'll hear this phrase repeated many times this season:
Unto us…
To us, from God.
For us, by God.
Jesus, His Son, Messiah, King.

This year it seems all the earth has become more hostile to all of life.
But, to us...

All of creation yearns for the King, though the mighty media insist it isn’t so.
Jesus is the Sovereign Shepherd.

Of course we know that. We belong to Him. But this year it seems the great reminder is all the more imperative.

As I type this I’m listening to our Master’s great titles in Handel’s Messiah.
The Mighty God
The Everlasting Father
The Prince of Peace
The Lord God Omnipotent
King of kings
Lord of lords
Surely He hath borne our griefs.
And He shall purify.
For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
Jesus is.
He is the one focal point. He holds all creation, all of it.
And He is given unto us.

I’ve got to admit, it's difficult not to end this note with
Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.
Ted for MD’s board

Good morning, Mission Dispatch friends—

A few days ago I let my mind settle on a particular phrase I read in Scripture. We who believe in the risen Jesus are treasured by God. His people, his children, his friends.
I know we’ve heard it all before. Taught it. Preached it. But once in awhile the reality of the love and friendship of God Himself amazes me all over again. Like waking up refreshed after a most restful nap.

The creator of everything, the source of love, this same God invites us, has declared us his friends.

With only the closest of friends, the beloved, we have the richest communion. Imagine for a moment—longer than that is intoxicating—our completed joy when we sit at the table with our King. Our closest friend. Our savior. Then we will experience his pleasure in us as never in this life, but as he has always delighted in us.  

No more restrictions—not a one. And in the company of every person who has been “declared good and right and whole before God.“ Acts13.39

Ted