Too Extreme?

"A life given wholly to spiritual things isn't 'real life,'" someone might protest. 

"You can't just spend all your time in prayer. You have to do normal things, too. You have to have balance." 

"That lifestyle is so far removed from normal life. Consider the great percentage of time you give to that one thing."

I think of Nick and Tessa, a couple from Ellerslie who is getting married this Thursday. They have chosen to reject the traditional "American Dream" model of life and they live full time in prayer and the gospel. No regular source of income promises to provide for their needs. Nick, especially, is given to prayer, dedicating hours every day to the secret place. 

I can just hear the spluttering protests of the world. "But! But! But!" they exclaim. "Why can't you be like normal people? Why do you have to do that one thing so much? Isn't that going a little overboard?" 

You know, it's funny. 

I was sitting in the airport on Monday, facing a window that overlooked the tarmac. It was an area of bustling activity, and I watched luggage trucks cart suitcases back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. 

Suitcases, suitcases, and more suitcases. 

Always the same thing: Lift and fling the suitcases, truck them to the next location, scurry back and forth with more suitcases, always lugging suitcases. 

Take a typical employee working out there. The same guy probably drives the suitcase truck every day. I wouldn't be surprised if he lugs suitcases around for the entirety of his 8-hour shift (whoa! 8 hours???). He may have been working at the same job for 5, 10, or 20 years, or more. 

Yet no one chides the suitcase truck driver for being overboard, off-balance, or extreme. No one questions the great percentage of time he dedicates to doing that one thing. No one feels puzzled that his lifestyle is so far removed from "normal life."

Just consider how abnormal this is. The guy's suitcase truck could be used for SO many different purposes. It has cargo space in the back that would lend itself easily to so many different tasks. Why not be like normal people and incorporate variety? He could haul hay bales, UPS packages, groceries, or people. Why should his service be so narrow, so confined? Wouldn't life be more interesting if he had a little balance? Wouldn't it be better for him and everyone else if he made sure to incorporate some normal variety in his routine? I mean, surely, it's a little overboard to just do that one thing.

Even the sphere of his driving is not normal. It's confined to one airport. Most people, when they drive, choose different roads, go to various cities, and take trips of different lengths. They drive in both urban and rural areas. Sometimes they drive because they have to, and sometimes they drive because they want to. They drive different vehicles, some larger, some smaller, some quick and sporty, some large and lumbering.

But this guy! He drives the same truck every day! It's large and lumbering. It's ugly. It's painted a boring white like all the other baggage carts. It's dusty. The blue curtains on it are dingy. It's not fast. And he never goes where he wants, only where he is told. What in the world?

Shouldn't someone be championing the cause of the poor suitcase truck driver? Shouldn't there be a general public outcry whenever they hear of someone taking that job?

No, there shouldn't.

How easy it is to see it when you put it in these terms. How absurd we would think it if the suitcase truck started living for "variety" and "balance" and so started carrying hay bales and taking road trips.

Yet what is the difference?

•  Both the prayer warrior and the suitcase truck are built for a specialized purpose.
•  Both operate in a limited sphere, doing only what they are told.
•  Both occupy themselves with receiving burdens and carrying to the proper place. The prayer warrior carries his burdens to the throne, while the suitcase truck carries them to the plane.

The only difference is, while the suitcase truck driver's job is admittedly mind numbing and tedious, the prayer warrior's job is exhilarating!

He gets to participate in the stuff of heaven being brought to earth!

He gets to do very real battle against enemy forces in the heavenly realms.

He gets to be spent in a cause that is greater and grander than himself and involves the will of the very King of Kings being brought to bear upon the souls of mankind.

Yes, there is a sacrifice involved. Yes, it requires that you be built by God in a very specialized way. Yes, it takes a lot of time that other people get to use on other things.

But let it not be said that prayer is not "real life." Let it not be said that making prayer your business is "overboard" or "extreme."

And just as we expect the airport to pay the suitcase truck driver, would we not expect the God who sits on the throne to plentifully reward His burden bearer with everything that is needful for life in this world? God places great value on His burden bearers. They are far greater heroes in Heaven's economy than the suitcase truck drivers are in ours.

If you know a prayer warrior, honor him, rather than giving him undue grief about his calling. It's not necessary to enlighten him about "the way the world works."

If you are a prayer warrior, onward! Stop your ears at the world's cries of "Be normal!" "Be Balanced!" Trusting your God to provide for you is not extreme. Dedicating your time to Him is not overboard. People in the world do exactly the same thing for their masters all the time. Therefore embrace your calling. Delight in living entirely outside the world's system. Revel in being inexplicable. And watch how God supplies everything that is needful.

India Opportunity

If you know how to pray, pray for this. One of the Ellerslie students brought this need before the body. This is happening right now! Let us be watchful!

~ ~ ~

There is a group within the Dalits who are known as Manual Scavengers – the Dalits of the Dalits.  There are 2 million of them.  These are the ones who clean manholes filled with sewer.  One man who is from this group has managed to get an education and his daughter is in Toronto.  This Dalit man contacted [a certain missionary] last week, saying he wants to see this specific group set free from Hinduism.  He had told [this missionary] that Buddhism had the same challenges as Hinduism, Islam had terrorism, and so he was choosing Chrisitianity.  He told [the missionary] that 100,000 would be ready to enter Christianity.  He asked [the missionary], “Will the church be ready to accept us?”

This man has gone ahead on his own and planned a meeting on August 20 in Tamil Nadu State, inviting 10,000 leaders from this specific group of Dalits.  On that day he will declare that they are releasing themselves from Hinduism to enter Christianity.  He has asked [this missionary] to be there and to speak.

[The missionary] sent a team to this town 2 days ago to prepare the pastors and churches for this.  He wants to meet with the pastors in this area (about 250) on the following day, the 21^st.

[The missionary] is excited but also scared about this event.  This man is planning this all on his own and is determined to go through with this.  [The missionary] sees this as a pivotal event in the Dalit movement.  This could be as critical as the Nov. 1, 2001 meeting in Hyderabad.  

He is asking that the global church pray for this.  

1. They as Christian leaders need wisdom to know how to proceed with this. Politically this could be a high risk event and if these people decide to take a stand and walk away from their labels that they have had for 3000 years, again the government could resist them.

2. And the church of India needs prayer that they would be open to accepting these people into their churches.

(I watched a documentary with [the missionary and his wife] on this group of people.  It is absolutely gut wrenching!)

~ ~ ~

May the church not miss this opportunity! Though you may be in America, Spain, Russia, England, or Mexico, far away from India, you can still participate in drawing together in the unity and strength of the body of Christ, lifting up this event in prayer. God is able to work!

In the 1200s, there was another opportunity for a huge group of people to turn to the Lord, and the church failed to take the opportunity. The people were ready and waiting to hear the gospel and learn the truth. Their emperor, a significant military and political conqueror, initiated the event and requested 100 missionaries to come and teach his people the word of God. But only 2 missionaries embarked, and when a storm came up early in their journey, they turned back.

That people was the Mongols, and their emperor was Genghis Khan. His empire was the largest (land-wise) ever known in history, bigger than the Babylonians, the Romans, or the Greeks. One can only imagine the early impact Christianity would have had on Asia if the church had been faithful to respond to the call. (See the first few chapters of the Travels of Marco Polo for the entire story of this.)

How sad it would be if only 2 of my readers prayed for this! Pray. Pray that the power of God and anointing of the Holy Spirit will flowing forth in full strength upon this meeting.

An ounce of strength

"You have been given an ounce of strength," Mr. Ludy said to us at 5:30 am for our Corporate Prayer session. "And your tendency is to clutch it to yourself, because you've been weak. You want to say, 'My ounce!' and keep it. But in God's economy, the way to get more is to spend what you have. So I'm asking you to spend your ounce on someone else. Let's be outward focused. Let's bear each other's burdens."

He asked for seven burdens to be shared with the group for our corporate prayer session, and I raised my hand to share the following request.

Cynthia had messaged me on facebook the day before and I asked her how she was doing.

"Not too well," she said.

"What happened?" I asked.

"My uncle shot and killed my aunt and then shot and killed himself, and now my cousins are living with us."

My heart broke for her. Cynthia used to be in my Sunday School class and was always very receptive to the Word of God. She gave her life to Christ and I could see God changing her. She tried to be helpful at home, worked very hard to memorize Scripture (which didn't come easily to her), and did everything she could to set a good example to her two younger sisters. But her home situation wasn't the best. Her mom is a single parent and doesn't know the Lord. There is smoking in the home and boyfriends coming in who don't always treat the girls right. Now there are her newly orphaned cousins living with them, and all of them are grieving and struggling to make it. Cynthia's mom has been unemployed for over a year, so I truly don't know how they're surviving.

"Isn't it amazing," Mr. Ludy said, "that God knows what this family is going through, and He knows they are connected to Rebekah, and He knows that she's right here right now. They have no idea that our whole student body is going to be praying for them, but God has allowed this need to be made known to us, and we accept this burden to spend our strength interceding for them."

So we accepted this burden and poured ourselves out before the Lord for this family. Oh, how we prayed. We prayed the kind of prayers that are all but dead in modern Christianity--mighty, faith-filled prayers that wrestle, that do business, that actually get somewhere, that trust God to bring an answer.

Others shared six other similar burdens (two soldiers in Afghanistan who had been injured by a bomb, a missionary family in Thailand who had lost their father to death by an exploding firework, a woman who was addicted to pain meds, a student's atheist brother, another student's atheist friend, and another student's unsaved sisters).

Ironically enough, before I got to Ellerslie, it was precisely this sort of request that had come to annoy me.

You know how it is. You're in church, and the person up front says, "Are there any prayer requests?" So Joe in the fourth pew raises his hand and says, "Yeah, I've got a coworker who just found out that her sister has cancer. So if we could pray for her, her name is Brenda, and I think she's unsaved, too."

This would make me feel slightly exasperated. "How am I supposed to care or remember about your coworker's sister? I can't even remember my own prayer requests, let alone something about somebody who's not even connected to me." I would silently resolve to myself that I would not be the one to bring this sort of request before the body. It seemed to me that it was a way of passing the buck, like "I feel bad for this person, and I'd like to release these bad feelings by asking the church to pray for it, because I know that once I've shared it, I will feel at peace about it, knowing that it's in God's hands."

But here at Ellerslie, the emphasis on our training is "being made strong in order to be poured out for the weak." And it's amazing how much God has wrought a change in me just in the two short weeks I've been here, because these thoughts are the farthest thing from my head now. I greatly value the body of Christ for the way we can bear each other's burdens. And I am willing to accept a burden of someone who is unknown to me, just as I would hope that others would accept Cynthia's burden and make it their own. Thus, working together, expending our strength in prayer (which, by the way, is the hardest work a human being can do), we become an unstoppable force, to beat back the enemy and see the kingdom of God established in one more person's life.

Thank you, God, for continuing to teach me and help me to grow! I will spend my ounce of strength for you, trusting you to supply me more, exactly when it's needed, and exactly as much as I need.

The Shovel

Here's a helpful analogy on prayer that Eric Ludy shared with us on Monday.

God says to you, "There is treasure beneath your feet" and hands you a shovel. What do you do?

You dig!

The shovel represents prayer, and the treasure represents the stuff of heaven--blessings of God that He desires to send to earth via the conduit of faith.

However, so many people stop after, say, 4 scoopfuls. They haven't hit the treasure yet, but they throw the shovel down. "I've tried prayer," they say. "It doesn't work." But what did Jesus teach us? He taught us that men ought always to pray and not to faint. He gave us the story of the unjust judge and the importunate friend to show us how we ought to approach prayer (see Luke 11:1-13, Luke 18:1-8).

Let us pray--fervent, importunate, faith-filled prayers that first listen to God's heart and then pray according to the burdens He lays on our spirits. Let us connect with God (not merely talk at Him) and believe Him for the answer.

A prayer about prayer

Dear God,

If there is an area that is obvious to me as a deficit, it would be prayer. I am not as faithful as I could be, not as disciplined as I could be, not as fervent as I could be, not as delighted as I could be about prayer. So I would throw myself into that fray. I will pursue more and better prayer, more intimacy with You, and I will seek YOU, Your face, with everything that I am.

Give me the faith to approach you in prayer, reaching forward to attain the highest heights with You. Let me TRUST that even when it feels empty (or even when I predict that it will feel empty, whether that would have been reality or not) that I will pour my whole self into it anyway. Let me believe You about prayer, and DO it, whether or not I understand or like it.

Faith says prayer has a purpose, whether I see it or not, because God says so.

Obedience says "I will pray," whether I feel like it or not, because God commands me to.

Hope says, "Keep pressing in; it will get better," even when my prayers are dry.

Perseverance says, "I will not fail to pray; I will get up and do it like I would get up and go to work."

Self-Control says, "I will discipline my mind and keep it from wandering during prayer."

Zeal says, "Give it your whole heart, for the King of your heart is worthy."

Wisdom says, "I will think through my day and manage my time so as to ensure that prayer is not missed, neglected, or overlooked."

Love says, "I love the Lord, for He has won my heart, and there's nothing I will hold back from Him. If He asks prayer of me, I will gladly and lovingly render up the sweetest incense my heart can produce, because it is for the One who gave His best for me."

In Jesus's Name, Amen.

Thank you, God!

Learn to Pray

Oh, prayer is a hard one. I had so many ups and downs with this. I still have so far to go. But I can look back and see that I've learned a few lessons, which I will share here.

The flesh does not like to pray, but the Spirit does. In order to pray effectively, I must be walking in the Spirit. Never mind what the flesh wants. It's supposed to die anyway.

The point is not to "say prayers," the point is to connect with God. Be still on Him and wait on Him until you have truly visited the throne room and conversed with the King of Kings.

One of my biggest hindrances to prayer was a line of reasoning something like this: "I'm not successful at prayer, so prayer doesn't do any good, so why bother to do it at all?" But this reasoning is first faithless, and second inaccurate. The Bible says our prayers DO do good. By the way, we are commanded to pray, so the "Why bother" comment is invalidated just by that alone.

Another big hindrance to prayer was this line of reasoning: "God is going to do whatever he wants. Things will be the same if I pray as they will be if I don't pray, so why bother?" God taught me big time that this is not true. Whenever I prayed, things happened! Whenever I didn't pray, things didn't happen. It was almost as if God was deliberately withholding the answer until I asked. An illustration of this helped me to understand. I work in a preschool, and it is important to teach the kids to use language, so if they point at something and go "uuuh," we know perfectly clearly what they are asking for, but we say, "Use your words," and wait to give it to them until they ask. Also--it's free to pray, and you just might get what you ask God for, so you really have nothing to lose if you pray; you can only stand to gain.

I learned that body position had a great deal to do with whether or not I would get very far in prayer. Lying in bed, it only took about 3 minutes of prayer to put me to sleep. Kneeling beside the bed, I got a little farther, but pretty soon my head would be pillowed peacefully on my arms and I would be asleep, only to wake up an hour later feeling very stiff and uncomfortable. Standing up--Ah! There's a sleep prevention technique! So at different times I have had to give myself a rule that I have to stand up and not so much as touch my bed. It wards off sleepiness, all right!

Probably my biggest hindrance to prayer was a wandering mind. If I "think" my prayers, it's only a minute before my mind is zinging all over the place into random thoughts that have nothing to do with prayer. Before two sentences are out, I have already forgotten I was praying. Then I catch myself five minutes later thinking about, say, a kayak going down a waterfall, and I realize, "Oops! I was praying! Let me get back to that. Where was I?" I resume my prayers, say a sentence or two, and again, my mind is off in another direction and I have forgotten I was even praying. Do you know how frustrating and prayer killing it is for this to happen over and over again, every two sentences, every day of your life? So two solutions have saved me. One is praying out loud. However, in our small house, it is difficult to have the privacy to do this, so I often take prayer walks, where I can pour out my heart to the Lord in verbalized prayer. Solution two: Write my prayers and enjoy the ability to have silent prayer AND instant focus. An hour of prayer suddenly becomes easy when I'm writing. Of course, I can write slower than I can think, so I can't say as much in an hour as I probably could if I was praying silently, but given that my silent prayer is interrupted by a million random intrusions and I give up after about five minutes, I know I'm getting a lot farther with the written version.

So prayer is coming along. Not perfect yet, but getting somewhere.

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One milestone reached

So God had me where I was obediently witnessing. It was great! I knew it was a huge milestone. It was also a shocking, sobering realization to look back on my previous condition and realize, "Wow! I could never have been a missionary without learning this! Thank you, God, for teaching me that."

I wrote extensively in my journal about the lessons I had learned, started a girl's Bible Study on the theme of "Open Up Your Mouth and Speak," and prepared a document containing the essential message I had learned. I excitedly started witnessing! Whereas in 2008, I had only led three people to Christ, in 2009, I had the privilege of praying with 18 people who wished to receive Christ.

The Master Professor had elegantly and skillfully achieved his goal. He is the type of teacher who never gives up until learning actually takes place. He is also the kind of teacher who moves His pupil right along to the next lesson as soon as the first has been mastered.

Learning to open up my mouth and speak was hard. The new lessons that replaced that one were harder. But these, too, would eventually lead to me looking back and saying, "Wow! I could never have been a missionary without learning this!"

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Torn Apart By My Own Perverseness

Looking back, it's curious to view that phone call with my piano teacher. In one sense, it marked a turning point for the better. That victory began a gradual process that resulted in subsequent witnessing opportunities becoming easier. I had less and less fear until I was able to open up my mouth and speak without a struggle, without a flutter, mentioning the truths of the gospel message just as naturally as I would bring up any other conversation topic.

But that achievement came at a great price.

You see, every time I would be prompted to witness, I still refused to obey. It was a persistent, steadfast rebellion that trumped all my best pep talks and all my good intentions. I was in a cycle: I prayed for souls and desired them to be saved, I was faced with a witnessing opportunity and turned it down, and then I was filled with remorse and vowed to actually witness the next time.

God was very patient with me through all this.

In the midst of it all, however, I was still largely living by the flesh and not walking by faith, and therefore I was not finding the strength to obey, because I was looking to myself for it rather than accessing grace, which is the only thing that can actually empower obedience. Therefore, I experienced a lot of conflicting emotions, and all the sweet richness of love that I had experienced with my Savior seemed like it was threatening to evaporate as a consequence of my disobedience.

A pang of dread shot through my heart as the warmth and passion and delight of the love in my heart started to fade. The thought of losing the sweetest love in the world suddenly made me realize how much it meant to me. Oh, take out my eyes, destroy all my possessions, and leave me hungry every day--but don't take that! I prayed internally. But even this was not motivation enough to make the flesh do what the flesh did not want to do, because the flesh cannot and will not please God.

The next few witnessing opportunities came along, and I failed them. Flunked them. Kept quiet. Didn't obey God. And in the same measure, I began to lose that delightful, romantic, adventurous LOVE that I had experienced for the past few months. "Noooooooooo," I thought. "Why am I doing this?" And yet there the facts stood. I was not loving God, but He continued to love me. 

A few days later, I flunked yet another opportunity. I was afraid that I wouldn't get another opportunity. I figured that if I didn't ever obey, I would just be left to my own devices and live a miserable, mediocre life. I believe that a lot of the condemnation I was experiencing at this time was coming from the enemy, who kicks a person when they're down. "You're not worthy of God's love. Why should He continue to work with you?" The worst part about it was that he attributed these types of statements to God, and I took the bait and believed I was hearing from God.

But God, who is faithful, merciful, and patient, ultimately triumphed.

He gave me another opportunity, and gave me the strength to witness.

Then he gave me another, and I witnessed again.

And again.

And along the way, a few more failures crept back in, but FINALLY, the pattern was changing.

Finally, I have some obedience in my life in this area. Thus the Lord saw me safely through the crisis until He saw His will formed in me. But the Master Professor was far from finished with His pupil.

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Jump Off A Cliff

Real life always jolts me out of the dream worlds I create for myself. In my dream world, I am the perfect witness, always going about the Lord's business and always saying just the right thing at the right time.

So I was driving along the highway, heading home from a road trip, and it was just me and the Lord. I was disappointed in myself, because that weekend, I had met with my former piano teacher with the express purpose of giving her the gospel, and I had kept my mouth shut. I KNEW that God had opened the doors for the encounter to take place, and I KNEW that I was supposed to witness to her. In an hour-long conversation, I never once brought up the real issue. I skirted it and evaded it, waiting for "the right moment," telling myself it just "wasn't right yet," and saying, "Just a little more small talk." And then it was time to go, and it was too late.

I was kicking myself. All my pep talks to myself had done no good. I could have had this glorious testimony of how I opened up my mouth to speak, and now I didn't even know when I would see her again. We lived 13 hours apart. Why had I blown it? I was so discouraged I wanted to cry. I felt like God would never be able to use me. With this track record, I thought I would probably never speak up. Going into the meeting with her, I had prayed so hard and wanted it so hard. The fact that I didn't speak made me doubt whether I ever would, since I couldn’t imagine praying harder or desiring more strongly that souls would be saved. Afterwards, the Lord prompted me to call her up and say it on the phone, but I repressed that feeling, too.

All this was going through my mind as my rental car skimmed along the highway. The Lord brought into my mind a picture, a memory, of a day when I was about 12 and we went to a place we called "The Pools." It was a beautiful mountain stream that spilled from one deep, round pool to another. You could slide down little waterfalls into the pools or jump off a high rock into the biggest pool. My 12-year-old self was a little afraid to jump off the rock, but my cousin did it so many times and obviously enjoyed herself so much that I finally worked up the courage to do it. I walked up to the edge and was ready to jump, but I lost my nerve. I backed up and tried again, but stopped myself again at the last moment. I returned to the "safe ground" and felt better, regained my courage, and tried again. When I finally jumped, the feeling was so exhilarating that I burst up out of the water with a shout of pure delight, and then I did it over and over again.

Jumping off the rock is like picking up the phone and calling your piano teacher, the Lord whispered to me.

"Ohhhh!" I thought. The wheels of my mind started turning and things started clicking. "What I really wanted to do was speak to her," I thought. "Soulwinning is the thing above all others that I really want to begin to do. But just like I wanted to jump off the rock and didn't at first, something is keeping me back from soulwinning. What is it, Lord? What gives? I don't think it's fear. I don't think I'm afraid to witness. I know how to share the gospel. I'm not afraid I won't know what to say. So what is keeping me from it?"

And in his most excellent teaching style, perfectly suited and tailored to individual little me, he proposed an exercise which would reveal the answer.

"Ask yourself this question," he proposed. "Ask yourself, 'Would I pick up the phone and call her right now?'"

I asked myself the question, phone in hand. Immediately, an excuse came into my mind. "I don't have free cell phone minutes right now, so it's not a good time."

"Now," the Lord guided me, "weigh that excuse in the balance. Weigh the pennies it will cost you to make the phone call against the value of her eternal soul."

"Oh." I thought. "Right. What will the phone call cost? Not even close to five dollars. So that excuse goes out the window."

"Ask yourself again," the Lord said.

"Okay. The question remains before me. Would I pick up the phone and call my teacher?" Immediately, an excuse came to my mind. "You're driving, and it's not a good idea to talk on the phone while you're driving. Besides, you don't even know if it's legal to drive and talk on the phone in this state."

I weighed that excuse in the balance. I had already talked to Mom twice on the phone. I simply put it on speakerphone on my lap and had no inconvenience at all. I also knew that if the phone rang again, I would not hesitate to answer it and talk to whoever called. So that excuse had to go out the window, too.

Now, Rebekah," I said to myself, "The question still stands. Would you pick up the phone and call your teacher right now?" Immediately, an excuse came to my mind. "She might not pick up."

"Rebekah!" I scolded myself. "It’s shameful how instantly you come up with excuses. I think this one must be the stupidest of all. If she doesn't pick up, then it lets you off the hook from having to talk to her, so what's the point of making an excuse that would accomplish the same objective?" And I tossed that excuse out the window.

"The question, therefore, still stands before you, weightier than ever. Will you call your teacher right now?" Immediately, an excuse came to mind. "She might not listen."

"Notice," I exclaimed to myself, "How readily you come up with excuses! Immediately they spring to your mind. Now this one doesn't even merit much consideration. Long ago I had it settled that there is no such thing as speaking the gospel in vain. Whether she listens is not the point. The point is, WILL YOU call her?"

This process went on for probably 6 or 7 excuses, all of which turned out to be stupid, false fronts, smoke screens, or bluffs. Finally, the excuses stopped coming. I even hunted around for another excuse and couldn't find one. (The scary thing is, up until that day, a single one of those excuses would have sufficed to defeat me. I would have simply accepted it as a good reason without any evaluation at all.)

When the flow of excuses stopped, I faced a sobering reality. "Rebekah, will you call your teacher? Because if the answer is no, you’ll have to face up to the fact that it stems exclusively from fear. You are afraid to do it."

Now, you have to understand my background regarding fear. I prided myself on being fearless. I considered it as repulsive and despicable to be afraid, and "fear" was practically a dirty word in my vocabulary, (except for fear of God, which I allowed). As a kid, I would rack my brain to try to think of anything I was afraid of, and come up empty, and that made me glad. So here, to admit to fear in myself was unthinkable. I could not be afraid—I must prove I was unafraid. Therefore, I had to answer yes, that I would call her. God had cleverly trapped me. He did it so deftly, so elegantly. He had me exactly where he wanted me by playing on his intimate knowledge of me.

Okay, get a grip, Rebekah. You’re going to call her, I thought. It was like walking right up to the edge of that rock at the pools and planning to jump. Suddenly, I was breathing hard, my heart was beating faster, my legs were trembling, my mind was racing. (Wow, I really am afraid, I realized.) I cried out to God for His help. I called on Him for His aid, His strength, words to say to her, calmness in my voice. As I prayed, I started to cry, tears of anguish and love for the state of my piano teacher's soul. And then, when I had finished praying, I took a deep breath, calmly opened my phone, and dialed her number. It rang one, two, three, four, five times. Then the answering machine picked up. I hung up without leaving a message.

I went through all that agony, just to do that. It really wasn’t that hard. And after I was off the phone, even though I hadn't even talked to her, I was filled with overwhelming, amazing joy. I was laughing, crying with joy at the fact that I had been victorious through the power of God. I was thanking God for his good work, for helping me, for guiding me. I was so elated. It was just like the jubilation I experienced after I faced the rock and jumped off into the water.

That experience marked a turning point in my journey—for better—and for worse.

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Open Up Your Mouth and Speak

God couldn't have been more clear about my life purpose. "Open up your mouth and speak the message of the gospel to lost souls you meet."

THAT was the point it all hinged on. I thought I was a missionary when I was in Spain--I claimed to be one--I lived like a Christian--I was active in church--I passed out tracts--I visited the hospital--I did Bible studies--I led the choir--I looked for ways to do ministry. But when it came to that one thing, my lips were sealed. Down in the core of my being, I was profoundly unwilling to do one thing: activate my vocal chords for the advancement of God's kingdom.

Why?

Why would I balk at that? It should have been so simple. I talked freely and easily about anything else. Small talk, sports, politics, TV, movies, music, ideas, relationships, all came to my lips unhindered and poured out in a fluent stream as I tried to be friendly to people I met and strike up conversations "that could lead to spiritual things." I would even consciously try to coax the conversation around to making the perfect setup for linking into the gospel--where just one phrase would transition us as naturally as can be into talking about the Lord. Let's say you're talking about gardening. You say something like "Have you ever thought of the world as a garden, with people growing in it?" so that they can make a comment along those lines, which you will respond with, "It reminds me of Jesus's parable of the sower. Have you ever heard that parable?" Then you can take it from there (depending on their responses) and use that parable to explain the gospel message or ask them what kind of ground they think they are.

I got lots of these opportunities. I failed to take up any of them. The Lord would drop a perfect situation into my lap, as perfect a setup as I could wish, where all I had to do was insert that one key phrase and go from there. And every time, I would toss that phrase away and select something else, something safe, something trite or flippant or lighthearted, that would steer me away from the "danger zone" I had approached so closely.

Why, though? That was so stupid. I knew it was stupid. I would berate myself for it afterwards. Opportunities to rescue people's precious souls, just thrown out.

God called me to open up my mouth and speak, but something was stopping me. I didn't really even know what it was.

One day, he very cleverly trapped me in a real-life situation to show me exactly what the problem was.

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