1987 September/October issue Part 3

Gratitude-Even in Death

Eileen Longo, of Warren, New Jersey, writes of her marriage to a man with leukemia who was given two years to live. For ten healthy years after that prognosis "he lived for God radically- there couldn't be a shadow of grasping this life, since it was all so obviously a daily gift from the Lord." When their daughters were five, three, and nine months, the leukemia returned. On the evening of the fourth day Eileen left the hospital, "full of joy and excitement, caught up in a work of God. I knew either he would be healed or taken to Glory, either one a tremendous miracle. So I wasn't shocked when I got the call at 1 A.M. Bill was gone. I simply threw myself into the arms of my Father in Heaven, in gratitude for all the years and the rich life He had given us, so undeserved. God's mercy and love have filled me from that moment. It is nearly one and a half years, and there still is no room for anything but gratitude because of how good God is. To Him be the glory!"

  Sometimes we puzzle over how on earth we are supposed to obey the command, "In everything give thanks." Eileen's testimony may show the answer. She wasn't thankful for leukemia- that's the work of the enemy-but she found far greater things to thank God for.

1987 September/October issue Part 2

What to Do When Your Children Grow Up

Thoughts from my mother's little red Quiet Time notebook: "Job 1:5-'When a round of feasts was finished, job sent for his children and sanctified them, rising early in the morning and sacrificing a whole-offering for each of them; for he thought that they might . . . have . . . committed blasphemy in their hearts. This he always did.'

  "When one's children are adults, what is the role of the parent? "They seldom come to us for help or advice. It is wonderful if they do. Then, out of our experience and perhaps the spiritual wisdom God may give us, we may be able to give wise counsel. Seldom, if ever, do they ask advice concerning the training of children. It is a blessing when they ask for prayer for themselves or their children, and this is usually the sole recourse of the grandparent, except for one tremendous duty: we can do as job did. We have the One great Sacrifice to plead-the blood of Jesus Christ! May we be faithful in this duty and privilege for those we love!!"

1987 September/October issue Part 1

The Gospel According to Sloat

Psychologist Donald Sloat, author of The Dangers of Growing Up in a Christian Home, made some breathtaking assertions in an interview for InterVarsity magazine last spring. I scurried to my typewriter to protest to the powers that be, but I can't leave it at that. I met a couple who were badly confused by Sloat's statements, which they had studied earnestly, hoping to find some light for a dark time they are having with a defiant fifteen-year-old.

  God has promised that for the upright (those whose lives are characterized by obedience) light will arise out of darkness. The world, however, is continually coming at us with notions utterly at variance with God's light. We must test every notion by the straightedge of Scripture.

  I think I know what Dr. Sloat meant, and I am terribly aware of the great gulfs fixed between what one believes, what one actually says, and what an interviewer may record (not to mention what the reader or hearer may think was said). I can only take the words of the interview as it appeared.

  Sloat's remarks confuse the nature of the true Christian home with its sad imitations, true Christian faith with a vague and often Pharisaical travesty. He has discarded the baby with the bathwater. This is a serious mistake for one who is taken for a godly counselor. False premises lead to false conclusions in diagnosis and false prescriptions. Note the following:

1987 July/August issue Part 5

Another Way

Following a women's meeting in Florida I was sitting at a table out under the trees autographing books. A young woman waited politely until I was free, then, with a shining face, told me this story. She had been working, but came to the conviction that she ought to be at home with her children. This, it seemed, was quite impossible. Her husband insisted she work because they needed the money. "Last week," she said, "he was away for three days. I set asidethose days to fast and pray, asking God to change my husband's mind and to show us another way." A day or two later, without preliminary, her husband said, "Honey, we must find a way to enable you to quit working."  Within one week they had sold their house and found another with equal floor space at a much lower price.

  May her testimony spur others to ask God if He might show them another way. "Your Heavenly Father knows that you need these things."

Those Mighty Feathers

My friend and spiritual mother Katherine Morgan, who, though pushing eighty, is still a missionary in Colombia, writes: "Many of you are concerned with our safety here in Bogota where people are shot every day in the streets. A magistrate of the Supreme Court was assassinated about five blocks from us the other morning But I can say I have never felt safer anywhere than each day as I go about my duties. Mr. George Schultz came down from Washington to the inauguration of our new president and had about twenty bodyguards with him. But according to Psalm 91 we have a greater body-guard which is the shadow of the Almighty and His 'feathers.' Shadow and feathers are mightier than human arms. Some time ago a missionary friend of mine was coming home from the store carrying one baby and leading the other by the hand when a man approached her with a long knife pointed right at her. He demanded her purse. She shouted at him, 'Leave me alone. I am covered with feathers!' Giving her one terrified look, he fled."

1987 July/August issue Part 4

Homeschooling

My daughter Valerie Shepard homeschools three of her five children (the other two are pre-school age). Her son Walter, the oldest, attended kindergarten and first grade before the decision was made to homeschool. Some of you have asked what advantages homeschooling offers, so I asked Val what she has discovered. Here is her answer:

1987 July/August issue Part 3

Nothing is lost

A pastor's wife once asked, "When one witnesses a work he has poured his life into 'go up in flames' (especially if he is not culpable), is it the work of Satan or the hand of God?"

  Often it is the former, always it is under the control of the latter. In the biographies of the Bible we find men whose work for God seemed to be a flop at the time- Moses' repeated efforts to persuade Pharaoh, Jeremiah's pleas for repentance, the good king Josiah's reforms, rewarded in the end by his being slain by a pagan king. Sin had plenty to do with the seeming failures, but God was then, as He is now, the "Blessed Controller of All Things" (1 Tm 6:15, J.B. Phillips). He has granted to us human beings responsibility to make choices and to live with the consequences. This means that everybody suffers- sometimes for his own sins, sometimes for those of others.

  There are paradoxes here which we cannot plumb. But we can always look at the experiences of our own lives in the light of the life of our Lord Jesus. How shall we learn to "abide" (live our lives) in Christ, enter into the fellowship of His sufferings, let Him transform our own? There is only one way. It is by living each event, including having things "go up in flames," as Christ lived: in the peace of the Father's will. Did His earthly work appear to be a thundering success? He met with argument, unbelief, scorn in Pharisees and others. Crowds followed Him- not because they wanted His Truth, but because they liked handouts such as bread and fish and physical healing. His own disciples were "fools and slow of heart to believe." (why didn't Jesus make them believe? For the reason given above.) These men who had lived intimately with Him, heard His teaching for three years, watched His life and miracles, still has little idea what He was talking about, on the evening before His death. Judas betrayed Him. The rest of them went to sleep when He asked them to stay awake. In the end they all forsook Him and fled. Peter repented with tears, and later saw clearly what had taken place. In his sermon to the Jews of Jerusalem (Acts 2:23, JBP) he said, "This man, who was put into your power by the pre-determined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed up and murdered But God would not allow the bitter pains of death to touch him. He raised him to life again-and there was nothing by which death could hold such a man."

  There is nothing by which death can hold any of His faithful servants, either. Settle it, once for all-you CAN NEVER LOSE WHAT YOU HAVE OFFERED TO CHRIST. It's the man who tries to save himself (or his reputation or his work or his dreams of success or fulfillment) who loses. Jesus gave us His word that if we'd lose our lives for His sake, we'd find them.

1987 July/August issue Part 2

A Dozen Ways to Make Yourself and Quite a Few others Miserable

1. Count your troubles, name them one by one-at the breakfast table, if anybody will listen, or as soon as possible thereafter.

2. Worry every day about something. Don't let yourself get out of practice. It won't add a cubit to your stature but it might burn a few calories.

3. Pity yourself. If you do enough of this, nobody else will have to do it for you.

4. Devise clever but decent ways to serve God and mammon. After all, a man's gotta live.

5. Make it your business to find out what the Joneses are buying this year and where they're going. Try to do them at least one better even if you have to take out another loan to do it.

6. Stay away from absolutes. It's what's right for you that matters. Be your own person and don't allow yourself to get hung up on what others expect of you.

7. Make sure you get your rights. Never mind other people's. You have your life to live, they have theirs.

8. Don't fall into any compassion traps-the sort of situation where people can walk all over you. If you get too involved in other people's troubles, you may neglect your own.

9. Don't let Bible reading and prayer get in the way of what's really relevant-things like TV and newspapers. Invisible things are eternal. You want to stick with the visible ones-they're where it's at now.

10. Be right, and be sure to let folks know it. If you catch yourself in the wrong, don't breathe it to a soul.

11. Review daily the names of people who have hurt, wronged, or insulted you. Keep those lists up to date, and think of ways to get even without being thought of as unreasonable, uncivilized, or unchristian.

12. Never forgive a wrong. Clutch it forever, and you'll never be unemployed. Resentment is a full-time job.