The science of being a grandparent!

I love my grandkids; they are a constant source of joy to me and hanging out with them is fun and a source of life to my aging bones!

One day, a few weeks ago, our youngest, a girl, let's call her Susan, was keen to go to Kinder Gym, so Marie and I took her there. The Kinder Gym is a large area with trampolines, climbing frames, balancing beams and one large pit filled with foam rubber cubes. When Susan saw the foam pit, she looked at me with her big eyes and said, "GD, will you jump into there (pointing to the foam pit) with me?" Heart melting at such a lovely invitation, I said "sure", so we walked over to the pit, counted to 3, and both jumped in. Unknown to me at the time, the pit is over 2m deep. (You can see a photo of it below.)

Let me take you back to science class, you know, the subject in High School where you learn that big heavy objects, such as an adult male and lighter objects, such as a 3-year-old girl, have a different effect when applied to bodies of water, or pits filled with foam cubes.

Susan had landed on the top of the foam pit and was pleasantly making her way to mattress island and was laughing and having fun. I, however, had sunk deeply into the pit, had nothing on which to place my feet and could not make my way towards the edge. I was stuck. As I pondered my situation, the lady who runs the class leaned into the foam pit and asked, "Excuse me, sir, would you like to be rescued? I can put a mattress next to you, and you can climb out using that.” ( I could see Marie mirthfully looking on from a distance) However, I was stuck. "Yes, that would be very helpful", I replied. The mattress was duly supplied, and I crawled on as best I could in a dignified way. 

The next scientific principle at play is that of friction. One of the properties of foam rubber is, when you push against it, it pushes your shirt and jeans up, so as I made my way onto the rescue mattress and my shirt and jeans was being pushed up so skin was exposed, I would pull the shirt down and move again only to have it pulled up, this seemed to tickle my rescuers funny bone, she seemed to find the event quite amusing. I landed on the rescue mattress like a beached whale, and there was no shortage of onlookers. Trying to piece together my dignity, I eventually stood up and thanked my rescuer. "Oh, it's alright", she said, "you have no idea how many grandparents I have had to rescue from this pit." (Why were there no signs, "warning Grand-parent trap"?)

Susan seemed to think this was very funny and asked me to jump in with her again. An invitation I politely refused.

Today, I took Susan to Kinder Gym again. This is the third time I have taken her, and the foam pit rescue fiasco was well out of memory, or so I thought. As we walked in, Susan looked up at me with a gleam in her eye and said, "GD, will you jump in the foam pit with me?" To which I politely refused. With a gleeful smile on her face, she said, "Last time you had to be rescued!" I wish that were the end of the story, but there is more.

The last scientific principle I will mention is reporting: after you have completed your scientific experiment, you report your results. Susan was playing with a couple of older girls in the foam pit, and their mother was standing nearby watching. Suddenly, Susan jumped out of the pit and looked over to me, walked over to the girls' mother and then said in a loud voice, "Guess what! GD jumped in the pit with me, and he had to be rescued!" Fortunately, my dignity was protected as the lady did not understand the fullness of the message. She just said, "That's nice". (A sure sign that the communication was garbled at its point of reception!)

I am guessing that perhaps this particular incident will become yet another legendary moment in our family. I will be remembered for a less-than-graceful rescue out of the foam pit. Susan seems to be very mindful about it! Oh well!

My one regret is that I did not remember more from my High School Science classes before I started taking Susan to Kinder Gym.

A reflection on Abraham, Isaac and the blood that sets us free! 

Abram, was a man who had an encounter with God. God had called Abram and promised him and his descendants the land on which Israel sits today. 

In Genesis 15:5-6, God makes a promise to Abram that he will have many descendants. Childless Abram believes God; he takes God at His word, and God credits it to him as righteousness. 

And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. 

A few verses on, we read that God makes a covenant with Abram, Gen 15:18 

On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: 

In our time, the proof or sign of a contract or covenant between parties is the contract itself, which is usually witnessed by third parties and recorded in writing; however, for Abram, the sign of the covenant was the circumcision of all Abram’s male descendants. This outward sign was a constant reminder, over generations, that God had made a covenant with  Abram. 

 Two sons 

Years passed, and Abraham, as he is now known, had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael was the son of his own doing. Despite God’s promise, Abraham sought to shorten the timeline by having sex with his wife’s Egyptian slave. Abraham should have known better, but he conceived a child through his wife’s slave girl, and the child that was born was named Ishmael. 

But Ismael was not the child of the promise. God had made the promise that Sarah would bear Abraham a child and that through that child, he would have many descendants, and through him, the nations of the world would be blessed. 

 St. Paul describes Ishmael as the son of the flesh. Some years after Ishmael’s birth, Sarah fell pregnant and had a son called Isaac. Paul refers to Isaac as the son of the promise, as Isaac’s arrival was part of the fulfilment of God’s promise to Abram. 

But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. Gal 4:23 

Sometimes we find God’s timing to be tedious, and in our impatience, we would prefer to hurry the process up. This is where we look to our flesh to solve the problem. By flesh, I am not referring to the outer organ known as the skin. No, our flesh as described in the Bible is our sinful nature and sinful desires, through which we interact with others. These are the very enemy of faith. 

Eventually, when Sarah was 90 years old and Abraham was 100 years old, Sarah fell pregnant and Isaac, the promised son, was born. It goes without saying that Isaac was not an immaculate conception; Abraham and Sarah had been sexually active even in their old age, and Isaac was the result. God had blessed their union. 

But God said, “No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. Gen 17:19 

Hopes and dreams 

In Isaac, all of Abraham’s hopes and dreams had been realised. Isaac was indeed the son of his old age, and was dearly loved because of the promise that was attached to him, and one day, when Isaac had grown, God said to Abraham, 

 “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.” Gen. 22:2

This is an important request by God. God had promised then he would make a covenant with Isaac and Isaac's descendants would be in vast numbers. God had made these promises, and now He was saying, “kill him”! 

God had given Abraham his heart’s desire, the one thing that he had longed for all of his life. Together with this heart’s desire, God had attached promises. Imagine if this were you. If God came to you and asked you to do the hardest thing you could do, the one thing that was of such high personal cost that it would cause you enormous pain and worry. Would you say, “Yes, Lord”? Or rebuke the devil and tell him to get his hands off the gift of God to you? Would you seek counsel from someone you know would take your side, or would you look up scriptures that might back your inclination to say no to that thought? Abraham didn’t. He knew the voice of God, and he knew that God was speaking, and he took steps of obedience. He obeyed God and went to Mt Moriah to sacrifice Isaac according to God’s command. 

On the approach to the site of the sacrifice, Isaac asked his father,    

“Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Gen. 22:8 

To which Abraham replied, 

 “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Gen. 22:9 

This is a key verse for us to consider, even though God had asked Abraham to kill his son, to whom the promise had been attached. Abraham knew that somehow, God would not claim the life of his son. I think also in this moment, Abraham was also being prophetic, but we will talk about that later. So, Abraham and Isaac built the altar, Abraham ties up Isaac and places him on the altar and is about to strike the death blow when an angel calls out to him to stop. He said, 

“Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” Gen 22:13 

Abraham saw the ram caught in the thicket and offered it in Isaac’s place. God had indeed provided for himself a lamb! What a relief to Abraham, and for Isaac! 

 Sacrifices 

Animal sacrifice was a bloody business; the blood of the animal that was sacrificed would have sprayed all over the altar until the animal’s heart stopped beating. The loss of their blood brought about the loss of their life. But this was all part of the plan. God says in Lev. 17:11 

For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.’ 

 The shedding of the blood ensured the taking of the life of the sacrificial animal. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that there can be no forgiveness without the shedding of blood, or in other words, the sacrificial lamb must die, and the means of death is the shedding of its blood. Its heart will stop beating because of the lack of blood. 

 And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Heb 9:22 

The sacrificial lamb was to make atonement for sins committed. It acted as a substitute for the person making the sacrifice. God insisted that the animal offered had to be the best of the flock, not the weak or the diseased. The animal sacrifice had to be costly to the one making the sacrifice. It was not an opportunity to get the poor breeding stock out of the flock! 

 At Mt. Moriah, Abraham was giving his costly best; he was making a sacrifice for sin and using his only begotten son as the sacrificial offering. To Abraham, he was giving the absolute best he had. 

 Providing the lamb 

Now, let’s go back to Abraham’s words, “God will provide for himself the lamb.” Abraham knew that God was going to keep his promise through Isaac. The writer to the Hebrews puts it this way. 

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, “IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED.” He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type. Hebrews 11:17-19 

And, true to His character, God did not let Abraham sacrifice his son, but at the critical moment stopped him. The sins of the Canaanites were partially centred on child sacrifice and were an abomination to God. God would not be asking Abraham to sin by sacrificing his child. Hence, the provision of the ram in the thicket. 

 After the sacrifice of the ram was completed, God said to Abraham, 

 “By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” Gen 22:16-18 

Covenant actions 

So, what is going on here? Let’s backtrack to the fact that Abraham had a covenant with God. When a covenant exists between two people, one person cannot deny the other person what they have first asked of them. So, if the person who is in covenant with you asks you for a cup of sugar, they cannot deny you a cup of sugar when you need one. 

God had asked Abraham to put to death his only begotten son, as an offering for sins committed. Abraham’s only son, whom he loved, and Abraham had not withheld him. At Mt Moriah, God was putting Himself in a position where He could not deny sending His only begotten Son to shed his blood on a cross for our sins. John 3:16 says 

 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 

 “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love …. Gen. 22:2 

Abraham did not withhold his only begotten son, and now God would not withhold his only begotten Son. At Mt Moriah, Calvary was locked in! 

So how old was Isaac when Abraham placed him on the altar? 

This is an interesting question. Most people think he was just a young boy of about 12 years, because the text translates the word as “lad”, but some scholars say that the same word has a wider range of meanings and can mean anything from a baby to a fully grown man. Some Bible scholars estimate Isaac’s age at about 37 at the time of the sacrifice. The Jewish historian Josephus said Isaac was about 33 years old at the time of the Mt Moriah sacrifice. We cannot say for sure how old Isaac was at the time of the sacrifice, but for a minute, let’s say that Josephus was right and Isaac was about 33 years old. How old was Jesus when He died on the cross? About 33 years old! 

 The Passover 

Abraham eventually died, but his descendants through Isaac continued to grow and multiply. At the time when the Hebrews entered Egypt, there were about 70 of them. When they left 400 years later, there were 600,000 men, plus women and children. So, it is possible that well over a million people followed Moses into the wilderness. 

At the first Passover, God told the children of Israel to kill a lamb and place its blood on the lintel and doorposts of their houses, so that when the Angel of death passed through the land, he would “pass over” the houses that were marked with the blood of the lamb. 

 The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. Exodus 12:13 

This configuration of blood on the lintel and doorposts is symbolic of the cross. There would have been blood at the top of the cross from Jesus’ head and on the sides from the nails in his hands. It was the spilling of the blood of the lamb that saved the Israelites from death, and it is the spilling of the blood of Jesus that saves us from eternal death. 

 The Lamb of God 

The New Testament picks up the whole idea of the sacrifice of Jesus. When John the Baptist saw Jesus pass by, he said, 

“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29 

 Remember earlier I said that Abraham was being prophetic when he said, God will provide for Himself the lamb. John was making this connection for us. God was up to something. Abraham’s children and the rest of the world all needed their sins forgiven, and the only way this could ever happen would be if someone died in their place. That someone was Jesus. 

Some time ago, I released a video that talks about the 4 reasons why only Jesus could die for us. You can find that video here. https://youtu.be/DSbnHOd4Q94 

These comments by John indicate that John was in on the secret. He knew Jesus was going to be offered up for the sins of the entire world, and by the shedding of His blood, we would be forgiven. 

Jesus was not being forced to give up His life; it was something that He willingly did because of His great love for us. 

 For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” John 10:17-18 

 Remembering that the Bible says that with the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness. If Jesus had not shed his blood, if His life had not been taken, there would have been no forgiveness for our sins, and we would have been damned, eternally. 

 The hymn writer was right when he penned these words. 

 “O the blood of Jesus it washes white as snow.” 

 And again. 

 “There is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the Lamb.” 

 And finally 

"Are you washed in the blood, in the precious blood of the Lamb? Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?"

The cross was a bloody and painful way to die, like an animal sacrifice; it was messy and not easy to watch, but through it, we are now forgiven and free and heaven-bound. 

Jesus died for us because of His great love for us. To receive the benefits of Jesus’ death on the cross, the Bible tells us that we need to do only two things: repent (turn away from) of our sins and believe the gospel. I will go into this in greater detail another time. 

 We love, because He first loved us. 1John 4:19 

 Oh, how I love Jesus, because He first loved me. 

 The sacrifice of Jesus is directly linked to the promise that God made to his friend Abraham, all those years ago. Isa 41:8. 

 God is both a promise maker and a promise keeper who we can trust!

Missions is Personal

After Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples had to do a lot of walking! Jesus told the women at the tomb that Jesus would meet the disciples in Galilee. (Matt 28:7) Galilee is no short walk; it is about 150km from Jerusalem.

 

The trip for the disciples would have been a trip down memory lane, highlighting different memories of their time with Jesus, depending on which route they took.

On the map shown here, the white route shows the road to Galilee via Samaria, a route that devout Jews never travelled, but Jesus did. We know this because John records Jesus stopping in the village of Sychar in John chapter 4. If the disciples chose to travel by this route. They would have gone through Samaria, where Jesus healed 10 lepers, Sychar, where He met the woman at the well, and Nazareth, which was Jesus’ hometown. They would have passed by Chorazin, a city which Jesus cursed and Bethsaida, where He fed the 5,000, before going to Mt Arbel, where it is presumed that Jesus met with His disciples post-resurrection.

 

If they chose the red route, which is the way that most devout Jews travelled to Galilee, they would have travelled on the Jericho Road, which was the setting for Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. They would have passed through Jericho, where Jesus healed blind Bartimaeus and called Zacchaeus out of the sycamore tree. They would have passed through the Decapolis, where Jesus delivered the man from a legion of demons, passed by Mt Tabor, where Jesus was transfigured, through Galilee, where Jesus gave the sermon on the mount, onto Mt Arbel and the meeting with Jesus. Either way, meeting Jesus in Galilee was going to be a 150km trip down memory lane!

 

The meeting on Mt Arbel

After a 150km walk, they meet with Jesus. In Matthew 28:16-20, we see the details of that meeting, which is thought to have been held on Mt Arbel. There, the disciples receive the Great Commission. 

 

The Bible says that even though Jesus was alive and standing before them, some doubted. 

 

The resurrection had changed everything and given them a reality check … death had been conquered … this was bigger than loaves and fishes and changing water into wine, the resurrection challenged reality as they understood it. Jesus was alive. What could all this mean? 

 

After receiving the Great Commission, to make disciples of all nations, Peter and the other disciples went fishing. We read this in John chapter 21. They catch nothing, and Jesus appears on the beach and asks them if they have a catch. When they say no, Jesus tells them to cast their net on the right side of the boat, and they will get a catch. The catch is so big that they cannot handle it. 

 

John recognises the circumstances and the person on the beach and says to Peter, “It’s the Lord”.  Peter remembers how Jesus called him when he was a fisherman. It also had to do with a large catch of fish, in Luke chapter 5, and he swam ashore. He and Jesus have a conversation that changes his life. 

 

Jesus tells the disciples in Luke 24 that they are to wait in Jerusalem to receive power from on high and the promise of the Father. 

 

The Mount of Olives

So, at the time of Jesus’ ascension, the disciples had travelled over 300km to Galilee and back, and they are now in Jerusalem walking with Jesus on the Mount of Olives. 

 

The disciples are still trying to work out what happens now, they still cannot fathom the resurrection and ask Jesus if this is the time He is going to restore the Kingdom to Israel. Jesus says that the Father has those things worked out, and these are His last words to the disciples. 

 

but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” Acts 1:8

 

So, Jesus has given them both the Great Commission and is now sending them to the remotest parts of the earth. 

 

Incidentally, if you are standing on the Mount of Olives, you can’t get much more remote than Tasmania. So if you are a Tasmanian resident like me, congratulations, you are preaching the Gospel in the remotest areas of the earth. If you measure remoteness by distance alone.

 

 

After saying these words, Jesus defies gravity and ascends into the clouds. With jaws wide open, the disciples watch Jesus disappear. 

 

A couple of Angels turn up and point out that Jesus will return in the same way that He left. The disciples don’t know what to think. Jesus conquers death, defies gravity, and the Pharisees are still looking for them.

 

They go back to the city and lie low in the upper room and wait to see what happens. When the day of Pentecost arrives, we see transformed disciples. No more doubt, no more uncertainty, they are bold, they understand the meaning of the resurrection and what God has done, and they are willing to die for their faith. The difference is the Holy Spirit. 

 

Here is what we can learn from this. If you find parts of the scripture difficult, or if you're not quite sure what the Gospel truly means, the best thing you can do is ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. He will reveal the truth that will set you free.

 

At Pentecost, the church was born, and the gospel went forth and continues to do so, and we all have a part to play.

 

My call to missions

My part in missions began when I was about 14 years old. God called me to be a missionary when I was a teenager, but I did not know how to answer the call. After a few years, I eventually dropped out and became a hippie. I thought I could change the world that way. However, God had other ideas, and I eventually got saved and have been preaching the Gospel ever since, both within Australia and overseas.

 

Over the years, I have spent a lot of time thinking about Acts 1:8 and the Great Commission and how I can best respond to those calls. 

 

In 1998, I took over a YWAM international ministry that was supposed to be caring for the poor but had trouble finding its way. As I prayed about what God wanted me to do as the ministry’s new leader, God spoke to me. He said, “I want to be represented to people who are experiencing the ‘worst day of their life.’

 

 

Worst day

We all know what a bad day is, but what about a ‘worst day’? What was the worst day of your life? Was it when someone close to you died? Was it an event that changed you in some way, or a failed relationship? Or something someone else said about you? There are lots of worst day experiences, and we need to know that in our worst day experience, God is closer to us than our own heartbeat.

 

Within days of God nudging me in this direction, I received an email from a man in the US who wanted to set up an international disaster response ministry. This email ended up with the ministry I was leading, setting up an international disaster response ministry with this guy. It took us years to train; our first outreach was the Iraq War. 

 

 

 

Iraq

Two of us deployed, and after a few days, we found ourselves talking to a US Marine Colonel who headed up the US medics that were supporting the forces in Iraq. We needed his permission to cross the border into Iraq. When we told him what we were planning to do, he laughed and said, “Why hasn’t someone thought of this before? Trust the Australians to come up with something this good.” He gladly gave us passes for us to travel in and out of Iraq as many times as we wanted. 

 

So, what were we planning on doing? Firstly, there was only a small planned medical response for civilians in Iraq; the major medical focus was for troops. A small number of medical teams were set aside for civilians, but nowhere near enough for the needs. In the early stages of the war, the medical focus was mainly on the military. 

 

We were planning on being first responders for civilians at local hospitals, doing basic medical stuff that would keep the few doctors that were available focused on the more complex cases.

 

Over the years, this ministry ended up going to dozens of disasters, and people who were experiencing the worst days of their lives were bumping into God’s representatives who were there with them, and when they asked why we were there helping them, we would tell them about Jesus, the God who loves them right where they are. 

 

 

Boxing Day Tsunami

I remember in the Boxing Day Tsunami, a Muslim teacher who came to our clinic had lost his adult children in the tsunami. He came to me on several occasions for medical treatment, and through an interpreter, we would talk as I treated him. Before returning to Australia, I gave him some money to help him and his wife. He looked at me and said. “You are a Christian, aren’t you?! To which I said “Yes”. With tears in his eyes, he hugged me and said, “You have given me hope.”

 

Through this worst day, we also became involved with refugees and in refugee camps. For more than 30 years, I have had an ongoing relationship with the refugees in the Mae La refugee camp in Thailand, journeying with these guys as they experience the pain of refugee life and the hatred that is expressed to them in the country in which they have sought refuge.

 

And there are many other things that God brought our way on this journey. 

Leasts

Matthew 25:31-46 is set in Jesus’ last days. He tells a story of the final judgement, where everyone is brought before the throne and divided into two groups.

 

One group Jesus welcomes to heaven with these words,

 

‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’

 

 

And those people will ask, “Lord, when did we do these things for you? And the Lord replied

‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

And we all know the rest of the story. The other guys did not do these things and were condemned for it.

 

God does not expect us to just go to the remote parts of the earth and hand out a few tracts; He wants us to get involved with people, especially the least.

 

Who are the least in Ulverstone? Who are the least in your workplace? Who are the least at your school? If you can put your finger on someone who is a least, then perhaps you are the answer to that person’s prayers, and God wants you to engage with them.

 

A “least person” does not necessarily have to be poor; they can be affluent but could still be suffering.  Did you know that cyberbullying, specifically, is cited as a factor in at least three suicides per week among young people in Australia? 

 

These kids may have all the nice stuff and come from wealthy families, but somehow, they are seen as ‘leasts’ and undesirable and are persecuted for it and are at risk. You don’t have to be poor to be “a least”! And I think that part of my journey has been to find and reach the least.

 

Thanks

Our calling as Christians is to make a difference in the lives of those who may not be able to say thank you or even know our name. At the Boxing Day Tsunami, we treated hundreds of patients a day, but there are only a few people I specifically remember, one of them, whom I mentioned earlier. I don’t know their names, but I can recall their circumstances.

 

Tears and grief

One of the other stories was about a woman who had lost her children and her husband in the tsunami. She just wanted to cry, but the Mullahs had told the people that it was disrespectful to Allah to cry and grieve. This lady was a time bomb of tears looking for somewhere to explode, but she feared the Mullahs. If her eyes leaked tears, she would wipe them away and put on a respectful face. 

 

After a day or so, one of the girls on our team walked up to this lady, grabbed her, put her head on the lady’s shoulder and began to cry. The woman’s tear dam broke, and she began to howl. A Mullah came over and told her she should not be crying. Our translator explained to the Mullah that our team member was very sad with all the suffering that she was seeing and that this kind lady was helping her in her grief. He said that was ok. 

 

I am very sure that these two ladies are no longer in communication with each other, but they will remember their encounter together for life!

 

Something happened to a "least", who was experiencing the worst day of their life, and God was there for them.

 

 

Rose Moo

I said that I have had the privilege of working with the refugees in Mae La camp for more than 30 years. One refugee I knew well was named Rose. She was a teacher, and her husband was a doctor; they were rich and lived in a mansion in Yangon. They started secretly visiting Mae La camp and provided help for the refugees. When the government found out, it confiscated all their money and real estate and put out warrants for their arrests. They were seen as traitors. Rose and her husband were stuck in Mae La camp.  

 

They and their children lived in the camp for some years. Rose felt that she needed to go back to Yangon to see her mother and father, so she did. On the way back to the camp, she was arrested at a military checkpoint, jailed and tortured for 6 months in a military prison. When she was released, she went back to the camp and found that her husband had died in tragic circumstances just a few days before her release. 

 

She cried out to God and said, “Lord, help me, what do you want me to do?” God told her to make sure that the children in the camp received a good Christian preschool education. And that is exactly what she did, she founded preschools and looked after orphaned children in the camp.

 

Rose was my friend. One day, I was talking to Rose, and I asked her if she was ever angry with God because of her journey. This is what she said to me.

 

“It does not matter what you think, or what happens to you in life, God is still God and He is good!”

 

 

So why do we as Christians do this? Is it because doing good works will get us to heaven? No, we are saved only by the grace of God, through the blood of Jesus. Jesus’ blood is enough on its own. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves.

 

We value kindness, compassion, mercy and do good works because that is how God has acted towards us. 

 

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.                John 3:16

 

 

God loved us, and acted for us, his enemies, the least persons He knew who were experiencing the worst day of their lives. He calls us to do the same to love our enemies and to reach out to the least persons we know. 

 

We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. 

                                                                                                             1 John 4:19-21

 

 

Let’s pray.