In the eye of the storn

We live in a real and material world, where we face our everyday battles and struggles: bills to pay, relationships, work, etc. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don’t. Frustration arises and we realize we are not in control of what others do or think. We start to focus on who is responsible for things not going well, we even blame ourselves, but we rarely find the true culprit.
In fact, the Bible says that there is much more to our world, a spiritual dimension where Christians are constantly under attack. The enemy knows he cannot take our salvation away, so he tries to steal the joy in our job, the harmony with our partner, the peace in our decisions (sounds like him, right? The one who comes to “steal, kill and destroy”!). Recently I have been reading for the second time the book “Fervent”, by Prishilla Shirer, looking for suggestions and action plans against the manipulations of Satan. Lately, in fact, I have experienced a lot of spiritual attacks, when everything goes in the wrong way and you know it cannot be only a coincidence. So I started looking for the enemy’s fingerprints.

Condemnation always leads to guilt-laden discouragement, while conviction- though often painful in pointing out our wrongdoing- still somehow encourages and lifts up, giving us hope to rebuild on. The first makes you focus on yourself; the other points you to the grace and empowering mercy of Christ.

The key here is to realize who the real enemy is. People are not the problem. Satan wants us to focus on things that are physical and visible instead of where the action really is. The Bible says “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Eph. 6:11- 12).
There is someone behind the curtain who is plotting against us. Did you notice the word in verse 11? “The Devil’s schemes”. They are strategies and deceptive plots organized in a diligent and intentional way. Until we don’t realize that, we will continue fighting the wrong battle. That is exactly what I was doing. I was upset with my husband, with myself, with the circumstances that made us argue more than usual, with tensions that normally would not exist between us. Then I stopped and I saw the big picture. Some weeks prior, we had chosen to host an international student at our house. We felt real clear from the Lord to do this, even if our place is pretty small and it means to have less time for each other. We knew that it was meant to be a transformational time for him (and for us!), an occasion to know who God is and experience His love in a Christian family. As it often happens, whenever you align yourself with God’s will, the enemy will look for ways to distract you and convince you to give up. That’s where my husband and I realized that we were not each other’s limit, but that we were partners in spreading the Gospel, so we needed to collaborate and find unity in fighting our common enemy. We stopped and used our amazing weapon: prayer!  In fact, as we realize that it is not an earthly war, we are ready to use the right weapons to be effective.

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor. 10:4-5).

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people (Eph. 6: 13-18).

God is in control, no matter neither what the circumstances say, nor what Satan is whispering to your ear. In the middle of the storm, he is our salvation, because the One who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. He has prepared us to fight the good fight and he has enabled us to do it with the right tools!

To be a cross-cultural servant

I am now reading Cross-Cultural Servanthood, and I got to know an awesome way to equip me to be a better cross-cultural servant, that is start with the end and work toward the beginning. In order to serve people, we need to understand them. To understand them, we need to learn more about their culture. To learn from them, we need to build trust with them. To build trust, accept them. To accept them, show openness. It is so awesome to have the end in mind and gradually find what I need to connect people from other culture. It helps me to evaluate what steps I am in regarding my journeys of becoming a servant to many of my international friends and know what I should do next.

This book also teaches me throughout the process of connecting people, I should always show more respect to people and accept them as the way they are. I am not supposed to work on those people to become perfect in my eye, but to work together with them to find God and God will take the responsibility to change this person from inside out.

It touched me a lot when a missionary’s son was spitted on, yet the missionary calmed her son and finally got to know that it is a way to bless people in that area. It needs a lot of trust not to simply ask why when in their own culture they are miss-treated. May God also give me this kind of humbleness and trust when I am put into similar scenarios.

Next step of faith

Christians often talk about the importance of spending time both with believers for fellowship and non-believers for outreach. Currently I spend lots of time with both believers and non-believers, but I have started to realize that my time with non-believers did not so much serve the purpose of outreach as simply having a good time together. I say so because in the past a few months, I have become good friends with two students, whom I often comfortably work out and eat with under the façade of outreach, without actually doing anything that challenges me and them. Although I do include a good amount of my Christian beliefs in our conversations, I have not challenged them enough to take the next step of faith.  Just when I came to understand my lack of initiation and students’ stagnant growth of faith, I also came across a prayer quote, saying “Father, make of me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.” This quote immediately reminded me of Jesus saying “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother…” In Basic Christianity, we read about Jesus’s absolute self-centeredness of his teaching and Jesus’s absolute unself-centeredness of his behavior. As someone who believes that we should try to do what Jesus did, I am better at serving others than confronting them with the “dangerous” message from Jesus. Of course, we don’t want to challenge people beyond what their faith can take, or more than what they are willing to sacrifice for our relationship with them, but in my case, I should have long ago made my step of faith to encourage other to make their step of faith. I have been fearful, but God gives me courage and strength. 

The multiplication of dumplings and tea eggs

The multiplication of dumplings and tea eggs

Has it ever happened to you to pray with all your strength for something and remain amazed when you receive what you have asked for? That’s exactly what happened to me last week during the Lunar New Year organized by IFI. As the Event Coordinator, I had the blessing to coordinate several areas and to work with great volunteers who took charge to lead various tasks. I started reviewing last year notes and prepare for this event almost three months ago. I really wanted it to be a success and put all my efforts to manage every detail. In this way, things were ready to go one week before the party and only small things needed to be done in the last day. But (there is always a but!) contingencies are always behind your door! So, on Friday, the number of students registered increased more and more and the quantity of food available remained almost the same. “What will I do?” I asked my husband that morning “I have already done everything possible”. “Then we will trust God to do the impossible” he said. Whit that promise in my heart, I went to the office confident that the party was in God's hands, that the reason behind it was to give Him glory and to make Him know among the Nations.

Then, a text arrived: "I won't be able to join the Lunar New Year tonight. My brother is in the ER and I need to run to him". The key volunteer in charge of food couldn't make it for very serious personal reasons. 

So many bed and unpredictable things were happening and there I realized that God had something great in store for us that night but that the Devil wanted to mess things up and take away my joy with stress. I immediately stopped and prayed with Heran, another ISEEDer, and we asked God to take full control of our emotions and show us miracles. We prayed again at the Agriculture Building, with the kitchen team. The food was not enough, so we asked for the Lord to multiply the food and to bring those who were sincerelly searching for Him.

At the beginning of the event I asked the servers to serve small portions, in order to give some food to everyone. Then, after everyone was served, there was still food, so we called for the tables again, and again a third time! At the end, not only everybody was full, but there was plenty to take home!! We filled more than 20 ziplock bags with dumplings, tea eggs, and noodles!

Does it remind you of any story?? The same power that multiplied five loaves of bread and two fish is effective today! God is still Jehovah Jared, the God who provides, and not only He provides but He does it in a very abundant way!

A volunteer serving at the IFI Lunar New Year