When You Are Facing Evil's Hour . . .

My God is a Listener and a Fighter.  He's a Lover and a Hero.  A King and a Soldier . . . I'm so enamored!


This week I'm reading through Joshua, at my pastor's request.  (And when your pastor is also your husband, it bodes well for you to read what he suggests . . . wink, wink.)  It's a book full of battles and casualties and conquer, all of which I'm aiming to apply to the spiritual battle I face, also known as my life.  It really is so good.  The Word, I mean.  Are you feasting too?  I truly hope so.


Because the temptation to give up this battle is so consuming sometimes.  And it's in those moments that our Fighter, Hero, Soldier wants to come through for us most.


Corrie ten Boom faced this very concept many times in her life too.  I ask once again for the privilege of quoting this brave heroine of mine . . .


One night after a fellow young underground comrade had been captured, and was sure to be tortured for information about the ten Booms and their efforts to help Jews in secret, her family considered what to do.


"That night Father and Betsie and I prayed long after the others had gone to bed.  We knew that in spite of daily mounting risks we had no choice but to move forward.  This was evil's hour: we could not run away from it.  Perhaps only when human effort had done its best and failed, would God's power alone be free to work." (The Hiding Place)


In moving forward, they would be a part of rescuing many people, and saving souls for eternity through it all.  But it would get exponentially harder before it got better.  Family members tortured and killed, horrors unimaginable.  War is so very . . . deadly.


Sometimes I don't think I'm cut out for it.  I find myself more often hiding in the trenches and crying than charging forward like Corrie did.  I get so terrified and discouraged.  And it seems like it would be better to give up on it all.  Join the other side . . . or at least quit fighting against them.  My effort fails and I think it's the worst.


But I'm wrong.  Because that's the exact moment Jesus comes and saves us all.  His power alone - free to work.

In Joshua 10 God tells us the story of the day He did the impossible to conquer the enemies of His people:

"The sun stopped in its tracks in mid sky; just sat there all day.  There's never been a day like that before or since - God took orders from a human voice! Truly, God fought for Israel." (v.14, Msg.)


Wow.  I'm still amazed.  That He would do that for them!  


And while God may not stop time today, He's still doing the impossible to fight for us.  He still hears our prayers and cries for help in our most climactic peril, when our enemy is fiercest and we feel weakest.  His power becomes free to work and His glory released when all chances of us taking it are removed.  The battle is the Lord's.  He wins.


So keep fighting . . . and no matter how scared you get, remember - this is evil's hour, and we cannot run away from it.  The Lord will do the impossible if He must, but our enemy WILL be defeated.  Even if and especially when we feel like we've failed in our own human efforts, because it is at exactly that moment that His power is freed.  And He will stop the earth from spinning if He must, but we will be rescued.


"And that about wraps it up. God is strong, and He wants you strong.  So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials.  And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way.  This is no afternoon athletic contest that we'll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours.  This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels."  -Ephesians 6:10-12 (Msg.)


"But in that coming day
no weapon turned against you will succeed.
You will silence every voice 
raised up to accuse you.
These benefits are enjoyed by the servants of the LORD;
their vindication will come from Me.
I, the LORD, have spoken!"  -Isaiah 54:17 (NLT)


And when He speaks, the fiercest of oceans is still, and the only thing that counts is that I am His.

My Rescuer will do what He does best: He'll save me.  He'll conquer.  He'll triumph.   

So hold on, brothers and sisters, and stand firm.  Even when you face evil's hour - every battle is the Lord's and we're on the side of the only One who can make time stand still.  He makes the hours and turns them.  And even evil's hour is under His dominion.  He's bringing an end to that very soon . . . 

So hold on.  

"what conceivable victory"

It's like taking a deep breath again when you've been suffocating for longer than your lungs can take.  Like gulping one cool glass after another when you've forgotten to drink all day.  That's what it feels like when I sit down to read the Scripture recently.  I'm not quite sure why . . . you know I never stopped, never fasted from this Bread.  I suppose for some misunderstood reason I was force-feeding it to my spirit.  But now, as my heart heals . . . I'm ravenous for it.  Literally delicious.

My word for today is Hope.


"Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.  By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen."  -Hebrews 11:1,3


Robyn's translation: As sure as we can see the stars, so sure can we see His promises for which we hope so deeply.  God's part is to bring it to pass.  Our part is to persevere in hoping for it.  Whatever it is, no matter what it is.  We can't do His part and He won't do ours.


Back to Corrie ten Boom - Oh, what hope she had!  She redefines hope, even.


May I have the privilege of setting the scene for the quote today? . . .


Miraculously, Corrie had received a single copy of each of the four gospels, smuggled even into her solitary confinement in a deplorable prison cell guarded by cruel German women who stripped the humanity of Corrie and countless many others.  She would read and reflect on the life of Christ day after lonely day.  Pondering over Jesus's suffering and seeming defeat one day, she came to this epiphany:


"But . . . if the Gospels were truly the pattern of God's activity, then defeat was only the beginning.  I would look around at the bare little cell and wonder what conceivable victory could come from a place like this." 


And my friends, she wasn't being sarcastic.  She was actually looking for the good God was in the process of doing.  Though it was near-impossible to picture in the middle of painful, dark, drab, and lonely, she was hoping for God's promises of victory.  She was sharing in Christ's suffering.  I wonder - was it just as difficult in those moments on the Cross to see the victory of Resurrection and Salvation?  It must have been, had to have been.  But neither Jesus nor Corrie were hopeless.  They SAW the victory before it came, as sure as the Creation of the Universe.  


It's like God was saying, "Do you trust that there is a ground to stand on?  Of course you do - and I made the ground out of nothing.  So even though you may not perceive the Good I'm bringing you while you're standing in the middle of nothingness - here it comes!"


And what was the conceivable victory God brought to Corrie?  Her perseverance through suffering was God's deliverance of a countless legacy of souls who came into God's kingdom after she was freed from a concentration camp and began almost immediately to speak her testimony in her own country and then around the world.  She even witnessed the repentance and salvation of the man who betrayed her into the hands of her tormentors.  Even shook his hand.   Gospel.  Good News.  Christ's forgiveness.  Eternity for lives un-countable.  

Yeah, I'd call that Victory.  Chalk one up for us. Game, set, match.  


And that's hope.  What, you don't see it?  Take a look at the stars.  See it now?  


Me too.  It's coming.   

"... another discovery about love."

Forgive me, dear friends and followers - my words are still quite unsure.  I would like to venture to comment on a few from my new hero - Corrie ten Boom.  I just finished The Hiding Place and absolutely devoured every letter!  So much of it is indeed PRECIOUS, and worth repeating.  I'd love to share with you a few posts about how some quotes of the book struck me (yes, just as punches or whips might), drew my spirit forth in expectancy, and even tenderly cradled my messy heart.  It touched me like a heavy, angora quilt.  I actually forgot that words on a page could do that to me so thoroughly.
...

For the first one I'll set the scene with this: at the end of WWI Corrie's beloved mother suffered a stroke that left her paralyzed and without speech.  The rest of her family adjusted accordingly, but her mother's far-reaching ministry of love to the town needed to be altered as well...

"It was astonishing, really, the quality of life she was able to lead in that crippled body, and watching her during the three years of her paralysis, I made another discovery about love.
Mama's love had always been the kind that acted itself out with soup pot and sewing basket. But now that these things were taken away, the love seemed as whole as before.  She sat in her chair at the window and loved us.  She loved the people she saw in the street - and beyond: her love took in the city, the land of Holland, and the world.  And so I learned that love is larger than the walls that shut it in."

And now I'm crying again as I type...mourning the walls I've built to shut myself in, and realizing that love is larger, and refuses to be contained.
This morning I met with a new dear friend who has suffered much pain to her body and soul, but God asked me to love her.  Honestly I didn't know if I could do it.  Part of me screamed "Cancel! You're not ready! Still too broken!"  And thankfully I didn't listen.  For under her pain is joy overflowing from a renewed commitment to Christ.  Joy I needed.  You see, for fear of being used up, I've resisted being used at all.  And what a trick of the enemy!  I poured into her the Gospel and grace and truth and wisdom and marriage advice and so much more and - Surprise! - I still had more to give.  Jesus, my Portion, had shown Himself enough for me once again.  My love was even larger than I knew, and much larger than the walls I attempted to build to shut it in.

Not many people are so bold as to ask me for an appointment.  I don't know why - I like to think of myself as approachable.  I think they just assume I'm "busy."  And while I am, I'm also never too busy to love someone.  I'm really so very happy for her boldness.

One day I'd like to emulate Corrie's Mama (lol - I guess I'm already Kori's Mama). I'd like to love regardless.  Love beyond walls, past boundaries, and outside of limits.  Sort of like our Lord does...