Hey Faith Activating Friends! Follow this link to read a great interview with my good buddy and co-blogger Paul Richardson, on his work, ministry and challenges in Southeast Asia: http://www.onenewsnow.com/Journal/editorial.aspx?id=1281348 Enjoy! – Mike O
Today I sifted through some nostalgic papers and photos my mom kept when she was still alive on this earth. I came across this ode to the Creator, written by my uncle Dave, who also wrote the hit song “Wildflower.” This is one of those rare poems that deserves to be relished; ever so slowly, like a hot drink on a windy night as rain batters the window.
The Beneficiary
By Dave Richardson
Will I ever be entitled to the knowledge that you hold?
For I thirst and I am starving in my mind,
And though I am secure within the future of my soul,
There are histories my heart has yet to find.
How did it all begin, from the void you live within?
Through eternities where none but you exist,
From an endless parallel You joined the lines of Cause and Will,
Creating life from out of the abyss.
You alone have been where time itself cannot survive,
And I long to see beyond the edge of space,
I’d like to look at Heaven through the vision in your eyes,
Or look upon the wisdom on your face.
When did you decide that it was time to cut the key,
That unlocked all the darkness to the light?
Did you breathe upon some spark floating through infinity,
To set the skies on fire in the night?
There are birds with eyes of fire lighting diamonds in the sky,
As the blaze above continues to expand,
With ever changing hues in reds and greens and blues,
In perfection from the Artist’s gentle hand.
I am mortal. Life will end, but I shall live to live again,
If I am favored whatsoever in your sight,
Give me time enough to live to enjoy the gifts you give,
And finally, let me shine within your light.
Let my shadow fly through your vast and endless sky,
That I might see the future and the past,
And when this captive life is through, I will come to realize
That my spirit and my soul are free at last.
Apostle Paul stood in the Areopagus and said that God arranges our lives so that we will seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being. I have good news for you. The One who created you is within reach. Perhaps God has even been gently tapping on the front door of your soul. Today his voice is heard. He says, “My child, I have imagined your beautiful face and loved you since before creation. I have created you to live and move and have your being in ME.”
Come along with us into the Kingdom of Light. Wander through the halls of Hebrews eleven. We will reach out to the God of Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Daniel. Their God was unconfined. He was in their faces. He was their Creator God, and he was intimately infused into every aspect of their consciousness. He was their strength, their vision, their hope, and their reason for getting out of bed every morning. Because they lived with an activated faith rather than a passive acknowledgment of a distant God, their lives were characterized by movement, courage, compassion, a willingness to suffer, and a radical obedience to the lover of their souls.
Faith activators are people whose intimacy with God surges into every aspect of their lives. Because God lives in them, they find the courage to create something beautiful where there was once darkness, fear, and confusion. Faith activators are those rare and remarkable people who build, shape, innovate, color, design and compose the music of life out of the silence around them. In the place of darkness, they build a city on a hill. In the echoes of despair, they rise up with hope. Where there is illiteracy, the faith activators design solutions and people learn how to read. When thirsty people call out for water, faith activators find a way for them to drink. Where there are gangs killing each other in the streets, faith activators are peace creators. Like a heat seeking missile, the faith activator searches out ways to carry the hope of Jesus to their world.
The faith activator is a woman who one day wakes up and realizes that fifteen years ago she made the biggest mistake of her life when she said I do to the laziest, most insensitive and selfish slouch on the face of the earth. She acknowledges that her marriage is so pathetic and miserable that she would almost die if it weren’t for their beautiful children. Then, instead of retreating into her own passive dream world, or having an affair, she creates a strategy. She finds a way to take action. She discovers that she has an imagination that is capable of designing 99 paths toward hope. She ventures deep into the world of belief. She digs down deep to find the courage and faith to become the wife that her Creator had in mind.
Faith activators sleep peacefully. They wake up to their dreams rather than from them. The faith activator is the leader who is entrusted with a dying organization. Four years later that organization has been recreated into a fountain of hope, an alliance of united people who trample injustice. The faith activator is the executive who returns home from an exhausting day at work and notices that the trash needs to be taken out. He walks to the trash, picks it up, and carries it outside without even blinking. The faith activator is the couple who is told by their fertilization specialist that they are incapable of having children. Twenty one months later they are holding their precious and beautiful Korean daughter in their arms.
All of these people share more in common than most of us realize. They don’t shrink back in the face of resistance. They each acknowledge their challenges and respond to them with courage, using their magnificent minds that their Creator planted within them to strategize and implement solutions.
Here at FaithActivators.com, Mike and I are two neophytes in a quest to live a real faith, a faith that unites us with a real God who lives and breathes and moves and works his miracles in real time. No question about it, we are a couple of freshmen in this course of faith. But come, Lord, breathe in us. Give us the aroma of Christ. We desire to be your voices of hope, life, and light in our generation. And we simply want to invite anyone to join us in this quest. Spirit of God, breathe eternal wind into our souls; awaken our minds. Ignite our lives with your blazing fire.
Let’s embark on a journey that brings us face to face with choices. How will we choose to think? What will we choose to believe? How will we respond? This journey will demand our rebirth, transformation, and awakening, as God gently confronts some widely held mind habits that religious people tend to cling to. They are mind habits that render us pathetic, spoiled children without nuance, depth or imagination. We will increasingly grasp the correlation between our Pharisaical strongholds and the scarcity of creativity in the cavernous echo chambers of religion. These strongholds are safety handles that impede us from rising into God’s creativity to propel hope and life into a lost and desperate world.
Along the way we will taste of a moving love story. That is, the story of our Creator and His immeasurable love for his masterpieces. We have always heard that God is Love. It is time to step forward into this dizzying dimension. We are going to reach out into the universe of the Creator’s love, sinking down to the roots of our souls. My prayer is that you and I become rooted and established in love, that we will have the power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God! (Eph.3:17-19)
When Cyndi and I arrived in Southeast Asia eleven years ago, our family was battered by a relentless wave of medical difficulties, especially with our children. Ten month old Josiah was the hardest hit. After the first few months we stopped counting the times his fevers would soar to 105F while we were up through the night trying to cool his body with cold towels.
Two year old Katie Skye’s eye problem started quietly. It seeped into our lives like the early signs of a flood. She was having difficulty seeing straight. Cyndi and I remember her saying “I see two mommies.” We felt powerless to help her as her sparkling eyes grew increasingly crossed. Her condition was known as “bilateral strabismus.” I imagined our little daughter moving through a lifelong journey of enduring pity or of people looking quickly away.
Katie’s need became more urgent with each passing week. Cyndi and I tried to find help. We knocked on every door that might possibly lead to a solution. We searched throughout our city for an eye doctor. Then we went for help to the bigger coastal city of Surabaya, then on to the capital city of Jakarta. For months we struggled to locate a solution. Every Indonesian doctor prescribed the same meaningless eye exercises that we had long since realized were useless. She urgently needed surgery.
One day everything changed. Cyndi’s uncle, who was a practicing eye doctor in Afghanistan, found a listing of international ophthalmologists and recommended a Dr. Cheong in Singapore who might be able to help. Cyndi and Katie flew to Singapore and went to see Dr. Cheong.
After a quick examination she spoke the most beautiful seven words, “I can do the surgery tomorrow morning.” The next day she snipped two muscles between Katie’s eyes. Immediately her eyes turned outwards. Cyndi later said it was a terrifying moment. Yet within a few hours Katie’s eyes had corrected themselves to perfection. If you look at her now, you would never suspect that she had severely crossed eyes as a little girl.
I was in awe of Dr. Cheong, and I realized something I had never thought about before regarding physicians. These are unique people who walk among us. How much money would it take to equal the price they must endure to make it through medical school and residency? The answer is obvious. You just can’t put a price on something like that.
Every single moment since Katie’s surgery, our family’s life has been quietly changed. We live in a different reality than the reality we would have lived without a physician. Since then, doctors have helped me recover from malaria and dengue fever. A doctor repaired my collar bone that had been broken into five pieces. Our family and countless others owe these men and women a debt that can never be paid back. While so many people drift through life passively ignoring others in desperate circumstances around us, people like Dr. Cheong are swimming upstream, blazing a trail of hope, and living with the strength and resolve to dedicate themselves on behalf of others.
In our thank you note to Dr. Cheong, Cyndi and I expressed our gratitude to her, for her willingness to endure thousands of hours of disciplined study so that she might someday work miracles for other peoples’ children. For my family, anyone who serves in the medical field is a hero, and this is one reason that at our school we have a special track for students who want to become doctors, nurses or scientists who work in medical research.
“Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the Kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness.” (Matthew 9:35)
READING IN TODAY’S NEWS, One of the 29 people trapped in a New Zealand coal mine is a teenage boy who’d only been on the job for an hour when an explosion rocked the mine.
Joseph Dunbar had celebrated his 17th birthday last Thursday, according to news reports from New Zealand.
His mother, Philippa Timms, told the New Zealand Harold that she and her son had recently moved to the area on New Zealand’s southern island to get a fresh start in life.
"We moved here for Joseph, to give him a different life, a better life," the Herald quoted her as saying. Her son’s top goal soon became getting a job at the mine, she said.
Can you imagine? The boy moves to a new place to get a fresh start, and after ONE HOUR on the job, he gets trapped in a mine?
Over the last year, while speaking to various audiences, I have often shared a prayer God has given me to say over my family every morning. Although it is very simple, something about this prayer has resonated in many people’s hearts. It is inevitable that someone will ask me to repeat it after almost every time I mention it.
PRAYER FOR MY FAMILY
Lord, we don’t know what’s going to happen to us today.
Today might be a beautiful, restful day.
Or today might hold some challenges.
Someone might criticize us today. Someone may gossip about us. We may face an accident or an unexpected loss.
Yet, regardless of what happens today, we commit ourselves to trusting you in all circumstances.
And we simply ask for your help, that you would:
Give us your eyes to see the world around us as you see it.
Strengthen our hands to serve others.
Infuse our hearts with your passionate love.
And open our souls to listen to your voice,
So that we might speak your words.
My friend, Pastor Gary Bowman in Chula Vista, sent me this beautiful prayer from Thomas Merton:
THE DESIRE TO PLEASE GOD
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself.
And the fact that I think I am following Your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire,
the desire to please you.
And I know that if I do this,
you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you all-ways.
Though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death,
I will not fear.
For you are forever with me.
And you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
FLAGSTAFF, AZ. Someday when my hands are trembling so that I can’t even manage to wipe the drool off my chin, and I am left alone with nothing but my memories, I will know that my life moved no further than the summation of my dreams.
My life’s work has given me a chance to look into the eyes of thousands of people, to consider their expressions, to notice their choices, and to listen to their worldviews. I am a voyager on a quest to figure out how and why certain people break through the emptiness and confusion of their circumstances into a thriving life replete with creative freedom. I pray to understand the prime activators of creative freedom, the internal thinking processes that are owned by those who catalyze their dreams from their imaginations into existence.
Last night our family had dinner with Ginny, who spent the summer of 2009 with us in Indonesia. I wrote about Ginny in my book A Certain Risk. This 20 year old represents to me the hope of her generation. She’s had a rough year, but she is faithful. She reminds me that all great dreams are challenged by an impossible obstruction, and this is where many dreams wither up and die. The rarest of dreamers finds the courage to turn inward, where from the depths of the soul, she cries out to God for help.
This is precisely where my little sister Ginny is today.
Ginny will discover that without fail, God knows and hears the cry of her soul. God is transforming her into a storm chaser. Through the thunderous squall, she is learning to thrive in a crystalline awareness of the quiet presence of the Spirit. Faith is becoming her steadfast new reality even as clouds burst over the rampaging, turbulence of her life. In every direction she turns, grace will abound. Her experience of prayer will never be the same. She will find herself exulting in an intrepid journey that leads from one miracle to another.
We are now finally seeing signs that the movement of Jesus is crouching and poised to unleash the most powerful generation of visionary dreamers into human history. There is a longing in their eyes for something deeper. All over this nation, I hear them talking about audacious dreams. This gets me jazzed up for the future. We are being purified. I wonder if Christianity has ever been so poised to rise up and soar.
It is hard for me to fathom why we hear so many pessimistic comments about young people these days. Granted, we have chided them for the panic in their eyes during any moment they are stranded between hotspots. But to their astonishing credit, many of them have shaken off the slumber and are rising from the fog. Their greatest challenge will be to master the art of activating their dreams. They will need to shift their beautiful imaginations into gear and find the will to infuse their dreams into the world beyond cyberspace; the real world where cynical hearts and unbelieving minds wait anxiously to wage war against them. They will need to forge the mind patterns and heart attitudes that will help them dream for the impossible, then chase down those dreams and exist within them. They must live with increasing clarity. Life is a day shorter every night. They must desire to seize the divinely appointed moments God places before them, and to redeem whatever time they have left. The stakes are much too high for us to waste opportunities perpetuating the cycles of irrelevance. We must focus our efforts on what counts, learning to “discern what is best.” (Philippians 1:10)
Ginny, you inspire me. You will know what it is like to experience the creative power of the Spirit of Christ rising from within you, awakening dreams within you, advancing through your life and changing the world you live in. Your dreams will persist, even on the winds of resistance, advancing boldly and effectively into defiant zones of oppression. Rise up today, filled with hope and certainty that God is unleashing his kingdom through you.
BEYOND DESPERATE, SHE WAS FOUND BY HOPE
Earlier today, I walked with my ten year old son Stephen through the National Gallery of Art here in Washington DC. I was amazed at Stephen's ability to feel the art, and to easily identify which pieces touched him and why. Both of us were mesmerized by a certain painting by Andrew Wyth. It is called "Wind From the Sea." (Your computer screen does not do this masterpiece justice.) This work of art swept us away to another place, and made us feel as if the salty breeze were actually fluttering the curtain. The painting portrays a fresh wind, and this imagery reminded me of my friend Maizah, whose husband Eldat is pastoring a church in the Meratus Mountains of Borneo. She tells one of the most amazing stories I've ever ever heard.
WHEN MAIZAH WAS twenty-one years old, she couldn’t tolerate her boyfriend’s jealous tantrums any longer. She worked up the courage to sever the relationship. Heartbroken, he melted into tears on her doorstep, incessantly begging for her to change her mind. Eventually he dried his eyes and shrank away from her front door. Within days, his internal darkness rose up and replaced his pain with furious rage. After threatening her life in a hot rage, he eventually calmed down and settled for cold revenge. He went to the village shaman and paid him to invoke a demonic spell against her.
Maizah was defenseless against the invasion. The horde slithered into her soul, infecting every aspect of her consciousness. The demons carried her down through the shadow layers of cynicism into unimaginable despair. Her soul felt asthmatic, as if it were wheezing for oxygen. Days and nights were filled with thoughts of suicide. Maizah languished under this cloud of depression for three years. She repeatedly went to her religious leader for help. His only answer was that she should wash herself with the ceremonial water in the basement of the mosque, then turn in the direction of a distant city and pray five times every day. Maizah discovered that the rituals of religion were useless to her.
One day, a man walked into the salon where Maizah was working as a stylist. As her scissors snipped his hair, he talked excitedly about something going on at his church later that night. Then he turned around to face her and invited her to come. Maizah had never been inside a church. When she spent time with joyful, smiling friends she almost always found her heart seething with hatred—and she detested those who called themselves Christians. She had walked past churches and found herself loathing the singing that she heard. Their freedom of spirit was nauseous. Around Christians, Maizah felt like the walking dead.
Now she was desperate. That evening, Maizah went straight from work to the address the man had written down. Trying not to be noticed, she gingerly walked in and found an empty chair in the back row. As she watched the people in front of her, her heart swung back and forth. One moment she was sure it was all fake and this was just another empty religion that was powerless to help her. The next minute she felt mysteriously drawn in.
Suddenly she saw a man walking down the center aisle of the church directly toward her. She looked around nervously and tried not to panic. She felt the urge to get up and run out of the door. Before she could decide what to do he was standing next to her. He said, “For over three years now you have been under the spell of a shaman. Christ will set you free tonight.” Suddenly she felt as if she were the only person in the room.
“I don’t believe you.”
He spoke gently, “Let me pray for you. Christ will set you free.”
She answered again, “I don’t believe you.”
“He invites you to believe in him. He wants to wash your soul clean and set you free. He wants you to follow him and him only.” By then the man’s wife was standing next to Maizah and she reached out her right hand and touched Maizah’s head. She folded her left hand around Maizah’s shoulder and gave her a gentle hug. The woman then began to pray that the Spirit of God would enter Maizah’s soul and set her free.
Maizah’s thoughts swam. Everything around her was spinning. After a few minutes, she groaned, “God, please help me!” Then she suddenly gasped. The gates of her heart were swinging wide open, letting in a refreshing breeze. The breath of life swept through her soul. She blacked out and began falling, then moments later she opened her eyes. The man and his wife were helping her up. Maizah began to weep loudly.
All the way home, she wept. Even as she collapsed into her bed, she continued weeping until she cried herself to sleep. The next morning when Maizah woke up, she could see beauty for the first time. The world around her was filled with joyful, radiant colors. She could hardly open her eyes without weeping. Every few minutes, Maizah broke down into tears, and this continued for three more days. At her salon, the four other stylists Maizah worked with were taken by surprise. Amazed by the sudden changes in her life, each of them surrendered her soul to Christ within the week.
The sparkling tears in Maizah’s eyes as she shared her story with me was a refreshing reminder that the Creator lives! To this day, Maizah’s life is undeniably and miraculously transformed. The same Spirit who once hovered over the primordial abyss spoke words of life into the void in her soul, filling her with light and transforming her into a new creation. Maizah avows that she is a completely new person today, thanks to our Creator who is passionate about making all things new. His compassions are new every morning. (Lamentations 3:23) He puts a new song in our mouths. (Psalm 40:3) He has made a new covenant and written a New Testament. He offers us a new birth and he calls us into a new hope. (I Peter 1:3) He is the maker of a new and living way. (Hebrews 10:20) “The old has gone; the new has come!” (II Cor. 5:17) In the new Heavens and the new Earth, Jesus will sit on his throne and still proclaim, “I am making everything new!” (Rev. 21:5)
Calling All Creatives! Calling All Creatives! We Need You!
While riding my mountain bike a few weeks ago, I took a tumble and shattered my collarbone into five pieces. A group of villagers carried me to my house, where I was helped into the passenger seat of my car. I asked someone, “Can you tell my wife I have to get to the hospital?” Minutes later, we were on our way. It felt like gravel was churning around in my shoulder where a collar bone used to be. I needed a doctor, and I needed him fast.
When we are seriously injured, we know exactly where to go. We make a bee line for a doctor. When our sewer pipes get clogged up, we call plumbers. When our cars break down, we take them to mechanics. And when our souls feel like they are dying of solitude, thirst, emptiness and brokenness, we entrust them to … psychologists? Politicians? Priests? Professors?
Not a chance.
Instead most of us turn to the gardeners and shepherds of the soul. We plug in to the I-pod, rent a movie, turn on the television or roam the aisles of a book store in search of the cure for our internal sickness. This is no random coincidence. Much like a surgeon can slice open a shoulder and patch up a collarbone, an artist is a surgeon of the soul.
The greatest artists have always known their mission. Pablo Picasso referred to painting as “an instrument of war.” He said, “I want to draw the mind in a direction it’s not used to and wake it up. I want to help the viewer discover something he wouldn’t have discovered without me. That’s why I stress the dissimilarity, for example, between the left eye and the right eye.”
Art is lightning that flashes across the sky in the dead of night, momentarily revealing the broken furniture on the patio. If even for a moment, the lightning exposes the conditions of our souls and sends the rats running for cover. It may tear open a widespread condition of humanity, or focus our awareness on something very specific that most people have chosen to ignore. Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn well after the conclusion of the Civil War. Pen in hand, he opened up the human heart and rearranged our inner consciousness. Readers picked up his book and laughed until our sides ached. Meanwhile we found ourselves drifting along the Mississippi River with a slave. Then we were beckoned into the slave’s life. We were annoyed to discover that he had feelings. He had a family. He had a soul just like us. He even had a name. Eventually Jim became our own imaginary friend, and all of us longed for him to be set free. Then we put the story on the bookshelf and went back outside, into the real world where the devastating effects of slavery continued to hang over the grandchildren of slaves.
A writer had toyed around inside of us until he was satisfied that we had been set free from our numbness, our death of compassion for the desperate plight of humanity. His art took effect. In our new, transformed state of mind, we were far more ready to take action on behalf of freedom. And therein lies the power, the nobility and, dare I say, the responsibility of creativity.
Although the Christian artist is often very quiet and sits toward the back of the church, there is rarely a more powerful or influential person in the building. The church urgently needs to call upon her artists to step to the forefront of the movement of Jesus. Imagine if your pastor were to gather a team of artists in your congregation and say, “This is the passage of Scripture I want to address in four weeks. These are the themes and messages that I want to convey. Would you mind helping me bring my message more deeply into the hearts of my congregation?”
The timeless American writer Flannery O’Connor once said, “I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I’m afraid it will not be controversial.” May we see an explosion of controversial art at the forward edge of the Christian faith. May we all burst up from the tired old paradigms and begin to create with courage. We must leave behind expressions that are frivolous, careless or irrelevant ramblings of meaningless philosophy. We must create with a radical standard shaping our vision. We must create by faith, after getting on our knees every morning and surrendering our souls to God with the hope that he will put a new song in our mouths, that he will unleash a redeeming narrative to humanity through us.
Artist, may the Spirit of God light a fire in your soul. May He set you free to create with authority and courage. The church needs you! May the streams of Spirit fueled creativity flow, causing change in the world around you. May your creativity result in movement, response, healing, truth, and life.
Re-thinking Creativity and Ministry
In the season when kings mounted swift stallions, unsheathed gilded swords and went to war, one king called in sick. Following a massage and a hot bath, he stretched himself across fluffy white, goose down pillows. His mind began to whimsically drift away from the fierce battles raging outside. His thoughts turned instead to nostalgic memories of youthful days. After awhile his mind drifted through the window, beyond the curtains fluttering in the afternoon breeze. His imagination tinkered nowhere in particular, like a butterfly wandering aimlessly in a pastel field of wildflowers. After hovering for a moment over an intriguing snake hole, he was suddenly sucked down into the rogue abyss of his own dark side.
Lost in himself, he ordered a servant to fetch the curvaceous wife of a faithful and trusted five star general. After he waited anxiously for several minutes, she appeared at his bedroom door with a terrified expression on her face. Within a few weeks, it was whispered in the palace that a baby was on the way. After making a few clumsy attempts to cover up the scandal, the king ordered her husband to be murdered, and brought her to live amongst his bevy of other conquests.
Sometime later, the king had a visit from the most preeminent artist in his kingdom. The artist unfurled his canvas. Then he began to paint a sequence of images into the king’s mind. “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.” (II Samuel 12:1-4)
As the king watched this tale unfolding in his imagination, his heart was drawn into the story. He became increasingly irritated by the injustice being portrayed. He said to the artist, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.” Then the artist looked straight into the eyes of the king and said, “You are the man!” It was the moment of truth. Scales that had once blinded his eyes were torn away. Light invaded his heart. The king blinked in the fierce glare of truth.
A work of art painted into the king’s imagination had been his catalyst of freedom.
King David’s heart had been locked away with a “do not disturb” sign hung on the door. He was untouchable. His servants were terrified to even speak to him. Having constructed a barrier between himself and truth, he was unaware of his own state of mind. David’s blissful ignorance of his own soul environment is typical of the human condition. The Bible describes the mental consequences of wandering away from God as, “madness, blindness and confusion of mind.” People at high noon are described as groping around like blind men in the dark. (Deut. 28:28-29) What was God’s counter attack in the battle for King David’s soul?
A work of art.
A sequence of powerful images were launched like torpedoes meant to seek and destroy the lies that had rooted themselves in David’s heart. The Prophet Nathan aimed straight for the imagination. Rather than threatening David, the Prophet slipped in through the back door of his mind. David was shaken free of his delusions from the inside out. A renewed imagination became his catalyst of freedom. Transformed and set free, he sat down and penned the 51st Psalm, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me … O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.”
What is an artist? An artist is any person who has nurtured the ability to frolic on the playground of the human imagination. I wonder, is there any greater influence on the face of the earth than this? All of us can nurture the gift of creativity. Take a few moments today to consider your ability to communicate effectively in the realm of the human hearts around you. Can you foster and develop your creative talents to confront the fallen and broken conditions in the world around you? If so, you can become a mighty weapon in God’s right hand to advance his kingdom.
RETHINK YOUR CREATIVITY:
Practice telling compelling STORIES.
Re-imagine creativity: Think of creativity not simply as “self expression” but as a RESPONSE.
Focus: What are the fallen soul environments around you that DEFY you to respond with delicate creativity?
“This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”
I John 3:16
For centuries, the people living in villages clustered along the south coast of Java have lived in terror of Nyai Loro Kidul, the legendary Queen goddess of the South Sea. Though her magnificent beaches offer some of the most picturesque white sand on the planet, her waters are no place to frolic. Encounters with great white sharks are commonplace. Coral reefs abound with poisonous sea snakes. Unpredictable currents, thunderous 20 foot waves and merciless riptides kill dozens of unsuspecting and naïve swimmers every year. Mention to virtually any person in Java that you are visiting the south coast and you will hear the inevitable warning, “Look but don’t touch! Never go in the water!”
Clearly aware of the menace posed by the ocean, Isak Timoteus arrived with his wife Ruthy, their five children and a few family friends on a remote South coast beach last Friday morning. He parked, reminded his children not to go near the water, and walked onto the beach to find a shady place to enjoy a breezy day together. Suddenly Timo noticed a group of people standing along the shore. Three young women had been swept into the waves and were screaming for help.
Timo never hesitated. He shouted to a teenager, “Run to the village to get a canoe! Find someone to come get us!” To another he shouted, “Make sure my children stay away from the water!” With that, Timo, who is a strong swimmer, sprinted to the water and dove into the waves to save the lives of three complete strangers. Another man, who was engaged to be married to one of the young women in the water, followed Timo in.
From this point, it is not clear to me exactly how the next hour unfolded. Villagers ran onto the beach but vowed they would never go in that dangerous water. Two of the three of the women were saved. But Timo, the other man and his fiancé, exhausted from battling the riptides, were sucked under and drowned in the waves. A half hour later their bodies washed ashore.
The news of Timo’s drowning sent shock waves through our city over the weekend. Not a person was surprised that Timo would unhesitatingly risk his life on behalf others. After all, Timo had made a habit of sacrificing himself on behalf of others. A decade earlier, Timo felt the call to resign from his prestigious position as a high level manager in a pharmaceutical company to devote his life to full time youth ministry. Passionately burdened to win the souls of youth to Christ, Timo sold his house, entered seminary, and led his wife and children on a journey of faith. Living on the edge of poverty, Timo devoted himself to sharing the Gospel with teenagers, offering counseling and doing everything in his power to serve them.
Over the next decade, Timo’s name became frequently mentioned in the testimonies of hundreds of people. The day I was introduced to him, I immediately I sensed that here was a man I wanted to emulate. His humility was so refreshing. His passion to seek and save the lost was radical. Inspired by his relentless determination to serve youth, I decided that I would do all I could to support his dreams. Mustard Seed joined with Timoteus to open the Malang Youth Center (MYC). Over the years, MYC has impacted the lives of hundreds of teenagers from the eleven high schools in our city. The ministry offers counseling for youth, outreach programs, evangelistic events, and intensive discipleship.
Last Wednesday, I met with the staff of the Malang Youth Center for one of our weekly leadership training sessions. We studied Acts 20. In this passage, the Apostle Paul meets with the elders in Ephesus for the last time. Upon hearing that they will no longer see him, the elders “fell on his neck (NKJV) and wept.” I shared with the leaders that love is the basis for all Christian ministry. I asked them to take few minutes to ponder the question, “if the youth that you are serving heard that they will never see you again, would they shrug their shoulders, or “fall on your neck” weeping?
That conversation was the last time I would ever see Timo alive on this earth. In my heart, the theme of the Bible study holds near prophetic significance. Not just dozens, but hundreds of youth or adults who had been impacted as youth, are weeping for his loss.
I was asked to preach at Timo’s funeral last night. It was one of the most difficult messages I’ve ever given. How could my words possibly capture the limitless and enduring impact of this man’s amazing life? In my talk, I pondered the question, In the echoes of his death, what would Timoteus ask of you and me? I am convinced that he would ask us to repent and follow Jesus with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. He would ask us to carry on his ministry to youth. And, he would most certainly ask us to take care of his beloved Ruthy and their five children, Sasa, Noel, Justian, Teo, and Paul.
With this in mind, would anyone out there be willing to send in a sacrificial donation for this man’s family? I can verify that Ruthy and the children have been left with next to nothing. Timo spent his adult life giving everything away! What will it be like for Ruthy to raise Sasa and the four boys alone? What will be the cost over the next decade?
Imagine if we could combine our resources to purchase them a small home. Would you consider being a part of this dream? Perhaps through our combined generosity, God will provide a home for Ruthy and the children.
Isak Timoteus Memorial Fund
Mustard Seed International
P.O. Box 20188
Charleston SC 29413
In solidarity. In compassion. In Christ.
East Java, Indonesia
