Items For Prayer And Praise
By Lois J. Stucky
From time to time we are touched to the core as we receive a letter asking that a Herald of His Coming paper be sent on a special mission. The paper is so humble and so comparatively fragile to send on an important mission like this. But it is a mission we could not undertake ourselves.
So we send out the paper backed by prayer, entrusting it to deliver its message from the Word of God. We send it in faith that it will bear fruit in one or many lives. Here are a few recent examples of such special opportunities:
“I am a missionary to Kurdistan in northern Iraq and am planning to return there soon. I want to take (the Heralds) with me…” Maybe you have read about the difficulties and dangers of ministering among the Kurds in northern Iraq.
Along with a request for a special issue of the Herald to a man in prison was this message, “He’s in a very difficult prison with a lot of violence and satanic activity, so needs all the wisdom and protection he can receive from God. He’s an older man, with faith and love, so pray God can use him there….”
From Africa comes a letter that says, “My background is Muslim and our country is one of the few countries who understand the Bible in the wrong way. It is Herald of His Coming that helped me understand and reinforce Jesus’ teachings. The Herald helped me to organize students and start Sunday schooling and a means to pass the paper from one person to another so that so many can take advantage….”
From the Middle East, this letter: “I am regularly receiving Herald of His Coming…I am working in an oil rig with the Muslim people. They are persecuting me and giving also mental torture to me by making the occult practices against me. Since three years I have passed through many difficulties. I suffered a lot due to I am a born again believer. My dear Lord didn’t forsake me and didn’t deliver me to my enemies….”
Thank God that you, friends, with your supporting gifts, and we workers here, can unite to send God’s Word to places where the conflict is strong. And what conflicts there are these days: wars among nations, strife and corruption within the nations, genocide practiced against some races, religious persecution, division and divorce within the home, turmoil and desperation in many human hearts. No level of society is exempt. Even many a lighthearted, frivolous non-Christian confesses what thinking Christians surely know, that the world is in “bad shape.”
We are in the death throes of one age and the birth pangs of another. Pray! Pray “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done!” God has had long patience, but the cup of iniquity is being filled to the brim. Then will come the wrath of a righteous God against evil. After that? Ah, then will come the reign of the Righteous One! That will be grand for Christians, but how much grander for God, who has long been grieved and angered by evil. For His sake let us pray as did His beloved Son, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.”
It was for days like these in which we live, and worse, that our Lord said, “See that you be not troubled” (Matt. 24:6). God has promised peace in our hearts if we keep our minds stayed upon Him (Isa. 26:3). He has promised even “perfect peace.”
It is important for us to be doing the work of God while it is yet day. It is even more important for us to be learning to know God better.
Oh, such a wonderful God we have! Why do we not run after Him more wholeheartedly? Why are we so short-sighted as to become almost fully absorbed in the things of this world and have only the tag ends of time and energy and devotion to give to seeking God?
Conditions do not need to be perfect in order for us to seek God. Indeed, it is often when things are dismal and desperate that we seek Him with all of our heart. To seek God is a holy and rewarding quest. It is then that we find Him in a way that captures our hearts forever (Jer. 29:13).
The better we know Him, the more excellent and wonderful He becomes to us, the more we are drawn after Him, the more we understand His marvelous grace and learn to draw upon it, the more we are delighted and satisfied with Him, the better we are fitted to live in days when all around is giving way. If these are the beginning days of sorrows, what does the future hold? How will we be kept except by knowing God?
What if the world thinks us fanatics and “weirdos?” They do not realize we are following after the One of greatest worth, the pearl of great price. How can we tell them how enthralled we are by our God and how our hearts yearn for more and more of Him? How can they understand the peace that passes understanding that keeps our hearts and minds? How can we explain the joy that is our strength? Let us continue our glorious quest! We have only touched the surface of God’s riches and beauty. We can never begin to exhaust them here below, and ahead is glorious Eternity in which to pursue.
Let us follow vigorously onward, translating our love and knowledge of God into faithful, daily service in that which is lowliest or highest, as the Lord sees fit to give us to do.