I’ve been sitting in a resort hotel for the last four days waiting for a flight home. Tomorrow I will finally board a plane for the US. What a relief! This has been a long couple of weeks.
Some kind of a very big disturbance is going on in the invisible world in Liberia. I could feel it in the air when I arrived. The Ebola outbreak was only part of it – a large part of it, perhaps, but still only a part of it.
We started experiencing trouble as soon as we started trying to print the booklets. Then, the day I arrived, the pastors house was broken into, and again three days later. It continued even up to the last day. The pastor who drove me to the airport got involved in an accident on his way home. Then the airport security was not going to allow me to board the plane because of visa problems. It seemed like it would never end.
And then I got sick. My first day at the resort was spent in bed sleeping it off trying to shush off those wispy fears that after everything else I had been through, I had contracted Ebola and would never see my family again.
What was the big deal with Liberia? Why did we go through so much trouble? I can only surmise that an intense battle for the soul of that country is going on. Liberia is like the United States in that it was founded with a strong Christian foundation, and like us, the churches have degenerated into a mediocre “church as usual” existence and have lost their fire. Perhaps this is either an attack, a judgment, or a warning … or all three.
A couple of days before I was scheduled to leave, the Lord began to deal with me about staying in Liberia. I was jolted by the very idea. What? Stay here with this disease raging through the area? Isn’t that tempting the Lord? No, not if He is the one asking you to stay.
He reminded me that I had made a promise to do whatever He asked, to go wherever He sent me, and preach whatever He told me to preach. I literally hung my head down in defeat. What could I say? I made a promise; I would have to keep my Word. I imagined that this is what many missionaries must have gone though when being sent into dangerous lands.
And then a brother told Cindy that when he was praying for protection for me, the Lord kept leading him to pray for strength for me. What’s that supposed to mean? Now I fully expected to have to stay, and I was fully resigned to my fate when they told me that they would not allow me to board my flight because I didn’t have a visa.
I had a couple of things going in my favor. One was a promise He made to me back in 2003 when I was heading into the island of Mindanao that was in the midst of a war with Muslim rebels. He literally spoke to me when the issue of safety came up, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” Well, I guess that settles that! If you’re going to pick on someone, you’d better pick on someone else. I took that promise into all kinds of dangerous places over the next 10 years, walking into areas that even the local natives would not go. No one ever touched me. As a matter of fact, the Grace of God always seemed to go before me brought peace wherever I went.
I had another advantage. Years of subjection, not unlike the 21 years that Jacob spent under Laban, had trained me, toughened me, and broke my spirit into yielding to His. This was not Christianity Lite. I operated on a much deeper level. As a result, it didn’t matter what valley I was asked to go down; I had been down enough of them that it became just another valley – not pleasant, but neither was it a sentence of final doom. There is always another open end to every valley. You just have to walk it out.
There are some jewels and riches of God that are so precious that many of us are not even aware that they exist. They are not found in the usual places. They rarely make any appearance at all during our mountaintop experiences or in fancy churches or glitzy televangelist programs. They do not give off a shine and luster during our times of peace and blessings. They are rough cut, sometimes unpolished and seemingly dull in comparison. They are only found in one place – on the valley floor when you are down on your hands and knees crawling though those hard places. When it seems that the only Light you can see is a desperate hope of faith in a God that seems a million miles away, it is then that you find them while you are on your hands and knees in broken, desperate prayer.
I can’t say that I have traveled down the deeper valleys that many of the brothers and sisters who have gone on before me have, but I’ve traveled down my share. Whenever I start to descend into another valley, I can see that there are other footprints heading down before me into the valley. And I’ve noticed that there is always one set of footprints from some really big shoes. Those belong to our Savior.
There is no valley that you go down that He has not gone down before you. There is no pain or suffering you will go through that He has not gone through first. And there is no challenge that He will ask you to face that He will not face it right by your side.
I was fully prepared and resigned to stay for the next month or two in a place that looked like it was going to become a hellhole. Hey, somebody has to do it. It might as well be me.
And then I felt that little nudge to go ask again, and lo and behold, for some reason Security changed their mind and let me on the plane.
Praise the Lord.! I have also been protected by the Lord in different circumstances ; before and after being saved. But as you know predestined to be with Him even when dead in our sins. Un-like you I am unable to do much more than encourage you ; as I am doing work paying the mortgage. I also do church work bus driving dis- advantaged kids to church. I have a blog to encourage people with the truth. ” Jesusgodandking.com” I hope you might visit me and comment on what I have written. There is some good stuff there . Keep up your good fight. I am sure there has been good work done for God there in Liberia.Col J.