In ministry when I was given the opportunity to initiate an outreach to Russian-speaking people in the region of Baltimore and Washington, our bishop used to go around the world and speak in various forums about the new church starts he had commissioned. I was given the charge for one of the ten because I studied Russian as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois; Urbana-Champaign.
In 1980 I became an Air Intelligence Officer in the United States Air Force because of the BA in Russian and East European Area Studies. Even though my focus at seminary was urban ministry, I found myself living in a five bedroom parsonage on 2 1/2 acres of land in a 2,000 ' valley with rolling hills and rack-strewn fields between the Blue Ridge and Adirondack Mountains of the Appalachian Chain, some of the oldest mountains in the world, serving three rural churches not far from Harpers Ferry, WV..
The bishop used to tell the story about walking through the Baltimore Washington Conference offices one day when he saw me conferring with a woman from Moscow who had immigrated to the US and who lived in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York along with many other people who had come out of the Soviet Union since the early 1970s because of the provision of Detente's economic and political provisions, one of which was that if an ethnically Jewish person or family could prove persecution because of their ethnicity, he or she or they could leave the Soviet Union. Many went to Israel, but many more came to the US, supported by the US Government tax dollars and by the Jewish people of the US through funds and social services.
So this Russian woman from Moscow and I were getting to know one another and planning how to kick off the out reach to Russian-speaking people. I was not unhappy when I found out the bishop was mentioning the outreach when he was speaking in various venues all over the world, But what did bother me a bit was that he felt led to say that he was amazed at how the Lord worked because that day when he saw us working together, he was told that I had been a U.S. Air Force Intelligence Officer and that my colleague had translated U.S. military and political documents into Russian for the Soviet Communist Government.
He ended up the story with something like, "How amazing is that? Here were two people who had been working for the evil their governments were plotting and carrying out, now working together for the Gospel."
At large conventions concerning the work of the United Methodist Church in the countries of the former Soviet Union after the break up, strangers would come up to me and seeing my name on my name tag say things like, "Oh, YOU are the one the bishop was talking about!!!" And I would have to ask them what in the world they meant.
After a while it got old.
During one annual conference right after I had been appointed to be in charge of the outreach I happened to be walking down an aisle in the almost empty large meeting room and the bishop caught up with me and asked, "It doesn't bother you that I talk about your past as an Air Force Officer, does it?"
"Well, sir, " I carefully replied. "Not much. The only thing I object to is the inference that somehow I had been working for evil while I was on active duty. I totally believe that I was where the Lord had placed me, using my talents and experience in His will and with His grace. At the same time, I completely believe that at that time the Russian woman did not know the Lord and her government did not only teach and state that God did not exist, but called the Body of Christ evil in every way."
He was less than pleased.
I will now firmly state however, that I repent of all the ways I was a part of anything developed for revenge and killing and destroying. I do not repent of anything I worked on or believed that has to do with saving or protecting people, our nation, our freedoms, or our way of life, but only in so far as they relate to being faithful and in awe of the LORD, the Creator, The Master of the Universe.
God has created eerything that exists. He created human beings to be able to live in that creation and to be able to share His joy and His love and His Life; to be in loving relationship with Him and co-exist in perpetual joy. I firmly believe that the LORD is sometimes very surprised and hurt deeply by the ways we can be cruel and by the heinous, violent acts we human beings continually perpetrate.
At the same time I believe the Creator/Redeemer/Sustainer of all that is and all that ever will be is sometimes quite amazed and deeply touched to the bottom of His heart when we show one another love in very active ways. When we are struggling and show Him the capacity we have to overcome the effects of suffering. He is delighted and extremely happy when we turn to Him to ask Him to be part of our lives, when we show we trust Him as completely as we are able to do that.
And I firmly believe that no matter how well we get to know the LORD, no matter how deeply we have come to be able to yield to Him, there are infinite levels of knowledge and trust that remain. And He wants each one of us to keep seeking His face, to continue to be willing to be drawn deeper into His grace, to be able to receive and let flow out of our selves and our lives even more love, peace, grace, mercy and joy.
If this all seems nonsense to you, perhaps you might open your heart to the possibility that what I have written is true and perhaps you might be willing to give God a chance to prove to you in whatever way you need proof that first of all God IS; that second of all God loves you; that third of all God has good plans for you; and fourth of all . . . whatever God wants you to know and experience,
The choice is up to you. God will never demand that you seek God. The free will the LORD has given every human being is sacred to the LORD in the deepest way possible. He will bless and provide for you and for everyone you love in all sorts of ways, but He will never intrude upon your absolute free will to respond to Him or not.
And what you believe and how you play out your live is completely your choice, always and forever. But please understand this:
1. God is always loving you even when He may hate what you are doing.
2. God created you and understands you completely no matter what is happening in your life and no matter how you respond to people and circumstances.
3. God is always knocking on the door of your heart, hoping to be invited in by you.
4. Even before you were made incarnate, when you were who you are and always will be in Spirit, God knew you and delighted in you.
5. God created you for His own sake. That means He created you so that He could have the joy of loving you and blessing you WHETHER OR NOT you would ever respond to Him.
6. When God became incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth in order to redeem creation and reconcile the brokenness of creation and the fallen human race, even if you were the only person on Earth, the infinite, all-knowing, all powerful, everlasting Spirit of the universe would still have become a tiny, very quickly growing finite human creature in a young woman's womb; would have gone through the pains and experiences of being born; would have weathered the threats on his life from even before He was born; would have been a defenseless infant, child; would have been a teenager and a young adult living under the yoke and power of the Roman Empire in the occupied territory that had been given to His ancestors; would have been baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River; would have gone out to be tempted by the evil one; would have called His disciples to Himself; would have lived among people, finding out exactly what life on Earth as a human being was; would have taught, healed, delivered and lived in joy amongst His family members and friends; would have deliberately and obediently suffered and taken on the sins of the world in order to save humanity and restore creation to its pristine goodness; would have gone through the excruciating pain, degradation and humiliation of His time nailed to the Cross; would have died and entered into Hell; would have raised Himself back to life . . . all for JUST YOU.
All because the LOVE that He is . . . is the only thing that lasts, the only thing that truly exists and will exist for eternity.
Nothing about what I just wrote is meant to convince you of anything. You can only know if it is true or not if you are willing to open your heart, mind, soul and spirit by asking whether or not it is true.
I promise you that if you do that, God will answer you in whatever way you need in order to be convinced. What you believe does not affect reality, the truth of what creation is and who you are. But what you believe affects how you live right now and for the rest of your life.
God will never force you to do anything. If you are feeling pressure or any kind of negative or compelling urgency, it is not from the LORD. The LORD is peace, joy, goodness, faithfulness, forgiveness, mercy,. love and grace, which is unmerited favor -- something you are given that you do not deserve and cannot earn or buy or connive to have,
God's unconditional love is such that nothing you do and nothing that is done to you can change it. God loves you because of who you are -- His child.
Won't you give Him a chance to prove to you the truth of that?
Please do. I keep praying that you will.
In 1980 I became an Air Intelligence Officer in the United States Air Force because of the BA in Russian and East European Area Studies. Even though my focus at seminary was urban ministry, I found myself living in a five bedroom parsonage on 2 1/2 acres of land in a 2,000 ' valley with rolling hills and rack-strewn fields between the Blue Ridge and Adirondack Mountains of the Appalachian Chain, some of the oldest mountains in the world, serving three rural churches not far from Harpers Ferry, WV..
The bishop used to tell the story about walking through the Baltimore Washington Conference offices one day when he saw me conferring with a woman from Moscow who had immigrated to the US and who lived in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York along with many other people who had come out of the Soviet Union since the early 1970s because of the provision of Detente's economic and political provisions, one of which was that if an ethnically Jewish person or family could prove persecution because of their ethnicity, he or she or they could leave the Soviet Union. Many went to Israel, but many more came to the US, supported by the US Government tax dollars and by the Jewish people of the US through funds and social services.
So this Russian woman from Moscow and I were getting to know one another and planning how to kick off the out reach to Russian-speaking people. I was not unhappy when I found out the bishop was mentioning the outreach when he was speaking in various venues all over the world, But what did bother me a bit was that he felt led to say that he was amazed at how the Lord worked because that day when he saw us working together, he was told that I had been a U.S. Air Force Intelligence Officer and that my colleague had translated U.S. military and political documents into Russian for the Soviet Communist Government.
He ended up the story with something like, "How amazing is that? Here were two people who had been working for the evil their governments were plotting and carrying out, now working together for the Gospel."
At large conventions concerning the work of the United Methodist Church in the countries of the former Soviet Union after the break up, strangers would come up to me and seeing my name on my name tag say things like, "Oh, YOU are the one the bishop was talking about!!!" And I would have to ask them what in the world they meant.
After a while it got old.
During one annual conference right after I had been appointed to be in charge of the outreach I happened to be walking down an aisle in the almost empty large meeting room and the bishop caught up with me and asked, "It doesn't bother you that I talk about your past as an Air Force Officer, does it?"
"Well, sir, " I carefully replied. "Not much. The only thing I object to is the inference that somehow I had been working for evil while I was on active duty. I totally believe that I was where the Lord had placed me, using my talents and experience in His will and with His grace. At the same time, I completely believe that at that time the Russian woman did not know the Lord and her government did not only teach and state that God did not exist, but called the Body of Christ evil in every way."
He was less than pleased.
I will now firmly state however, that I repent of all the ways I was a part of anything developed for revenge and killing and destroying. I do not repent of anything I worked on or believed that has to do with saving or protecting people, our nation, our freedoms, or our way of life, but only in so far as they relate to being faithful and in awe of the LORD, the Creator, The Master of the Universe.
God has created eerything that exists. He created human beings to be able to live in that creation and to be able to share His joy and His love and His Life; to be in loving relationship with Him and co-exist in perpetual joy. I firmly believe that the LORD is sometimes very surprised and hurt deeply by the ways we can be cruel and by the heinous, violent acts we human beings continually perpetrate.
At the same time I believe the Creator/Redeemer/Sustainer of all that is and all that ever will be is sometimes quite amazed and deeply touched to the bottom of His heart when we show one another love in very active ways. When we are struggling and show Him the capacity we have to overcome the effects of suffering. He is delighted and extremely happy when we turn to Him to ask Him to be part of our lives, when we show we trust Him as completely as we are able to do that.
And I firmly believe that no matter how well we get to know the LORD, no matter how deeply we have come to be able to yield to Him, there are infinite levels of knowledge and trust that remain. And He wants each one of us to keep seeking His face, to continue to be willing to be drawn deeper into His grace, to be able to receive and let flow out of our selves and our lives even more love, peace, grace, mercy and joy.
If this all seems nonsense to you, perhaps you might open your heart to the possibility that what I have written is true and perhaps you might be willing to give God a chance to prove to you in whatever way you need proof that first of all God IS; that second of all God loves you; that third of all God has good plans for you; and fourth of all . . . whatever God wants you to know and experience,
The choice is up to you. God will never demand that you seek God. The free will the LORD has given every human being is sacred to the LORD in the deepest way possible. He will bless and provide for you and for everyone you love in all sorts of ways, but He will never intrude upon your absolute free will to respond to Him or not.
And what you believe and how you play out your live is completely your choice, always and forever. But please understand this:
1. God is always loving you even when He may hate what you are doing.
2. God created you and understands you completely no matter what is happening in your life and no matter how you respond to people and circumstances.
3. God is always knocking on the door of your heart, hoping to be invited in by you.
4. Even before you were made incarnate, when you were who you are and always will be in Spirit, God knew you and delighted in you.
5. God created you for His own sake. That means He created you so that He could have the joy of loving you and blessing you WHETHER OR NOT you would ever respond to Him.
6. When God became incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth in order to redeem creation and reconcile the brokenness of creation and the fallen human race, even if you were the only person on Earth, the infinite, all-knowing, all powerful, everlasting Spirit of the universe would still have become a tiny, very quickly growing finite human creature in a young woman's womb; would have gone through the pains and experiences of being born; would have weathered the threats on his life from even before He was born; would have been a defenseless infant, child; would have been a teenager and a young adult living under the yoke and power of the Roman Empire in the occupied territory that had been given to His ancestors; would have been baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River; would have gone out to be tempted by the evil one; would have called His disciples to Himself; would have lived among people, finding out exactly what life on Earth as a human being was; would have taught, healed, delivered and lived in joy amongst His family members and friends; would have deliberately and obediently suffered and taken on the sins of the world in order to save humanity and restore creation to its pristine goodness; would have gone through the excruciating pain, degradation and humiliation of His time nailed to the Cross; would have died and entered into Hell; would have raised Himself back to life . . . all for JUST YOU.
All because the LOVE that He is . . . is the only thing that lasts, the only thing that truly exists and will exist for eternity.
Nothing about what I just wrote is meant to convince you of anything. You can only know if it is true or not if you are willing to open your heart, mind, soul and spirit by asking whether or not it is true.
I promise you that if you do that, God will answer you in whatever way you need in order to be convinced. What you believe does not affect reality, the truth of what creation is and who you are. But what you believe affects how you live right now and for the rest of your life.
God will never force you to do anything. If you are feeling pressure or any kind of negative or compelling urgency, it is not from the LORD. The LORD is peace, joy, goodness, faithfulness, forgiveness, mercy,. love and grace, which is unmerited favor -- something you are given that you do not deserve and cannot earn or buy or connive to have,
God's unconditional love is such that nothing you do and nothing that is done to you can change it. God loves you because of who you are -- His child.
Won't you give Him a chance to prove to you the truth of that?
Please do. I keep praying that you will.
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