If anyone knows Melissa…

” I want to talk to you about an unusual gift,” said the Chinese father to his beautiful, black-haired daughter. She smiled with anticipation. She loved it when her wise father shared special lessons about God. He loved Christ, and everyone who knew him was touched with his kindness and compassion.

He opened a worn Bible and began, “This gift is found in Philippians 1:29. It says, ‘For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.’ Something that is given to us is a ‘gift.’ The two gifts in the verse are belief and suffering. Suffering that results from our belief in God is a precious gift, the value of which will be fully realized only in heaven.”

The daughter smiled. “Thank you, Papa,” she said as she reached up to hug him. “I understand.”

The young girl grew up to be the wife of Pastor Li Dexian, who has been arrested over ten times and nearly beaten to death for his faith. She carries on the work with him, persevering because she learned at a young age that godly suffering is a gift. Pastor Li and his wife have won countless souls to Christ in Communist China, and they continue to work under a constant threat of arrest.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I would give anything for a real father/daughter conversation. I think it just happened. Not in an expected way but I accept the guidance of a dad through any means God uses. And I know that it is a gift and with a heart of joy and thankfulness I accept that gift and the lessons He wishes for me to learn.

Today He reminds me of His Son and the separation from Father that His own Son had to endure…and He reminds me that He did it for me. He reminds me that the gifts of belief and suffering are a packaged deal. Not only are they impossible to separate, each gift also strengthens the other. If I have been given the gift of belief in Christ, I will follow Christ. Following Christ means taking risks, going against what is popular, being misunderstood, and sometimes even enduring physical and/or emotional pain. Belief often leads to suffering. As I experience the same kinds of suffering that Jesus lived, I come to know him in a richer and deeper way. The cycle begins again because suffering strengthens belief. I can’t expect to be able to filter suffering out of this earthly life without reducing my belief in Christ.

Thank you, Abba. I understand.

(I said I would give anything for this conversation. Anything….and yet, this came without strings – a free gift. But how could I not give back my life and all of my love to such a wonderful Father as I have that loves me so.)

Just stand; and having done all – STAND!

– despite warfare

– despite resistance

– despite hassles

– despite weariness

– despite distresses

– despite temptations

– despite personal failure

– despite collapse

– despite grief

– despite loneliness

– despite chains

Just stand; and having done all – STAND!

– stand because of the cross

– stand because of the Lamb

– stand because of His affections

– stand because of His acceptance

– stand because of His mighty power within

– stand because of fountains of living water flowing

– stand because of His surpassing greatness

– stand because of His eternal purposes

– stand because of His beauty

– stand because of His everlasting mercies

– stand because of Love

Just stand; and having done all – STAND!

I want to be one that finds God even in the middle of complete darkness and so carries His glory, the darkness around me bows before His light.

The Lord is my Shepherd and I am learning His voice more and more each day. God said several clear and interesting Words to me in these last weeks. Maybe personal but I have an overwhelming feeling that at least part is corporate and all are connected to each other. I pray that even as I learn to hear and listen that I will also learn to follow with complete trust and to do so quickly. His Words to me were:

– “Study the life of Paul.”

– “I am not after a ministry from you. I am after a minister out of you.”

– “If you go after the ones that nobody wants, then I will give you the ones that everyone is after.”

The sheep that are My own hear and are listening to My voice; and I know them, and they follow Me. John 10:27 (Amp

As elections approach, it would probably do us some good to look at the story of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago. It would do us some good to remember that it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote. And, it would do us some good to remember the price some of these paid for this freedom.

November 15, 1917 – NIGHT OF TERROR

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

Lucy Burns
And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic.’ They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

Dora Lewis
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms.

Alice Paul
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

Woodrow Wilson and his cronies tried to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. The doctor refused. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: “Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.”

Some women won’t vote this year because–why, exactly? We have carpool duties? Our kids have soccer or dance? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining? If for no other reason, vote out of respect for ANY of those who have suffered for our rights to do so.

( -opinions my own, factual information desseminated courtesy of Virginia League of Women Voters)

Honestly some days I would give up anything or even many of my worldly possessions to have ONE real father/daughter conversation; to get one hour of guidance from a dad. Believe me, if I could adopt me a dad I would but it really doesn’t seem to work that way. Oh well, it is what it is…and I’ll get over it.

So this is what I am hearing these last few days:

I am not after a ministry from you. I am after a minister out of you.

If you go after the ones that nobody wants; I’ll give you the ones that everybody wants.

In prayer I heard the word “prison” and when I asked God about it I felt He said to study the life of Paul.

God has also used the darkest moment of my life to date (my witness of my dad’s death and his shed blood and my feelings of betrayal and abandonment of my earthly father) and He has given me more revelation and knowledge of the Lamb through it. I have felt this revelation in my spirit so heavily that I can hardly contain myself…with excitement. Now that will create a doublebind for some but you will have to trust what God is doing in our lives and hear me out. I will write more of that in the next couple of days. As of now entitled “BEHOLD THE LAMB!!!”

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“A minister of the word should know that God is building up his ministry through each trial and difficulty. Do not be so foolish as to deem it best to flee from trial. If no thorn, then no grace, hence no power and little ministry. You may speak the word but you do not possess the strength of the spirit to push it out. You need the word; you also need a usable spirit”. Watchman Nee

“Those whom God will use greatly He will cut deeply.” A.W. Tozer

John 15

The Vine and the Branches

1″I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

5″I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

9″As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17This is my command: Love each other.

The World Hates the Disciples

18″If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.'[b] If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me. 22If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. 23He who hates me hates my Father as well. 24If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. 25But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.'[c]
26″When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. 27And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

Oh God, get my eyes off of me and let me see the earth and those you put on this earth as my responsibility. As an intercessor and an ambassador, give me compassion and clarity.

I have been thinking this morning about the mystery of the indwelling Spirit. Theologically I believe it but in reality many days (and so far on this day) I live as though I walk alone, even when I have a Helper, a Teacher, a Comforter and an eager Friend longing to live life with me. Oh, to walk in perpetual conversation with the One who knows me best and loves me most, to walk by faith and not by sight, leaning into this invisible Companion.

I was meditating on Hebrews 10:38 and the part of that verse that says, “My righteous one shall live by faith,” and I felt like the Lord said to me in my spirit, “Think of that in a different way.” See… I initially saw it as an OBLIGATION, but then I felt He said, “See it as a PROMISE!” When I have a revelation that I have His very own righteousness, I SHALL live in CONFIDENCE towards Him!

Thank You, Lord!