When facing the terrifying unknown: “The only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing”

 

What will happen during 2021?

 

“Today dear friends,

we stand upon the verge of the unknown.

Who can tell what we shall find?

What new experiences,

what challenges shall come;

what new needs shall arise?

(L.B. Cowman, Streams in the Desert)

 

You don’t know what 2021 holds for you. I don’t know what the year holds for me, either. We face the unknown.

 

“The unknown.” What do those words do to you?

 

“The unknown” creates strong emotions for me when those two words inflict themselves on my life, my future, my family.

When I come face-to-face with “the unknown,” my stomach knots. My knees wobble.

 

I don’t know what I’ll find but I know I’ll face challenges, and I want to know:

• Just how challenging will the challenges be?
• Just how serious will the needs be?
• Will I come out okay on the other side?

 

Over and under and around it all, I wonder if I will handle them well.

 

What about you?

 

What if, in 2021, you learn that “the unknown” turns out to be God asking you to do something that seems too hard?

 

What if “the unknown,” once known, is something that breaks your heart?

Or something that means the end of life-long dreams?

Or what if you suddenly have a crucial need?

What if the challenges of 2021 threaten to overwhelm you?

 

What if God asks you to give your “utmost” for Him?

 

At such moments, we stand at a turning point. We are at a defining moment.

 

We can say yes to God, take hold of His hand, and step into that potentially painful, frightful “unknown.”

 

Or we can tell God no, turn away, and try to slog through life on our own terms.

 

The choice is ours.

 

“Before we choose to follow God’s will,

a crisis must develop in our lives. . . .

He brings us to the place where He asks us

to be our utmost for Him and we begin to debate.

 

He then providentially produces a crisis

where we have to decide—for or against.

 

That moment becomes a great crossroads in our lives.”

Oswald Chambers

 

As you know, Abraham has been a special hero to me for years now. Let me explain why:

 

God made a staggering request of him: “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.” (Sounds like what missionaries do, doesn’t it?)

 

God didn’t tell Abraham where he was supposed to go—only that he was to go (Genesis 12:1). He was asking Abraham to give his utmost for Him.

 

So there he stood, at a critical turning point in his life.

 

Who knows how long

Abraham debated with himself

and with God

as he stood at his crossroads?

He must have agonized.

 

But, bless his heart, at his defining moment, Abraham agreed to go where God sent him even though he did not know where he was going.

 

The book of Hebrews summed up Abraham’s pivotal moment this way:

 

“Abraham, by faith, obeyed and went out,

even though he did not know where he was going”

(Hebrews 11:8).

 

He set out, simply trusting God. Talk about a blind leap of faith!

 

Perhaps today you stand at a crossroads and you’re debating whether to say “yes” or “no” to God. If not today, maybe a week from now, or ten months from now.

 

During 2021,

when you face as-yet-unknown challenges and needs,

when your stomach knots and your knees wobble,

when you don’t know where God is leading you,

may the following words encourage you: 

 

“The only thing you know

is that God knows what He is doing.

Continually examine your attitude toward God

to see if you are willing to ‘go out’

in every area of your life,

trusting in God entirely. . . .

You don’t know what God is going to do next.

Each morning . . . is a new opportunity

to ‘go out’ building your confidence in God.”

(Oswald Chambers)

 

An opportunity?

Yes, an opportunity!

An opportunity to trust God,

an opportunity to grow in faith.

 

For the Lord your God

takes hold of your hand and says to you:

“Don’t be afraid. I will help you.”

(Isaiah 41:13)

The “flarings of a scared but burning heart”

I’ve been telling you that I seemed to hear God asking me to place Him—not my children and my relationship with them—in first place in my life.

 

I admitted to you that my words couldn’t capture the utter rawness, the unspeakable ravages of dying to oneself in order to die to one’s children, even when we do it because God is asking that of us. (Click here to read “I could say ‘Yes’ to God, or I could say ‘No’”.)

 

“Letting something precious go is . . . unbearable,” writes Chuck Swindoll. “The  parting cannot happen without inward bleeding.” (Good Morning, Lord . . . Can We Talk?)

 

In Chapter 2 of Grandma’s Letters from Africa, I wrote:

 

This month-long process left me emotionally spent but, afterward, I could fill out the application to Wycliffe Bible Translators.

 

I filled it out because I knew that if joining Wycliffe was not God’s plan for us, He had power enough to prevent it.

 

I gave Him every opportunity to show us green lights and send us to Africa or red lights and keep us home.

 

In the meantime, I kept taking the next step, and the next, all the while watching for God’s answer.

 

In the end, He gave us only green lights:

 

Wycliffe found no problems with our applications.

 

Next, we passed our phone interviews.

 

And we spent a month at a Wycliffe facility in the lovely mountains and forests of Idyllwild, California: training, testing, and interviewing—and we passed all those requirements, too.

 

I had my answer.

 

In giving me that answer, God responded to my earlier protestations about not wanting to dismantle our home or leave my family or move away from beautiful Port Angeles, Washington. He addressed my worries about giving up a steady income and health insurance.

 

I could almost hear God whisper, “It’s okay to dismantle your home. Give family heirlooms to your children or put them in storage, and throw out the junk.

 

“You worry about your parents, but your brothers and I will care for them.

 

“You feel bad about leaving your friends, but true friendships will endure, and I will introduce you to new friends in Africa.

 

“You don’t want to leave the beauty of Port Angeles, but wait until you see Africa’s splendor.

 

“Let go of your tight grip on your paycheck and health insurance. Find a better security in Me.”

 

Then God seemed to say, “Now, about your children—don’t you know I love them even more than you do? You can trust Me with them.”

 

Knowing God’s answer didn’t take away the pain, but my heart melted when He asked me to believe He loved my Matt and my Karen even more than I did.

 

It was a “Stop—take off your sandals” moment.

A burning bush moment.

A standing-on-holy-ground moment. 

(Exodus 3:1-5)

 

Jenilee Goodwin writes, “When God speaks, he is inviting you into his story. He’s about to do something in you, in your family, in your work, in your country, in your life. He is looking for those who are listening, those who are saying, ‘Here I am.’

 

Jennilee continues: “His eyes are seeking those who are willing to hear what He’s saying and participate in the greater story.”

 

“I wondered if this was how beginnings were made,” writes Sue Monk Kid, “—in the momentary flarings of a scared but burning heart.” (When the Heart Waits)

 

I could do only two things:

Trust God to manage my kids’ consequences

because of our move to Africa,

and then turn and take an extreme,

and blind, leap of faith. 

(from Chapter 2, Grandma’s Letters from Africa)

 

 

I could say “Yes” to God, or I could say “No”

A couple of years before we moved to Africa, my husband, Dave, asked me each day, “Have you filled it out yet?”

“It” was my application for Wycliffe Bible Translators. I knew Dave wanted a different job. Maybe his current one lacked purpose. Or perhaps he suffered from a mid-life crisis. All his life, he has yearned to avoid mediocrity, to break out of the status quo. Probably all those factors led to his urgent need to serve God in Wycliffe. 

For some reason, though, I couldn’t fill out the application. I tried several times. I placed my pen on the application, but I couldn’t fill in the blanks. (from Chapter 2, Grandma’s Letters from Africa) 

I determined to set aside time, to attune my ears and heart to God’s, to be alert to His voice. 

Such a process can take weeks, months, maybe years. 

When I did, eventually I seemed to hear God asking me to place Him—not my children and my relationship with them—in first place in my life. 

I stood at a scary, heartbreaking crossroads. 

I could say “Yes” to God. Or I could say “No.” 

Jenilee Goodwin writes that when we sense God speaking to us, “We have to choose yes or no, go or stay, believe or walk away. Hearing God’s voice requires an answer, an action. So often, it’s easier not to ask. If we don’t know what God is asking of us or inviting us to do, we don’t have to choose obedience or answer the call.” 

Oswald Chambers wrote of those times “when our path seems treacherous and uncharted.” Wow. He nailed it—I stood on a treacherous, uncharted path. 

Such times, Chambers said, such paths, are “God’s way of molding us, of capturing our attention so that we focus on Him and not on ourselves. . . . [They are] His means for us to know Him.” (Christian Disciplines) 

And if we are to come anywhere near carrying out the first and greatest commandment—loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:31, Deuteronomy 6:4)—we start by increasingly knowing Him. 

I could have said “No,” I wanted to say “No,” but I said “Yes.” I stepped forward. 

As I told you last week, one by one, I placed my kids on an altar, of sorts, that I had pictured in my mind. I began with my precious Karen. I had to let go, offer her up to God, walk away, and grieve—grieve—for days. 

I repeated the process with son Matt. 

My mourning was palpable. 

This month-long process left me emotionally spent, numb, my heart torn to shreds. 

Words can’t capture the utter rawness, the unspeakable ravages of dying to oneself in order to die to one’s children, even when we do it because God is asking that of us. 

Only after that excruciating process could I fill out the Wycliffe Bible Translators application. 

And after that, and after I dropped it in the mailbox, once again I determined to set aside time, to attune my ears and heart to God’s, to be alert to His voice. 

What would He say? Would He say He wanted us to serve with Wycliffe? 

Even if His answer was “yes,” I could say “no.” I could turn my back and walk away.

 

A tragic surprise ending to the motherhood I always envisioned

My husband, Dave, was determined to move to the mission field, but I wasn’t sure that was God’s will for us. Yet God seemed to be silent—for months. Oh, how I needed to hear from Him! 

The biggest issue was leaving our children. How could we live half a world away from our son and daughter for four long years?—and then another four years? 

Silently I cried out, When I became a mother, I did not plan to walk away from my children after only twenty-one years! 

I always dreamed our children and grandchildren would live nearby and that we’d get together often—but now, this! This felt like a tragic surprise ending to the motherhood I always envisioned. 

At the same time, I knew how much Dave wanted to join Wycliffe Bible Translators. We had worked with Wycliffe before—in South America, when our kids were little—and I believed wholeheartedly in their work. 

When I thought rationally about working with Wycliffe again, part of me felt okay, but I could find no peace about leaving my children. I feared I might die of a broken heart if I had to live so far away from them. What should I do? 

For months, I asked God to show me how to balance my responsibility to my husband, our children, and my Lord. 

And finally—finally!—I sensed some direction from Him. I sensed God asking me to do something similar to what He had asked Abraham—to place his child on an altar as a sacrifice to Him. God’s request would reveal to Him, and perhaps just as important, it would reveal to Abraham, whether God was Number One in his life. 

God told us in the Ten Commandments, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). Jesus called that the first and greatest commandment, saying, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). 

I knew that God wanted, and deserved, my highest loyalty, and that He didn’t want me to let anything or anybody—not even my children—take priority over Him. However, I knew those things in only an academic way. 

The time had come to move beyond mere head knowledge and to apply those principles to my real life. 

I thought of the times I had felt God’s tug, and the accompanying pain in my heart, while I sang the words—sincerely, I thought—“Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”* 

My all. Had I really meant those words? My all? Even my children? 

God seemed to stand there and ask if I would give highest priority to Him and His plans for me rather than to my plans to live near my children. 

But I had questions. First, when Abraham obeyed God and put Isaac on the altar, He let Abraham untie his son and take him home. If I, figuratively, placed my children on the altar, would God “untie” them and give them back to me? Or did He want me to sever my relationship with them? Or, could there be something in between?       

Eventually I knew what I had to do. 

One by one, I placed each person on an altar I had pictured in my mind. I began with daughter Karen. I had to let go, offer her up to God, walk away, and grieve for a few days. 

I repeated the process with son Matt, and then my parents. I did the same with our possessions, our life in Port Angeles, our home, our job security, and our income. 

This month-long process left me emotionally spent but, afterward, I could fill out the application to Wycliffe Bible Translators.  (from  Chapter 2, Grandma’s Letters from Africa) 

Oswald Chambers wrote, “Sometimes we have to look up mutely to God and say ‘I don't understand it at all, but go on with what You are doing.’” Those words surely capture what I felt during those months. 

Chambers went on to say, “That marks a real stage of learning to trust in God.” I was so emotionally and physically exhausted at the end of the month-long grieving process that I couldn’t have put my experience into words, but looking back now, I suppose Chambers was right—I was indeed learning to trust in God. 

Chambers continued: “Spiritual experience has begun; suffering has already deepened the soul.” 

On his Facebook Page, My Utmost for His Highest, Chambers asked—asks me, asks you—“What is God doing that defies understanding? What do I hope to gain by resisting? What can I hope to gain by trusting?” (Christian Disciplines)

*“When I Survey The Wondrous Cross,” Isaac Watts and Lowell Mason, in Baptist Hymnal, ed. Walter Hines Sims (Nashville: Convention Press, 1959) 99.

 

 

Still wrestling down that elephant in the room

Let’s continue looking at that elephant in the room. Last week I noted that Chuck Swindoll nailed it when he said, “Sometimes people and things can become too important to us. We grip them with closed fists and white knuckles, and God has to pry open our fingers to loosen our hold.” (Abraham, The Friend of God) 

God was trying to pry open my fists so I’d hold my young adult children less fiercely. And it hurt. Oh, yes, it hurt! 

But God asked many people before me to loosen their grip on their kids, too. 

Think about Abraham. 

At first it makes no sense that the God of grace, the God of mercy, comfort, and unfailing love would ask Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering (Genesis 22:2). 

God had promised Abraham this son, Isaac. God had promised descendants through Isaac—as many as the stars in the heavens. He’d promised to make Isaac’s descendants into a great nation and give them the Promised Land. He’d said that all people on earth would be blessed through Isaac. 

And yet God wanted Abraham to put Isaac to death? 

Now, God and Abraham had already enjoyed a long, close relationship, the type illustrated in Genesis 17:3—when God appeared before him, Abraham fell on his face. 

“Note the times when Abraham did not speak before God but remained silent before Him—not sullen, but silent. Awe is just that—reverential dread and wonder. . . . Awe is the condition of a man’s spirit when he realizes who God is and what He has done for him personally. . . . 

“Abraham’s posture is an expression of deep humility, trustful confidence, and pure joy—the characteristics of faith in God." (Oswald Chambers, Not Knowing Where; [emphasis added]). 

That’s important information. God made His request within the context of a trusting, personal relationship. 

The NIV study Bible note for Genesis 22:2 reads: “Abraham had [previously] committed himself by covenant to be obedient to the Lord and had consecrated his son Isaac to the Lord.” 

Given that, God’s request of Abraham seemed based on, and a result of, Abraham’s willingness to “walk the talk,” to follow through on his covenant and commitments. 

One key to understanding God’s bizarre request is the burnt offering. The NIV Study Bible explains: “The Hebrew word for ‘offering’ used here [Leviticus 1:2-3] comes from the word translated ‘brings.’ An ‘offering’ is something that someone ‘brings’ to God as a gift (most offerings are voluntary, such as the burnt offering). . . . Anyone could offer special burnt offerings to express devotion to the Lord.” An NIV Study Bible chart defines burnt offering as a voluntary act of worship, an expression of devotion, commitment, and complete surrender to God [emphasis added]. 

God asked Abraham if he’d offer up Isaac voluntarily, as an act of worship, as a gift, as an expression of his devotion to Him. 

“The Lord put his servant’s faith and loyalty to the supreme test, thereby instructing Abraham, Isaac and their descendants as to the kind of total consecration the Lord’s covenant requires” (NIV Study Bible note for Genesis 22:2). 

“The very nature of faith is that it must be tried; faith untried is only ideally real, not actually real. . . . God proved Abraham’s faith by placing him in the most extreme crisis possible, for faith must prove itself by the inward concession of the believer’s dearest objects.” (Oswald Chambers, Not Knowing Where) 

God asked Abraham, as part of their covenant, to give Him his dearest and best so He could give Abraham gems and buried treasure: His better. 

This was God’s supreme test of Abraham’s faith and loyalty. 

This was a pivotal point in Abraham’s life. He could do what God asked, or he could pretend God had not spoken. 

Abraham was about to discover if indeed God was his first priority. 

And as for me: God was offering me a glimpse into whether or not He was my first priority.

 

Angst over anticipating our three-month orientation course

September 9 through December 2, Dave and I participated in Kenya Safari, Wycliffe’s field orientation course designed to teach skills for living in remote settings.

We had worked with Wycliffe Bible Translators in South America fifteen years earlier but, because we’d made a short-term commitment then, only three years, we didn’t need to take an orientation course. This time, though, in Africa, we’d made a long-term commitment and had to take the course.

In South America, did we hear stories! Friends and coworkers told us about their orientation, called Jungle Camp, in a remote locale in the Chiapas area of southern Mexico.

Jungle Camp was more than an orientation course—it was a survival course. They told me that participants who didn’t do well in the three-month course were disqualified as members of Wycliffe.

They told stories of building their own shelters in isolated jungle settings, of making their own mud stoves, and of learning how to butcher whatever jungle critters they could find. They told stories of lots of hiking, and/or riding mules over rough mountain trails, and paddling up rivers—some trips taking two or three days—and sleeping in hammocks strung from trees.

Mickey Richards wrote this of her 1973 experience with her husband in Jungle Camp during their five weeks of Main Base, the easiest part of their training:

“On an overnight trip . . . we stayed in the home of a family in a village we visited. We had dinner with the Tzeltals [an indigenous group]. . . . After singing songs and talking with people [in the Tzeltal language], we were shown our sleeping quarters. Behind the house was a wooden building of ill-fitting boards, and it was there we slept. 

“Our bed was a set of wooden boards set up on sawhorses. We wore our clothes to bed that night, the same clothes we had worn during the day. We had brought our own blankets . . . but nothing to put under us, and it was extremely uncomfortable. . . . 

“We could hear their hogs outside the building making grunting noises most of the night. Fleas were rampant, and they got inside of our pants and made us miserable.”  (Read more from her blog post as well as from her book, A Joyful Life in God’s Hands, The Mickey Richards Story.)

After several weeks at the Main Base, participants set out for Advanced Base, designed to increase their skills and toughen them physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually for the jobs they would soon begin in equally primitive locales.

Transitioning into Main Base started with a long hike (for some it was an overnight hike). The following is Rich Mansen’s account of that from his new memoir, Trail Posts: Defining Moments of My Life:

We all hiked together, campers, children and a few staff. Our destination: twenty miles across the savannah and into the rain forest, closer to the mountains and the Guatemalan border—yes, farther from the comforts of Main Base. 

Mid-morning we crossed the first stream. Some got to ride over on a mule, the rest slung their boots across their shoulders and crossed on bare feet. Young children had it made—two or three on a mule or resting in the lap of a lady in the saddle. 

By lunch break, sweating, aching and with canteens nearly empty, we didn’t care whether we ate or not. Flimsy straw hats shaded sunburned noses. We had tied our pant legs to keep out ticks, but they got in anyway. What a sorry sight—everyone sprawled on the ground, trying to catch a few moments’ rest or quietly picking off ticks. . . . 

The next day we all spread out in search of suitable sites to build our champas. Each family or pair of singles had to locate at least 150 feet away from anyone else. Karis and I found an ideal place close to the river, our only source of water, and close to some wild cane. This was to be our new home turf. 

The following day, we cut a short trail to the river and dug a latrine and garbage pit. Next, we started building our champa, using only machetes—no hammer, no saw, no nails, no rope. The wild cane served a multitude of purposes, from covering the roof to building furniture. Vines hanging from tall trees took the place of nails and rope.”

(I encourage you to read Rich’s Trail Posts: Defining Moments of My Life. Many years after this account, I worked with Rich in Colombia, South America. I wrote about my three years there in my new memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.)

Jungle Camp training got only more difficult from there.

Let me say that again:

Jungle Camp got only more difficult from there.

The stories I heard scared me out of my wits.

I could never do such things!

And then, some fifteen years later,

I found myself setting out

on my own orientation course,

this one in East Africa,

called Kenya Safari.

Oswald Chambers, writing of those who face big challenges, told us to thank God when we catch a vision of the reality of who and what we are compared to what we know God wants us to be.

He’s referring to our recognition of our immaturity, inexperience, and inadequate training; our less-than-perfect physical, mental, and emotional condition; the state of our spiritual health.

He writes, “You have had the vision [of what you could be], but you are not there yet. . . . It is when we are in the valley . . . that most of us turn back.

“We are not quite prepared for the blows which must come if we are going to be turned into the shape of the vision.

“We have seen what we are not, and what God wants us to be, but are we willing to have the vision ‘batter’d to shape and use’ by God?” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest)

Come back next Monday

and I’ll tell you about setting out for

our orientation course, Kenya Safari.