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- Written by: Don Goulding
Finally, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, affectionate, compassionate, and humble. Do not return evil for evil or insult for insult, but instead bless others because you were called to inherit a blessing. (1 Peter 3:8-9)
Secret agents of grace live among us. Their mission is to infiltrate our world with acts of redemption. Every day, they reverse some of Satan’s evil. Where there is hatred, they inject peace. Where there is sickness, they dose with hope. They sing healing over the seas, and cleansing for our polluted lands.
Although they radiate inner light, these agents appear quite average on the outside. They have crooked teeth and unassuming clothes. They blend in every way. Nothing about them would give away their true assignment. They are single mothers, hunched grandfathers, and polite doormen. Blending allows them to slip into the very grit of our lives and minister there.
Most are unaware of the agents of grace. Yet, if they were recalled from duty, extracted in mass, the world’s lunacy would go unchecked. Pain would have no answer. Brutality would stand unopposed. The secret work of the agents is all that prevents hell from overrunning earth on this very day.
A distinguishing mark of the agents of grace is their refusal to claim recognition. They continually deflect praise, saying they never gave anything that wasn’t undeservedly given to them.
Who are these incognito agents? They are any who follow Christ by choosing to love as they have been loved.
Prayer: Father, let me spread grace today.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
The Lord said to Jonah son of Amittai, “Go immediately to Nineveh, that large capital city, and announce judgment against its people …” Instead, Jonah immediately headed off to Tarshish to escape from the commission of the Lord. … The Lord sent a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights. (Jonah 1:1-3, 17)
Two weeks before a mission to the Middle East, I received a message from the brother arranging my trip.
“I am very sorry to let you know there are many problems in Pakistan. Bombing and shooting. It looks very dangerous, but do as the Lord leads you.”
It was a heated election season aggravated by volatile politics with America.
I asked the Lord if I should make the trip. He let me recall Revelation 12:11. But they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die.
What is safety? Jonah would say that running from ministry results in more danger, not less. He found himself tossed overboard into a killer storm and swallowed by a fish. Only when he obeyed God did the umbrella of protection open above him.
As I agonized over my Middle Eastern trip, I realized there were far greater dangers than the threat of deportation or death. I could lose my chance to honor Jesus in this life. Wasting my few earthly hours on my temporal self is the epitome of foolish, risky behavior.
Safety for the truest me comes from abiding in the exact spot God calls me to. Even if my health suffers, my bank account zeros, or my friendships sour—obeying God guarantees my soul is in the crosshairs of his protection.
I did go to Pakistan. We had to take precautions, such as traveling at night and posting guards, but I saw the kingdom of God expand with power. Serving Jesus under threat was like soaring beneath the wings of angels, whereas safeguarding my hide would have felt like being stuck in the belly of a fish.
Prayer: Father, help me obey your direction and rest in your protection.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
“… I tell you the truth, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20)
In Zimbabwe, the Lord led me to fast for lost souls. I mounted a horse and headed for the highest kopje (hill). For hours I bowed on my face in an abandoned foundation. As God’s holiness moved onto the kopje, I was reduced to recounting my own failures.
“How can you use the prayers of a wayward sinner against the stranglehold of evil on this land?”
The greatness of our God and the smallness of my faith held me to the ground. Linear time ceased as I watched specks dancing over the cement. I stared sideways trying to fathom what I beheld. Hundreds of gray flecks waltzed within the one meter tall brick wall.
In the vista below, Native Africans had set the grasslands on fire to clear the fields. A dozen smoke plumes reached into the sky from three hundred sixty degrees around the kopje. Ashes rained into my temporary sanctuary where the breeze swept them in circles.
Here is how my little faith interpreted the spectacle. The blazes began while I prayed, and just so, God's Spirit put a match to the nonphysical landscape to burn away ancestor worship. With a partnership I didn’t deserve, the Lord used the dancing ashes to demonstrate angelic rejoicing over repentant hearts to come. He heard my small prayers.
A wondrous time of God’s healing followed in the district. Leaders prayed in unity, denominations worshiped together, and witchcraft dried up.
When the prayer of faith strikes the steel of desperation a spark ignites the blast of God’s power.
Prayer: Listening God, hear my small prayers.