Winter training of 2006 came to a glorious and wonderful conclusion tonight. This time Ava & I stayed in Irvine to watch real-time webcast. Our life pattern has changed quite a bit, so we must adapt to it. Ava began working full time since October, and Aveline is growing up day by day. Me? the same old thing: writing, teaching, reading. Life is becoming routine to us, but the Lord used this Winter training to remind us the first love, His preciousness, and reality of our daily living.
This training is about the Gospel of Mark, a short, concise record of the life and work of Jesus. Mark gave us a vivid picture of Jesus as a slave savior and a genuine God-man. He began His ministry as a bond slave of God the Father, yet ended up with glorious resurrection, ascension, and transfiguration. Today He not only sits on the throne as Lord of all lords, but also lives in our spirit as the Live-Giving Spirit. What a process, and what a Slave-Savior! We, those who believe in Him, are the soil in which He sows the seed of life and makes that seed grow and develop. We also are commissioned by Him to spread the gospel of the kingdom. The Kingdom is nothing less than Christ Himself. This gospel hence is way higher than mere happiness and comfortable living as preached by common Christianity.
This training has certainly awakened me, although I attended only 6 sessions. The training ended with a report and prayer of incoming gospel move in Russia and former-USSR region that shall soon unfold in January 2007. Also, Brother Benson stressed the urgent need to migrate to Western Europe for the Lord's move there.
When I was in my early 20s, I was in tears hearing the story of a British missionary, an old & sick one, encouraging young people to preach the gospel overseas, especially in India. He had a heart condition that didn’t allow him to speak loudly and for too long, but in that afternoon the Lord didn't let him go and stirred him up; so he stood up, took the podium, admonished the elite young college students to consecrate themselves to the Lord for overseas moves. He got so desperate that his heart can’t function well, and he fainted and passed out for a few minutes. When he became conscious again, a physician warned him not to go back to the podium. Undeterred, he retook it and declared, “when Her Excellency Queen Victoria asked you to commit your life for the honor of England, you all answered her call and fought for the nation; now the King of all kings is calling you up for kingly service, you responded by saying that we Englishmen can no longer offer my highest Lord any competent young man! If no one answers His call and His move to preach the gospel in India, I, aging, weak, and illed, will definitely go and die there.” That was exactly what he did. He answered the Lord’s call and died in India. This story was so romantic to me. Surely I regarded highly of that missionary. He did what he could, and he even exceeded what he could do. But now, sitting in southern California and listening to Benson’s sharing about migration, spreading the gospel of the kingdom, and giving everything to the Lord, it becomes so real. Still, I am thrilled, excited, and stirred up. But I am in my early 30s, many considerations can bring me down. Family, wife, kid, my career, my parents, etc.
But may the Lord have mercy on me, that I would be as touched as the first time I heard of this. May the Lord carry me still, just like He carried Peter, who failed so miserably yet was transformed and renewed so much. Lord, make me ready in this tunnel that by the end of it I would go, and go willingly. The Lord did particular things at particular time in a particular locality. If I miss that opportunity of His present move, what would I become of?
