Tag Archives: prayer

Priming the Pump

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Priming the Pump

 An Illustrative Story for Very Old Readers.
My family immigrated from the Netherlands to Canada when I was twelve years old. One of the old farmhouses we lived in had a well with a hand pump where we got all our water. A neighbour came to show me how to use the pump since my job would be to haul pails of water to the house.

He took a tin can of water that stood next to the pump and poured some into the pump, where the shaft moved up and down. He then explained about a leather disk on the shaft inside the pipe that needed to be wet before it could suck up air first and then water. I didn’t understand how it worked, but I did catch on to “First, pour water into the pump to prime it.”

An Illustrative Story for Old Readers.
When I learned to drive, I was told the car needed special handling, I had to “prime the engine” before it would start. I started to imagine pouring gasoline into the engine, and was relieved when he gave me three simple instructions: “Turn the ignition key, stomp on the gas pedal five or six times, then push the start button.” I did, and the engine started immediately. In his follow-up explanation, he lost me right after “pumping the gas pedal.” I had never heard of a carburetor, but I understood his directions to “prime the engine,” it worked every time.

An Illustrative Story for Farmer Readers
When we began raising hens for the eggs, I showed hens where to lay their eggs by putting a white plaster egg into each nest. Before I primed their pump, they tended to lay their eggs anywhere on the chicken house floor.

One Way to Prime the Pump on our Spiritual Life
This week I remembered how, years ago, the Spirit convicted me of not regularly obeying the commands, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (Col. 3:2) and “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (Phil. 4:8)

David’s Example
I also remembered how the Spirit led me to prime the pump in focusing on God and His Word. He brought back to my memory certain Psalms that David used to prime his pump.
“In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning, I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.” (5:3)
“Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you.” (143:8.)
“I will sing of your strength in the morning I will sing of your love.” (59:16)
“Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” (90:14)

David built a habit to start his waking day by focusing on God. That habit was his way of priming the pump. He also focused on God at noon and in the evening. Centuries later, the prophet Daniel also prayed three times daily, habitually starting his waking day focused on God to prepare himself for God-oriented action.

Then, chuckling to myself, I realized that millennia later, Jack and Jo are also using the early morning prayer habit to prime the pump for day-long focus on God, the “things above” and that list of excellent things to think about.

So, What About You?
When I was much younger, it always bothered me that every devotional I read about having a “quiet time” in the morning was written by old people. Now that I am an old guy myself, I can see why. We old folks tend to wake up early and take naps after lunch. Younger folk have school or work schedules that don’t fit easily into an early morning prime-the-pump habit.
You may want to ask the Holy Spirit to guide you into your unique prime-the-pump action. I would love to hear how younger folk prime your pump to focus on God. I may use your prime-the-pump stories in a follow-up blog post to encourage others.

 

 

Focus on Writing Ministry

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First Mention of Jabez
Two weeks ago, in my first blog post of the New Year, I mentioned that decades ago, I read a booklet, The Prayer of Jabez, and prayed his prayer, “Oh, that You would bless me and enlarge my territory!” 1 Chron. 4:10
The result was that God granted my request, vastly expanded our speaking ministry, and even got us started in writing and publishing books.

Focus Prayer on Writing Ministry
I reread this booklet in December, and instead of the traditional “New Year’s Resolution,” I wrote a personal update of Jabez’s prayer and read it daily. Here it is:

“Please bless me abundantly in the writing ministry you have given me. Use the blog posts, stories, and books you lead me to write to expand your Kingdom on earth greatly. And keep me from the evil one’s temptations.”

Praying First
I have prayed this writing ministry-focused prayer every day since early December. The reason for this new focus is that Jo and I cannot travel long distances anymore, and I find it nearly impossible to think of the next thing to write when I have a speaking engagement looming on the horizon.

I look forward to continuing to work together with Jo who reads everything I write and always gives helpful suggestions for improvement. We expect to work together like this for whatever years God still grants us in life and health. We are already beginning to recognize some of God’s blessings in this ministry.

The first five books we wrote and published were collections of blog posts I had written in previous years. The next three books were short memoirs, of a child, a teenager, and a family man leaving for Brazil. These eight books were processed by volunteers and published cheaply through Amazon.
The current memoir, however, covers the twenty-two years our ministry was focused on Brazil. Those decades turned out to be a spiritual battle for the souls of the Canela people.

Result of Prayer
I was pleased to discover that God had already begun to answer our daily Jabez prayer and blessed us financially to the point that we now had money to have this memoir professionally edited and published by a highly experienced publisher.

The book will be going through several edit levels, and we are still constantly making significant improvements to it. We are excited, however, to know that God continues to bless not only the writing ministry of this book but four other writing tasks we are working on.
One of them is to write the explanations under photos of a large Canela photo book being compiled and published by our oldest daughter, Valorie, and her husband. It will make an excellent companion piece for the current main book!

 

God’s Secret Weapon

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God’s Secret Weapon

The Problem
Each time Jo or I told a story to the Canela people about Jesus performing a miracle, they told us a story of the great exploit of some Canela culture hero from their legends and myths. We tried to tell them that the stories we told them were special, true, real, and unique. Our stories were about the Great Father’s Son. They didn’t understand the difference. We prayed that someday they would.

Then it got worse. The Brazilian government changed, and the new officials would not allow any missionaries to live and work among any indigenous peoples. We felt like we lived in exile away from our home and friends in the Canela village. We prayed that God would intervene.

 The Permit
We kept on working at the mission centre in the city, completing seven easy-reading booklets and the books of Luke, Acts, and 1&2 Thessalonians. When the newly printed books arrived, we made a formal request to the government to visit the Canela village to deliver these ten books.
We praised God when we received a notice that permission had been granted but with exceptions. I had to fly to Sao Luis to see the government official. He gave me the permit and asked me to read it, paying careful attention to the last sentence. “The books of sacred Scripture are not  included in this permit.”
“Sign this permit,” the official said, “to promise you will not leave the Scripture books in the village.” I shot up a prayer and signed the document. At the centre, we all prayed for God’s solution.

The Excitement
The next day, John, a fellow missionary, and I loaded a steel drum with seventy-five sets of books packed in plastic bags onto his pickup truck and left for the Canela. They received us with great joy and excitement especially when they saw the seventy-five parcels of ten books in their language. The chief and elders immediately ordered me to the central plaza to report.
I showed them each of the seven reading books. The elders were pleased to see several of their favourite legends in print. When I finished, the chief pointed to the three remaining books, the Scripture books. “What about those books?” he asked.
“Oh, those are different. I can’t leave them here, even though we made them for you to read.”
“Why not? What are they about?”
“One is about Jesus, the Son of the Great Father, when He lived on earth long ago. And the other is about what the followers of Jesus did, the thin one is the counsel of Paul, one of the elders of the Jesus group.”
“Well, you can at least tell us what is in those books,” the chief said.

The Explanation
So, for the next hour, I read excerpts from each of the Scripture books.
“We really want those books!” the chief exclaimed, “Why can’t you leave them?”
“I promised not to leave them. But I’ll leave them with my friend Sr. Duca in Barra town,” I said, “You can go there and pick them up and bring them in yourselves.”
The Canela elders complained, “It’s seventy kilometres to town. That’s four days of walking!”
“Do those government people have these stories in their language?” the chief asked.
“Yes, they have. All the stories about Jesus were translated into Portuguese long ago. Brazilians have been reading them for many generations.”
“Then, why can’t we read those books and choose whether we want them or not? They did!” the chief exclaimed.
“Just leave them here,” one of the elders advised, “We won’t tell anyone you did.”
“No, I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” I said, showing them my copy of the document, “I promised the government chief that I would not leave them in the village and signed this paper.”

The Chief’s Anger
Suddenly, the chief sprang up, pulling his machete from its sheath. He laid the sharp edge on his forearm, and, with his face inches from mine, shouted, “If I cut my arm what comes out? Blue stuff? No! Red blood. We Canelas are human beings just like those city people! Why do they treat us as if we aren’t people? Why can’t we have what they have had for a long time?”
I couldn’t answer, and we sat quietly for a while. Then the chief said, “The elders’ council will talk about this some more, and in the morning, we’ll tell you what we have decided.”

God’s Reveals His Weapon
At sunrise, the chief ordered, “Put all those books back into that steel drum on your truck. Then, drive back up the road through the gate where the Indian land ends. My son will follow you on the government tractor and will bring the drum back and distribute the books. You will have kept your promise, and we will have all the books.”

We heard later that the first books everyone wanted to read were, of course, the special books, the forbidden ones. It was a clear example of Psalm 76:10, “Human defiance only enhances your glory, for you use it as a weapon.” (NLT). God used the government’s angry prohibition to draw attention to the uniqueness of His Word. From then on, the Canelas considered the Bible stories as special, true, and unique.

When, over ten years later, the Scriptures were published the book was called, Pahpam Jarkwa Cupahti Jo Kahhoc. God’s Highly Respected Word.

(This is an excerpt from the memoir of the Canela Decades we are currently completing, From Adventure to Spiritual Battle.)

Remembrance Day Special: My Vivid Childhood Memory of War

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This Friday is November 11, Remembrance Day.
The news of the suffering in Ukraine, reminded me of growing up as a child in enemy-occupied Holland during the 2nd World War. The events in this story took place in Hilversum during the bitterly cold winter of 1943—’44. My father, mother, little sister, and I tried to stay out of sight of the soldiers who terrified us. It would be another sixteen months before good Canadian soldiers came to chase away the bad ones.

Chapter 4, Hansje Gathers Firewood
When Hansje was almost six years old, he wished that he was older because he wanted to do things that big people did. His Papa and Mama were always talking about how they needed to find more food because their family was always hungry. And now that it was cold, they needed to find more firewood to burn in the heater.

Hansje, the Scavenger
Hansje always kept his eyes open when he wandered around the streets of his neighbourhood to see if he could find something valuable that didn’t belong to anybody. One day he found three nails, a screw, and a long piece of string, so he brought them home to give to his parents. Another day he found an empty bottle.

His Mama and Papa were happy when he brought things like that home because they couldn’t buy nails or string in stores anymore since the stores were empty. Hansje was happy too because when he brought useful things home, it made him feel like a grown-up and not just a little kid.

One day, Hansje did something that made his Mama very happy. It was very cold, and they had only a little bit of wood and coal to burn in their heater to make the house warm and to cook their little bit of food. But that day, when Hansje came home from playing outside, all his pockets were full of small pieces of firewood, and his arms were so full he had to kick the door until Mama opened it. Wow! She was so glad to see all that firewood! “We’re going to be warm tonight!” she said happily. “Where did you get this firewood?” she asked.

“Oh, I found it on the street,” Hansje said, not looking her in the eye. But that was only partly true. He did pick it up from the street, but he hadn’t really found it. Instead, to get that wood, he had done a very dangerous thing. If his Mama had known how he got all that firewood, she would have made him promise never to do it again.

Hansje Does Something Dangerous
But she didn’t know, so the next day, Hansje took a cloth sack, folded it up flat and stuck it into his belt. He was only five, almost six years old, but he felt much bigger since he was doing something important for his whole family. He walked down the block to a certain street corner and hid behind a hedge with three other boys. The other boys were six and seven years old and told little Hansje to sit really still while they waited.

Finally, Hansje could hear the rumble of a large truck driving down the street towards the corner. One enemy soldier was driving, and one was sitting beside him, holding his big gun. The back of the truck was full of—you guessed it—small pieces of firewood! And sitting on top of the pile was a prisoner with a chain on his leg. The chain was fastened to the truck, so he couldn’t jump off and run away. He was a good man from the city where Hansje lived. But the enemy soldiers had taken him as a prisoner and made him work for them.

Hansje and his friends scrunched down further into the hedge so the bad soldiers in the cab of the truck wouldn’t see them. His heart pounded with excitement. He prayed silently that God would help him, although he wondered if God would be okay with helping him do something sneaky.

As the big truck slowly drove by, Hansje and his friends crept out of their hiding place. They ran right close behind the truck so the bad soldiers in the cab couldn’t see them, not even in the truck mirrors. As soon as the truck began to turn the corner, the prisoner started throwing armloads of firewood off the back of the truck.

The boys picked up every scrap of wood that the prisoner threw off the truck. They could only do it by that corner because the street was so narrow that the driver had to be very careful how he drove and didn’t have time to look in the rearview mirrors.

What Hansje and those other boys did was, of course, a very dangerous thing to do. What if one of the bad soldiers had looked in the rearview mirrors and had seen some boys picking up firewood from the street? They would have stopped the truck, jumped out, yelled at the boys, and shot their guns to make them drop the firewood. Also, the prisoner would get into big trouble.

Hansje Makes His Mama Happy
The boys knew this, so as soon as they had stuffed all the firewood into their bags, they quickly ran away home, and the prisoner just sat there looking as if nothing had happened as the truck kept driving away.

When Hansje got home, his Mama was very happy with the bag of wood. That made Hansje happy too, and he felt even more like a grown-up.  Hansje never told his Mama how he got that wood. Good thing too, or she would have been worried.

That night in his bedtime prayer Hansje thanked God for helping him get firewood, and he prayed that God would soon send good soldiers to chase the bad ones away.

The story in this blog post is chapter 4 of the memoir of my first twelve years of life. This book of true stories for children is called The Misadventures of Hansje, the Boy who Kept his Guardian Angel Busy.

Halloween, the Celebration of Fear

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Halloween, the Celebration of Fear

Spiders!


This week, fear-inducing scenes surround us. Figures of demons, devils and ghosts startle us as we walk into the mall, ducking to avoid spider-filled cobwebs hanging in doorways. Theatres advertise horror films, and Halloween costume parties are replete with vampires, witches, and warlocks. Yes, this coming Monday is Halloween, the yearly celebration of things we fear.

We usually think of fear as a negative emotion. Jesus kept telling His followers, “Don’t be afraid.” But there is also a positive side to fear.

What We Fear Shows What We Value
I have lived for extended periods in nearly a dozen countries. People in every culture and society consider their bodies important. They all dread suffering a crippling accident or debilitating disease. They profoundly respect loaded firearms, powerful machinery, poisonous snakes, and disease-carrying insects. Fear is what drives us to doctors for medical advice, while others call on shamans or engage in other actions that they believe will keep them alive and well.

One of the most positive aspects of fear is that it helps us to understand ourselves better. What we dread shows us what we value. To determine what things I value the most, I recently listed six things that frighten me the most:

  • I fear committing “moral lapse” sins. I read of fellow Christian leaders, speakers, and authors who, through pride, abuse their power as communicators. Others, through greed and envy, embezzle ministry funds. Others, through lust and gluttony, sin by inappropriate sexual conduct, overeating or drunkenness.
  • I value my fellowship with God and my reputation with those who know me. I value the respect of my wife, my family, and my colleagues. I value my current public ministry as an author and my history as a leader, speaker, and pioneer Bible translator.

 

  • I fear suffering a crippling physical or mental injury or disease.
  • I value serving God with my mind and body. I value physical comfort and freedom from pain. I value exercising a wide range of life choices and options.

 

  • I fear messed-up relationships with my family, friends, and colleagues.
  • I value our interdependence, helping each other to succeed, and the resulting mutual respect and appreciation.

 

  • I fear poverty.
  • I value being treated by God as His money manager, to give to those in need, to meet my personal and family needs; and to finance the cost of publishing what I write.

 

  • I fear losing all my computer data, my creative writing, personal history, my fifty-plus years of daily diaries, and a lifetime collection of photos, etc.
  • I value the written record of what I have done and experienced in the past because I constantly learn how God has led me, and I tap into it for my writing ministry.

 

  • I fear that our children, grandchildren, and their spouses may suffer the same sort of losses and troubles that I fear.
  • I value that God listens to my wife and me as we pray by name for each member of our family. We are like the apostle John who wrote, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” (3 JN 4)

So What?
During this Halloween week, let’s remember that even if some of our fears come true, our souls are safe. As children of God, we can sing, “Though trials should come . . . It is well with my soul.”

The Canela people, among whom Jo and I worked as Bible translators for twenty-three years, were terrified of evil spirits and the malevolent ghosts of their ancestors who were intent on sickening and killing the Canelas. When they received God’s Word in their language, huge changes came to believers who knew God’s powerful Holy Spirit now lived in their bodies, and they had nothing to fear from spirits and ghosts.

Hundreds of millions of people, however, continue to live in daily fear, beset by Satanic forces. They don’t know that Jesus, the Son of God, has overcome Satan. They, too, need to hear Jesus say, in their own language, “Trust in me, don’t be afraid.”

Why Does Our Almighty, All-knowing God Want us to Pray?

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It was Wednesday evening at the Bible translation centre in Belem, Brazil, the night when all the missions personnel gathered to share stories and pray for each other. For nearly two decades, whenever we returned from the Canela village for a consultant break on the centre, our whole family attended these prayer meetings. Now, however, we were within a few years of finishing the translation program, and our daughters had left Brazil for university. Valorie studied in Los Angeles, Leanne in Edmonton, and Cheryl in Capernwray, Germany.

The Story
Our neighbour and colleague, Marj, had something to share. “I just got a letter from our son Ken in Texas. A few weeks ago, he was riding home on his motorcycle around 1 a.m. after working late at his part-time job. He was exhausted, very drowsy, and suddenly collided with another vehicle. The impact threw him off his motorcycle, but he landed unhurt on the lawn of somebody’s house.

Then I remembered how a couple of weeks ago, I suddenly woke up around 4 a.m. feeling anxious about Ken. I immediately prayed for him until the fear left; I was at peace and went back to sleep. Today, when I read Ken’s letter, I checked the date and the time zone difference. Sure enough, God woke me up to pray for Ken on the very night and time as he was riding his motorcycle home.”

Does God Need Our Help, or What?
Hearing that story, Jo and I felt a firm assurance that God was taking care of our children as well, and we committed to be sensitive to his urging in our hearts to pray for them, not just regularly in our devotional time, but when the urge to pray hit us. Marj’s story also reminded me of the term the apostle Paul used to describe himself and his team in his first letter to the Corinthians. In 3:9, “We are co-workers with God.” In 6:1, “We are working together with God.” Paul was writing poetically about planting and watering, and that it was God who made things grow.

God had awakened Marj and given her the urge to pray for Ken who was in danger while riding his motorcycle 6,000 kilometres away. Why did God need her to pray? Because He wants His people to work together with Him. As we pray, He works to answer the prayer.

Two Stories From Long Ago
The fact that the outcome of God’s work somehow depends on our prayers is vividly illustrated in Exodus 17:8-15. The first battle after Israel’s escape through the Red Sea was an attack by the Amalekites. Joshua fought them on the open plain while Moses stood on top of a hill and lifted his staff to God as a symbol of prayer. As long as Moses lifted his staff high, Israel was winning, but when he got tired, and his staff sank and wavered, Amalek prevailed against Israel. Aaron and Hur found a rock for Moses to sit on, then held up his arms on either side, for a full day, until sundown and Israel won the battle. Verse 14, “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it.’” Joshua needed to know that God had won the battle working together with Joshua’s army and their swords, and Moses and his staff of prayer.

Many centuries later, the people of Israel had abandoned the worship of God. Ezekiel the prophet kept urging the people to return to God, warning them of disaster ahead. At the end of a long description of how He planned to destroy the nation, God said, “I searched for one man among them . . .  a man who could advocate for the land, a man who could convince Me not to destroy it; but I found no one. Ezekiel 22:30. The next verse starts, “So, I will turn my anger loose on them . . .” The nation was destroyed, but even just one person interceding for mercy could have stopped the judgment.

God Does His Part; We Need to Do Our Part
Did God limit himself to work in this world, mostly in response to His people’s prayers? It seems like it. We do know he wants us to keep in constant connection with him. Maybe something is going on in the spiritual realm we know nothing about, like the story of Job. Let’s be sure we do our part and pray about everything that comes to our minds. Be in constant contact with God’s Holy Spirit and pray at ever urging. As the apostle Paul said, “Pray without ceasing.”