"The fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the soil." – 1 Kings 18:38

In 1967, missionary Jackie Pullinger moved to Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City, a place known for its extreme poverty, crime, and lawlessness. With no formal training, but with deep faith in God’s power, she faced immense pressure from the surrounding environment.. She wrote:

“‘It would be worth my whole life if you would use me to save just one,’ I told the Lord after walking over the legs of men lying in the narrow streets, straddling the open sewers. I soon found that nobody was listening to my preaching, but they were watching my life, so I began to practise what I call, ‘ordinary gospel’, sharing rice with a hungry old lady, taking a gangster to hospital after a fight, queueing overnight to register a young girl for school, paying someone’s rent, going to court with a triad who claimed to be framed.”¹

 Despite the odds, Pullinger believed God for miraculous transformations. She saw drug addicts set free, gang members find peace, and countless lives turned around.

Environments have a powerful effect on the lives of the people who live in them. The famine in Israel was bringing the already-cliché conflict between God and Israel to a moment of crisis. The people had been without water for too long. More importantly and less obviously (as it often is with such things), they were without God. In His place, they were “chasing the dragon²”–any local deity that offered a quick fix or a wild trip, and Baal, the local weather god, was the latest trend with the usual side-effects. And like water, people don’t last long without the God who loves and calls them. So YHWH stops the rain and sends his prophet to provoke a showdown with this punk “storm god.” Baal responds with a rain-check, while YHWH descends in fire, consuming even the non-combustible elements of Elijah’s altar. Between all the fantastic, brow-singing spectacles and bold trash-talk, least impressive is Elijah’s prayer. An ordinary prayer from a “human just like us” (James 5:17) precedes fire from heaven, water from the skies, and a dramatic flip in popular belief. Maybe God’s “anything” is just waiting for an “ordinary gospel” person to pray an ordinary prayer, asking God to make it possible.

Reflection:

• How can you stand firm in your faith amid opposition?
• Where do you need God to reveal His power in your life?
• How can Elijah’s boldness inspire you?

• Photo: An aerial photo of the Kowloon Walled City taken in 1989, by Ian Lambot – http://cityofdarkness.co.uk/order-print/01-aerial-view/Also found in the book City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City by Ian Lambot (ISBN 1-873200-13-7)., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56276674
• Art: Elijah in the wilderness, by Washington Allston, _QHY5MD3BaCeHA at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22141467
• Songs: “Trust in God” by Elevation Worship

1. https://www.ststephenssociety.com/about-us ↩︎
2. The title of Jackie Pullinger’s book, Chasing the Dragon: One Woman’s Struggle Against the Darkness of Hong Kong’s Drug Dens ↩︎

 "God called to him from within the bush, 'Moses! Moses!' And Moses said, 'Here I am.'" – Exodus 3:4

In 1906, the Azusa Street Revival began in Los Angeles, sparked by an ordinary, one-eyed, African-American man, William J. Seymour, responding to God’s call and empowerment. This 9-year revival quickly attracted the attention of popular culture, as people of all skin color, nationality, and gender came together to worship, teach, learn, sing, confess, and pray–something unheard of under the shadow of Jim Crow laws. Azusa became a place where heaven touched earth, and many of those who visited the meetings would never be the same. In fact, the meetings ignited a global movement of ministries and outreach from which, among others, the Assemblies of God was born.

Moses, the Jewish, adopted son of an Egyptian Pharaoh, living in exile as a Midianite shepherd, happens to see a seneh (or sinai, סְנֶה) bush burning without being consumed, and then hears the voice of the God of Israel calling to him from “the middle of the bush.” He, like his true ancestors that God will name, happens to stumble across a “thin” place where heaven and earth come together. It’s a place where God’s burning presence resides in the middle, from a tree aflame with Life. It happens to be the very place where Abraham offered up his son Isaac, “the place” where God “saw to it,” (Gen. 22:14). And now God was providing salvation for his oppressed people. But Moses protests five times. As divinely appointed as all of this seems, maybe YHWH chose the wrong person. YHWH couldn’t disagree more: Abraham, Isaac, and (especially) Jacob were all strange choices, and it’s not our weaknesses, setbacks, fears, or traumas that dictate our destiny–it’s His Presence. He promises Moses, “I will be with you,” (3:12) After all, “who gave man his mouth? Who made him deaf, mute, seeing,” white, black, or blind in one eye? “Is it not [YHWH]” (4:11-12)? May we go, refusing to “lean on our own understanding, and in all our ways” (Prov. 3:5-6) trusting wholeheartedly in Immanuel (Matt. 1:23).

Reflection:

• How might God be calling you in your current season?
• What fears or doubts do you need to surrender to Him?
• How can Moses’ story inspire your obedience?

• Photo: View from the summit of Mt. Sinai, By Mohammed Moussa – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28339508
• Songs:
  • “Available” – Elevation Worship
  • “Holy Ground” – Passion

"When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, the wall collapsed." – Joshua 6:20

During the Civil Rights Movement, men like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and James Lawson led peaceful protests and marches to speak truth to systems that had perfected the use of violence, fear, and death to enforce compliance. Anyone who wished to participate in these protests was given explicitly detailed protocol and instructions, and was required to agree, sign off on, and abide by the terms listed. These terms became known as the 10 commandments of non-violence:

Meditate daily on the teachings and life of Jesus.
Remember always that the non-violent movement seeks justice and reconciliation – not victory.
Walk and talk in the manner of love, for God is love.
Pray daily to be used by God in order that all men might be free.
Sacrifice personal wishes in order that all men might be free.
Observe with both friend and foe the ordinary rules of courtesy.
Seek to perform regular service for others and for the world.
Refrain from the violence of fist, tongue, or heart.
Strive to be in good spiritual and bodily health.
Follow the directions of the movement and of the captain on a demonstration.¹

The people of Israel were finally entering the land God had promised, even though they were like little “grasshoppers” compared to the sophisticated technology, advanced weaponry, and superior strength of the numerous militarized city-states inhabiting the area, of which Jericho would be a prime example. Israel was sure to be gobbled up as soon as they took their first step toward their Promised Rest. Adding insult to the potential for injury, God gives the people strange instructions for disassembling Jericho’s towering defenses. They must first trust Him, then march, and then shout. This would become (or should have become) the strange new normal for Israel: Gather together to obey God’s strange instructions (often appearing weak and vulnerable to the trained tactician) and then celebrate when God wins the battle. May we have ears to hear, like Rahab, the strange stories of God’s salvation and, like Israel, the strange instructions for His march. And may we too “follow the directions of the movement and of The Captain” on His “demonstration” (Romans 5:8).

Reflection:

• What “walls” in your life need to fall?
• How can you step out in faith and obey God’s instructions?
• How does this story encourage you to trust His timing?

• Art: The Siege of Jericho, in a Nestorian Christian plate made by Sogdian artists under Karluk dominion, in Semirechye.² Cast silver of the 9th-10th century, copied from an original 8th century plate, By I, Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16493409
• Songs: “Trust in God” by Elevation Worship

1. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/dexter-avenue-baptist-church-members ↩︎
2. Found in 1909 near village of Anikova, Perm Province, Russia. The scene on this plate has been identified as a series of episodes from the biblical book of Joshua. Reading from the bottom up, the harlot Rahab peers out the window above a door through which she lets Joshua’s spies into the Canaanite city of Jericho. Above, in the center of the plate, priests blow trumpets as the Israelites’ Ark of the Covenant is held aloft (Joshua 2 and 6), and farther up, another Canaanite city has been taken. At the top are the sun and the moon, which at the orders of Joshua (the warrior on horseback in the upper right of the plate) have come to a standstill in the heavens (Joshua 10:12–13). Although the plate was found near Malaya Anikova in the region of the Ural Mountains in Russia, it was probably made in and for a Sogdian Christian community located in Semirechye (southeast Kazakhstan and northern Kyrgyzstan). Situated along trade routes leading east, the region had been settled by Nestorian Christian Sogdians, whose communities survived into early Islamic times. ↩︎

"Jesus said, 'I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.'" – John 11:25

Trigger Warning: explicit description of death and violence from WWII

The 1940’s saw some of the worst death and loss in the history of Israel and the world at large. Hitler’s Holocaust snuffed out the lives of over six million Jews and left the world deeply scarred. Somehow, Death’s thirst was still not slaked–near the end of the conflict the USA detonated not one but two of the largest and most deadly weapons of mass destruction known to mankind at that point in history. The epicenter of the second plutonium bomb was the Urakami district of Nagasaki, coincidentally the thriving center of Japan’s growing Christian community at the time. Miraculously, a young Christian doctor, Takashi Nagai¹ survived only to escape out of the rubble into the hell that used to be the valley he called home. After days of attending to the innumerable people trapped in rubble and burning alive nearby, he eventually found his way home only to find it destroyed, along with the charred remains of his beloved wife, Midori, clutching her rosary. Not long after, Takashi would gather the surviving believers together at the rubble of the church, urging them to forgive and love their American enemies, even suggesting that perhaps God Himself had directed the second bomb toward their valley so that, like Jesus, the largely Christian community would absorb the death and destruction meant for the rest of the unbelieving world.

Must it always get so dark before first light? In the story of Lazarus, we encounter nearly all the questions, emotions, doubts, and confusions of a lifetime, distilled into 57 potent verses. God waits for death to claim “the one He loves,” allowing the hope for Lazarus’ healing to decay beyond the point of no-return. He lingers long enough for this deferred hope to sufficiently sicken the heart, the painful loss turning to inconsolable grief–bitterly speechless at the paradox of Jesus’ willful negligence. This story also contains some of the greatest displays of emotion that we’ll see from Jesus in the Gospel accounts. Perhaps He could hear in Mary & Martha’s words the same groan of Israel and the rest of His creation, also subjected intentionally to a similar fatal frustration “by Him who subjected it,” (Romans 8:20). King David gave words to the groan in the opening line of Psalm 22: “God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Just like David’s poem, Lazarus’ story doesn’t end in darkness, but becomes the first glow of a more glorious dawn than anyone’s sleepy eyes were ready for. Jesus’ “anything” might even include our deepest loss–are we ready for that to be possible?

Reflection:

• What area of your life needs Jesus’ resurrection power?
• How does this story help you trust God in seasons of waiting?
• How can you bring hope to others facing despair?

• Art: Resurrection of Lazarus by Mauricio García Vega, painting and photograph of Mauricio García Vega, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24220494
• Songs:
  • “Raised to Life” – Elevation Worship
  • “I Speak Jesus” – Charity Gayle
  • “Living God” – Red Rocks Worship

1. Takashi’s story is documented in Paul Glynn’s book, A Song For Nagasaki ↩︎

“Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. - Mark 10:52

Blind Bartimaeus is the last story in the center section of Mark’s Gospel, and the second such healing, mirrored by the blind man in Mark 8:21-26. The first healing didn’t initially seem to “take,” and appeared strangely difficult for Jesus. The stories between these healings contain three revelations of Jesus’ mysterious identity, the first from the lips of Jesus’ oldest disciple, Peter, who boldly declared that Jesus was the awaited Messiah. The section also contains three corresponding predictions from Jesus of the brutal way in which He must suffer and be killed. Each of these predictions is, at best, completely misunderstood or, at worst, directly opposed by his disciples (starring Peter, once again).

Jesus asked the first blind man if he could see–Jesus’ own disciples could see half as well as the half-healed man could–everything was blurry (Mark 8:24). Jesus asks Bartimaeus the deeper question: “What do you want?” (10:51). The disciples wanted to be great and the rich man wanted to be right. May our desires echo the heaven-rending cries of a desperate father, “Help my unbelief!” (9:24) and a blind Bartimaeus, “I want to see!” (10:51) After all, what good is “all things are possible,” (9:23) if we don’t want what God wants?

Reflection:

• What do you need to boldly bring to Jesus in faith?
• How can you persist in prayer, even when discouraged?
• How can Bartimaeus’ story encourage you to overcome obstacles?

• Art: Jesus healing blind Bartimaeus, by Johann Heinrich Stöver, 1861, photo by Marion Halft – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19541671
• Songs: “Trust in God” by Elevation Worship

"Then he got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm." – Luke 8:24

When Jesus calmed the storm by speaking to it, he not only demonstrated his authority over creation, but also made a not-so-subtle claim as to his identity. His actions imitate perfectly the works of YHWH according to the author of Psalm 107:

23 Those who go down to the sea in ships,
Who do business on great waters;
24 They have seen the works of the Lord,
And His wonders in the deep.
25 For He spoke and raised a stormy wind,
Which lifted the waves of the sea.
26 They rose up to the heavens, they went down to the depths;
Their soul melted away in their misery.
27 They reeled and staggered like a drunken person,
And were at their wits’ end.
28 Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
And He brought them out of their distresses.
29 He caused the storm to be still,
So that the waves of the sea were hushed,” (Psalm 107:23-29 NASB)

Jesus, by his actions, put himself on equal standing with the God of Israel, justifying the amazement of his disciples, who were quickly losing any frame of reference for the identity of their teacher, who was peacefully sleeping just moments earlier.  His presence truly brings peace in chaos. May we respond with trust and awe in his power over the uncontrollable forces of chaos in our world, and perhaps find rest in a world that cannot. After all, “he gives sleep to the one he loves,” (Ps. 127:2).

Reflection:

• What storms are raging in your life that you need Jesus to calm?
• How does this story challenge you to trust Him in difficult times?
• What steps can you take to remind yourself of His sovereignty?

• Art: Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, by Ludolf Bakhuizen – 1. Google Cultural Institute2. Indianapolis Museum of Art, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22490883
• Songs: “Peace Be Still” by Belonging Co & Lauren Daigle & “Quiet” by Elevation Rhythm