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- Written by: Don Goulding
For what does it benefit a person if he gains the whole world but forfeits his life? Or what can a person give in exchange for his life? (Matthew 16:26)
I played Monopoly with two missionary children in Esztergom, Hungary. Nine-year-old Mario rubbed his hands, then traded properties and money for railroads and hotels.
Several turns later, Mario landed on another player’s square and couldn’t pay the rent. He bowed in silent protest as tears ran down his cheeks.
“I don’t want to mortgage my properties.”
We waited, but Mario refused to budge. His sister, the game banker, picked up his hotels and reconciled his accounts.
I wanted to say, “Those aren’t real hotels or houses, and this is fake money. How can you get so upset over a game?”
My words would’ve been self-incriminating.
Earthly life is not for keeps. My properties and even my family are temporary pieces moving around a game board. Compared to the things of heaven, they are miniature red hotels and plastic green houses. Yet, when I’m faced with a loss, I act like a cry baby. I don’t want to talk to God. I only want what I want. He is forced to take out of my hands what I will not yield.
It’s time to grow up. My existence in Christ operates quite beyond the temporal board on which I’m standing. My health, fortunes, and relationships may all crumble, but as long as I have Jesus, I possess everything. Loss can only hurt me if I let it shake my hold on him. So let the pieces fall where they may, I’ll not cry over a game.
Prayer: Jesus, expose anything I hold more tightly than I hold you.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
I have a pet sin, a private little darkness that I love, and hate. It disgusts my Inmost Me and so he forms a coalition with my Intellect. Together, they strategize how the sin must go. They persuade my Body into kneeling and prostrating itself. There is repentance, sorrow, and even moist eyes.
Inmost Me and Intellect bring God close and rejoice over his healing. They sign covenants and make speeches about how I can help others out of the same problem. They’re at peace, and even my fickle body joins their sacred repose.
My Old Nature watches Inmost Me and Intellect from the corner. He’s not welcome in their deliberations, so he lets them talk about him as they post lists of what will not be tolerated in the house. They may want to please God, but he has no such desire.
Old Nature lets his enemies finish their self-congratulatory ceremonies and drift into a confident sleep. Then he slithers out to the garbage heap, and brings the abandoned sin back into the house.
Inmost Me and Intellect awaken, stunned that all their work has been so easily undone. They rouse Body to ask what happened, but he only shrugs and points at Old Nature.
And so the house war is on again. There are big plans afoot. There must be deeper repentance and better accountability. Old Nature is bound and gagged. Tighter rules are posted.
As he sulks in his corner again, Old Nature’s gaze is on his favorite sin, out in the garbage heap. And he nibbles at the ropes.
There’s only one hope for a person like me—that Jesus would see my struggle and, at the end of my days, he would honor my Inmost Me and Intellect for never giving up, and that he would, at last, destroy my Old Nature.
Prayer: Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, my only hope.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
I wait for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning. (Psalms 130:6) (NIV)
Rajkamari was a lithe Indian beauty with clear almond eyes and gleaming hair down to her waist. This godly young lady obediently entered an arranged marriage at age fifteen to a mentally disabled cousin. When I baptized her in Chennai, India, she was in her prime, at age twenty-one, and faced with many years serving a childlike husband.
I guessed that Rajkamari was born into a culture with no other opportunities, so she went limp at her fate. But then, she expressed her inner thoughts.
“I love Billy’s pure, kind heart.”
Rajkamari spoke of her lifetime mate with the gratitude Jesus put inside her. She considered the promises in the Bible, and its commandment to honor her husband, and made the disciplined choice to wait for the Lord.
Rajkamari was neither a defeatist nor a materialist insisting on her way. She was a joyful daughter of the Most High God, set on leaving her future in his hands. She grasped a truth that often eludes me.
Waiting on the Lord is not for those who have no choice, rather it’s the radical path of those who know life is too important to squander on earthly gains. With titanium strong hearts, they trust God when physical senses report nothing but defeat. Only an incorruptible spirit, like Rajkamari, can truly wait on the Lord.
In her temporal life, Rajkamari had little opportunity for education or income. A girl born into her caste was scarcely respected above the family cow. But she seized an opportunity few of us even recognize. She clamped her delicate fingers around God’s promise to reward those who trust him, and she waited.
Prayer: More than the watchman waits for the morning, I wait for you, my King.