I’ve long assumed—incorrectly—that Peter, James, and John only fell asleep during prayer when they were with Jesus at the Garden of Gethsemane on the night when Jesus was betrayed and captured for crucifixion (Matthew 26:40, 43). But as we also learn in Luke 9, it seems they were also snoozing when they were with Jesus up on the mountain at the Transfiguration! (Indeed, it’s quite possible that these guys also fell asleep at other “prayer sessions” that the Synoptic Gospels didn’t mention about.) Knowing that, I don’t feel as bad whenever I fall asleep during prayer!
 
The passage in question, Luke 9:28-36a, begins with a clarification that the trip up the mountain by Jesus and his three amigos took place eight days after the incident where Jesus asked the disciples who people thought he (Jesus) was and who they themselves thought he was. And Peter reportedly answered, “You’re the Messiah” (Luke 9:20).
 
“About eight days after saying this, he [Jesus] climbed the mountain to pray, taking Peter, John, and James along. While he was in prayer, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became blinding white. At once two men were there talking with him. They turned out to be Moses and Elijah—and what a glorious appearance they made! They talked over his exodus, the one Jesus was about to complete in Jerusalem.  Meanwhile, Peter and those with him were slumped over in sleep. When they came to, rubbing their eyes, they saw Jesus in his glory and the two men standing with him. When Moses and Elijah had left, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, this is a great moment! Let’s build three memorials: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ He blurted this out without thinking. While he was babbling on like this, a light-radiant cloud enveloped them. As they found themselves buried in the cloud, they became deeply aware of God. Then there was a voice out of the cloud: ‘This is my Son, the Chosen! Listen to him.’ When the sound of the voice died away, they saw Jesus there alone...” (Luke 9:28-36a).
 
There is a lot that we can glean from this but let’s highlight three things. Firstly, the conversation between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah focused on Jesus’ coming “exodus” (mentioned in 9:31), which I’m assuming was about the Lord’s coming crucifixion and resurrection. Now, that would have been an amazing piece of revelation for Peter, James, and John to eavesdrop on, wouldn’t it?? But they probably missed out on that incredible tidbit because they were asleep! Which makes me wonder: How often have I missed out on what God may be saying—because I’m either asleep when I should be praying or just plain distracted or worse, ignorant?
 
Secondly, have you ever been in a situation where you’re talking with someone about something, only to have a newcomer join the conversation belatedly and contributing something irrelevant to your ongoing conversation—because that newcomer did not know, or did not bother to learn, what had been discussed before he or she came along? In the same way, because Peter, James, and John had been asleep and did not know what had transpired earlier between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, Peter then contributes a non sequitur, that is, something completely irrelevant to the ongoing discussion: “Master, this is a great moment! Let’s build three memorials: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” (9:33)—and Scripture even adds that Peter blurted and blabbed without thinking (9:33-34). Which leads me to wonder: How often have my prayers been filled with complete utter nonsense, full of non sequiturs thrown at God because I simply haven’t been paying attention to what He wants or is saying? 
 
Finally, I wonder if we are all about building memorials and monuments to ourselves or to people we think are deserving of adulation. Peter wanted to capture the moment, to monumentalize the event. He wanted to construct three memorials—one each for Jesus, Moses and Elijah, respectively. I don’t know about you, but I get the distinct impression that what Peter had in mind, if only unintentionally, was to put both Moses and Elijah on the same pedestal as Jesus! I realize I’m just as prone to doing the very same thing to Christian leaders or other great men and women whom I highly respect. It isn’t just our Catholic friends who beatify—who declare this or that person a “saint”—because I do it too in my own way through building monuments to my heroes and heroines, through putting them on pedestals and idolizing them, only to be disappointed later when those persons are exposed for sin and wrongdoing and their reputations—worse, the Name of God, is—tarnished.
 
But it is so instructive that Peter’s proposal was ignored! No memorials or monuments were allowed to be built atop the mountain that day. Indeed, even Jesus did not ask for, nor did he desire, a monument with which to honor him. But Peter’s perspective wasn’t completely ignored, was it? Certainly not by God the Father. Because there was a response, and a very telling one, from out of a cloud: “This is my Son, the Chosen! Listen to him.’ When the sound of the voice died away, they saw Jesus there alone” (9:35-36a).
 
Ultimately, it is not Moses (representing the Law), nor Elijah (representing the Prophets), nor even Peter (the rock on which the church presumably would be built, in Matthew 16:18), nor anyone for that matter — other than Christ Jesus, the Chosen, and he alone. Indeed, if you and I want to monumentalize God, this is the only way to do it: Listen to Jesus (Luke 9:35)!
 
* All Bible quotations are from The Message

In the course of our spiritual pilgrimage, God may ask of us a thing or two that may not make a whole lot of sense—not initially at least. In Jeremiah 32, the prophet Jeremiah found himself in just such a situation. The army of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, an operation that would take two years before Jerusalem finally collapsed. Things were so bad and food so scarce that, as Lamentations 2:20 tells us, Jewish moms were cannibalizing their own kids (which itself was the likely outcome of God’s caveat against Israel’s rebellion; Leviticus 26:29)! Jeremiah had been imprisoned for preaching sermons that the king of Judah and his officials didn’t appreciate. 
 
Then, in the midst of all this, Jeremiah’s cousin Hanamel visits him in prison and offers him the deal of a lifetime: Cuz, how about you buy my field in Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin? (Jeremiah 32:6-8). Hanamel’s asking price was seventeen shekels of silver, which is probably about a couple of hundred American dollars today—not a small sum in those days but not terribly expensive either, likely a discounted price because the piece of land offered to Jeremiah was, at that point, in the hands of the Babylonian army. (It’s what realtors call a “fire sale”!) 
 
But it’s also a kind of raw deal, a bum rap, for Jeremiah! Worse, in Jeremiah 11 and 12, God had warned Jeremiah that folks in Anathoth, including his own relatives, have betrayed him and were seeking to destroy him—and Hanamel could well have been one of those malicious relatives. And yet God tells Jeremiah to seal the deal and buy the field! And Jeremiah is probably going, “Seriously??” As we see him praying, with a touch of incredulity, in Jeremiah 32:25: “And though the city will be given into the hands of the Babylonians, you, Sovereign LORD, say to me, ‘Buy the field with silver and have the transaction witnessed.’”
 
Jeremiah didn’t sound as if he were entirely convinced by God’s command, but he nonetheless obeyed! It’s kind of like Peter in Luke 5. When told by Jesus to head out into deep water, Peter, after a night of fruitless fishing, nonetheless relented: “But because you say so, I will let down the nets” (Luke 5:5b). And we know what happened! 
 
Will you and I obey God’s word even though it goes against all commonsense and worldly wisdom and logic? And how did God respond to Jeremiah’s act of obedience? The Lord assures Jeremiah in Jeremiah 32:15 that “Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land” because, as God declares several verses down: “I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27).
 
Is God asking you to trust in Him by committing to something, or investing in something, that goes against the grain of commonsense and perhaps even your professional judgment? Think of Peter in Luke 5: Here’s this carpenter dude advising you, an experienced professional fisherman, when and how to fish! Perhaps it’s not a big investment of time or of treasure (seventeen shekels) or of talent that God is inviting you to contribute, but it’s a test of faith—to which He responds: I am the LORD, is anything too hard for me??
 
Personally, I confess I don’t know what this means for ISI going forward. In Jeremiah’s case, God tells him to put the title deed of his purchase in a jar so that it would keep for a long time (Jeremiah 32:14). And we know what the duration of that “long time” was for Israel: seventy years until God brought the Jewish exiles back to Jerusalem and Judah. I sure hope it won’t take us seventy years to complete what God has told ISI to do! But may we have the courage, as and when God calls, to take those steps of faith, no matter how crazy they may sound!
 
* All Bible quotations are from the New International Version (NIV

​“If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?” Jeremiah 12:5 NIV
 
Do we wait well in challenging times? Resilience in life and ministry is a real concern today. Clearly, the Church hasn’t been immune to the pandemic-fueled “Great Resignation,” with—depending on which report we peruse—over 40% of pastors considering quitting their ministries as a result of stress, isolation, and political divisiveness. To be sure, we believe in our calling and are committed to completing our God-given assignments. But to keep fighting the good fight hasn’t been easy! We are committed to following Christ, but many of us are suffering, whether physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. Like David, like Jesus, we cry, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46).
 
To lament is to be human; indeed, a third of the Book of the Psalms comprises laments. But as we find with the Israelites in their post-Egypt trek in the wilderness, where they endlessly griped and grumbled about everything, what might begin legitimately as lament could just as easily turn into unwarranted complaint. Lament clearly has its place. Complaint, on the other hand, is potentially a slippery slope that leads us to dark places where the temptation to quit—not just full-time ministry but perhaps even the Christian life—could prove overpowering. 
 
The prophet Jeremiah did not have it easy in ministry. He was beaten and put in stocks, threatened with death, tossed into a mud-filled hole, branded a liar, and forced by rebellious Jewish military officers to go with them to Egypt in contravention of God’s orders (Jeremiah 20:1-2, 26:11, 38:6, 43:2-7). When the going got especially tough, Jeremiah leveled harsh accusations at God: “Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? You are to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails” (Jeremiah 15:18, NIV). And again: “You deceived me, LORD, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed” (Jeremiah 20:7, NIV). Jeremiah basically labeled God a deceiver and liar and trickster—terms better befitting the devil, not God! 
 
But as Jeremiah learned, God expects him—and us—to do something incredulous: Run with horses! I confess there are times when, pondering Jeremiah12:5, I just shake my head and groan, “Race with horses?? You’ve got to be kidding!” And yet, for the man who blamed God for presumably deceiving him—it’s implied in Scripture that Jeremiah repented before God and was restored as God’s servant (Jeremiah 15:19)—Jeremiah stayed true to his calling and was faithful and obedient to God for the rest of his life, no matter how difficult things got. 
 
Tradition has it that Jeremiah was the author of the Book of Lamentations, where these astonishing words confront us: “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’ The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD” (Lamentations 3:19-26, NIV).
 
How was Jeremiah able to stay resilient through very difficult circumstances? Three words: He. Waited. Well. Where previously his downcast soul led him to accuse God, here, in Lamentations 3, he insists it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord—to await the faithful God whose mercies are new every morning.
 
Resilience is arguably the “final frontier,” if you like, of the Christian life. We are urged to run with perseverance the race which God has marked out for us, because perseverance is necessary for completing us toward maturity in Christ (Hebrews 12:1; James 1:3-4). Moreover, Jesus warns that the love of most will grow cold in the last days, “but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:12-13).  Let’s you and I persevere, stand firm, and wait well. The horses await us!

​“When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it. Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either. Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.” Mark 16:9-14 NIV
 
In the gospel writer Mark’s account of that first Easter Sunday, Jesus rebuked the Eleven for their lack of faith and refusal to accept the testimonies of Mary Magdalene as well as two others—possibly the 2 disciples on Road to Emmaus in Luke 24:13-35—who’d seen Jesus. For the record, the gospel writer Matthew also recorded that when the Eleven were at Jesus’ Ascension—right before Jesus issued the Great Commission—Matthew wrote: “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted” (Matthew 28:17). Doubt amid worship—that pretty much describes me!
 
Because You Say So
 
What holds us back from truly believing that Jesus is risen, what stops us from trusting in all His promises and affirmations spoken over us, our families, and our ministry? Can we still worship and serve God, in the face of doubt? I love Simon Peter’s response in Luke 5, when Jesus told him to go fishing: “Simon answered, ‘Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets’” (Luke 5:5). The 5 most important words that we can and must utter whenever doubt assails us: But because you say so! Because Jesus says so, I will obey despite my doubts and questions. 
 
Preaching the Gospel
 
Jesus commands the Eleven (as He does us) to go and preach the gospel to all the world, drive out demons, heal the sick, speak in new tongues, and face threats of all kinds (snake bites, ingesting poison, etc.) and yet remain unharmed. In ISI, we’re spoiled rotten because we get to preach the gospel, share the love of Christ, with all the world every single day—and we never tire of it! 
 
Healing the Sick
 
We’ve seen and experienced some rather spectacular healings that the Lord brought about. But even the very minor stuff matters. My wife and I have international cadets from the U.S. Air Force Academy traipsing in-and-out of our home on most weekends. Over spring break a couple of years ago, several international cadets stayed at our home and one of them took ill. He’d been going nonstop at the Academy and probably fell sick once his adrenaline tapered off over spring break. Thankfully, he felt much better after we fed him Tylenol and he had a restful sleep—something so simple, nothing spectacular, but healing the sick. 
 
Picking up Snakes
 
I’m not about to join the snake-handling cult in the Appalachians. But when I think of how my family has, over the years, overcome some pretty crazy stuff, such as my wife’s deathly bout with dengue shock syndrome (which ostensibly has only a 50% survival rate), or when two of our daughter’s 5th grade classmates threatened (by phone text message) to “kill her” over some misunderstanding, the threats posed by the enemy in the form of spiritual snakes and poison—and God’s protection over us from all that—was all too real. 
 
Speaking in Tongues
 
Some folks trip up over the “speaking in new tongues” bit. Some of us practice this, but I think there’s way more to it. Do we know that when we speak Spirit-filled words of life and affirmation into situations and circumstances defined by death, devastation, and rejection, we’re speaking, in a sense, in a tongue potentially novel or alien—and oh so life-giving—to our listeners?
 
Somer time ago, I took an international cadet from the Air Force Academy out for dinner, asked after him and prayed with him. He confided that despite growing up in a Christian family, his dad rarely encouraged him but continually judged and pressured him. He grew up hearing the same language of criticism and condemnation. (I didn’t say this to him at the time, but I thought, “Well maybe you should ask my daughter about me, her Asian Tiger Dad!” Shame on me.)
 
In a world full of aggressive, malicious, belittling, and condemnatory language and behavior, words and deeds that bless, nourish, build up, and liberate are new and refreshing—they revive the soul, they lift the downcast and downtrodden, they bring dead bones back to life. A broken world longs to hear this new tongue! 
 
The Obedient Get It!
 
Finally, Mark 16:20 highlights the fact that “the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.” The Lord works with those who obey. He confirms His word with signs and wonders. When Jesus promises in Matthew 28:20 that He will surely be with us to the very end of the age, it’s not some abstract principle. Mark 16:20 underscores what Jesus’s being with us looks and feels like.
 
When we walk by faith in Christ, the fish and loaves in our hands are multiplied and thousands are fed (Matthew 14:17-19)! Just one of us will put a thousand to flight (Joshua 23:10)! And we shall move mountains (Matthew 17:20-21)! This is His promise to you and me; this is our destiny.

“As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. ‘Who touched me?’ Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, ‘Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.’ But Jesus said, ‘Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.’ Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace’” (Luke 8:42b-48 NIV).
 
I’ve long found powerful the story in Luke 8 of the woman who suffered terribly from hemorrhage. But it isn’t just the fact that she was healed by Jesus, as amazing and wonderful as that truly was. To me, it’s a signal lesson about the way we (metaphorically) touch Jesus—and, crucially, whether our touch “touches” Him sufficiently in a way that merits or warrants His response to us.
 
The people milling and crowding around Jesus weren’t only pressing against Him, most likely they were touching and grabbing at Him. After all, this was a celebrity crush, and everybody wanted a piece of the star! Granted, the folks touching Jesus were doing it for a variety of different reasons and motivations. And yet, none of it seemed to matter as Jesus continued moving through the crowd, unflinching and impervious to their “molestations”!
 
But only the touch of 1 person—the woman suffering from hemorrhage—mattered in this case, at least to Jesus. It was her touch that He felt. She didn’t even approach Him from His front, but from His back. And it wasn’t even a body part of the Lord that she touched—let alone grabbed—it was but the briefest brush against the edge, the hem, of His cloak! And yet He felt her touching Him. She might as well have body-slammed Jesus!
 
What does this tell us? All of us can touch Jesus. You and I might have touched and grabbed at Him, metaphorically. We can all touch Jesus, but like the crowds that day that were touching and grabbing at Him, our touches might have meant little to Jesus, they might not even have been worth His noticing them.
 
However, like the woman in this story, do we touch Jesus in and with trust? Do our touches grab His attention? Jesus tells the woman, “Daughter, your faith has healed you” (Luke 8:48). Oh, may that be said by the Lord of us as well! 

​The story of Gideon in Judges 6 has always been a favorite of mine, not least because I’m a perennial “fleecer”—incessantly asking God for signs that confirm His promises. Better a doubting Thomas (or Gideon) who seeks God than a rebellious Ahaz who refuses to ask God, to “test God,” despite being invited to (Isaiah 7:10-12)!
 
Two “Pardon Me’s”
 
“When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, ‘The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.’ ‘Pardon me, my lord,’ Gideon replied, ‘but if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, "Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?" But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.’ The LORD turned to him and said, ‘Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?’ ‘Pardon me, my lord,’ Gideon replied, ‘but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.’ The LORD answered, ‘I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.’” Judges 6:12-16 NIV
 
God calls Gideon as His appointed “mighty warrior” to lead Israel against the Midianites. To which Gideon responds: Where have You been all this while, God?? Can I trust You to keep Your word? And then, like Moses (in Exodus 4): Why me?? It’s understandable why Gideon sought assurance from God. Earlier in his God-encounter, he asks the angel: “Where’re the wonders of God our ancestors told us about?” (Judges 6:13). Which suggests that till then, Gideon might not yet have seen God act in his lifetime. Maybe we need to cut Gideon some slack! 
 
Extravagant Worship
 
“Gideon replied, ‘If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.’ And the LORD said, ‘I will wait until you return.’ Gideon went inside, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.” Judges 6:17-19 NIV
 
Gideon responds by not only bringing an offering, but an extravagant one: besides meat and broth, he uses an ephah of flour for bread, equivalent of 1 bushel (about 9 gallons)—that’s a whole lot of matzah for 1 guest! (Bear in mind at that point, Gideon didn’t know it yet that this was a God-visitation.)
 
Moreover, some might see this as a “wasteful” extravagance in a time of nationwide scarcity, with Midianites and Amalekites ravaging Israel and destroying crops! Yet this brings to mind another occasion where a similar act of extravagant worship was performed: Mary using a jar of expensive perfume, worth a whole year’s wages, with which to anoint Jesus—and prompting Judas’ criticism (John 12:3-5). When we bring our all-in-all—heart, soul, mind and body—to our worship of God, when we offer ourselves as living sacrifices holy and acceptable to Him as our spiritual worship and service, that’s a worthwhile extravagance for our Extravagant God! (But be ready for the potential backlash from well-meaning critics…)
 
God Leaves No Doubt
 
“The angel of God said to him, ‘Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.’ And Gideon did so. Then the angel of the LORD touched the meat and the unleavened bread with the tip of the staff that was in his hand. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the LORD disappeared. When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he exclaimed, ‘Alas, Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!’” Judges 6:20-22 NIV
 
The angel of God instructs Gideon to pour broth onto meat and bread, drenching and soaking the offering. Why in the world would he do that? (Recall another incident when an offering was also drenched and soaked: Elijah, atop Mt Carmel against the prophets of Baal, watering his cut-up bull on the altar 3 times (1 Kings 18:33-35)—yet another potentially “wasteful” act in dumping precious water in a time of severe drought. Why?? To leave no doubt whatsoever that the complete consumption of sacrifice by fire is an act of God! 
 
Jehovah Shalom
 
“But the LORD said to him, ‘Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.’ So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and called it The LORD Is Peace.” Judges 6:23-24a NIV
 
Gideon’s encounter with God leads him to name God (or rather the altar he builds to God): The LORD is Peace. There’s so much we can say about God being our Peace; Jesus is our Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). But what strikes me is the juxtaposition in Judges 6: God calls Gideon “mighty warrior” (Judges 6:12) and, in turn, Gideon calls God, Jehovah Shalom. Each of us has been appointed by God to—and equipped/anointed by God for—specific roles and vocations: parents, workers, servants, ministers, leaders, etc. Yet we’re all mighty warriors, whether we dispute the “warrior” label or “mighty” adjective. 
 
But warriors, no matter how mighty, surely need peace! The 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes claimed that all humankind is in a permanent state of war—not necessarily actual fighting but always caught in a disposition and environment defined by war. Spiritually, that makes sense; think, for example, of 2 Corinthians 10:3, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does”—where Paul assumes we are always caught up in spiritual warfare, but we don’t fight as the world does. But a condition of permanent war isn’t very peaceful, is it?! And yet Jesus promises us unworldly peace (John 14:27). Paul counsels if we ask God, His peace that transcends all understanding will be ours (Philippians 4:6-7).

​In Exodus 31:1-3, we’re introduced to a guy named Bezalel: “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills.’” Bezalel was a highly gifted craftsman/artisan who led the work of making the holy things for the Tabernacle of God. The passage identified his granddad as Hur, so it’s quite possible that Bezalel was the grandson of the same Hur who—together with Aaron—held up Moses’ arms in prayer in the war with the Amalekites (Exodus 17). So long as Moses’ arms were hoisted up, the Israelites were winning. In short, Bezalel came from a storied lineage. We can note 3 things about Bezalel’s story that apply to us.  
 
We’re Chosen
 
Firstly, just as God chose Bezalel to build the Tabernacle, God has chosen us to do His work! Not only that, but God—just like He did with Bezalel—has also filled you with His Spirit as well as equipped you with wisdom, understanding, knowledge and all kinds of skills—everything that you need to do His work! It’s easy for us to get all technical about our work, focusing on developing and growing the skill sets needed to do our jobs well. But ultimately it is God who equips and trains us.  
 
To Do God’s Work
 
Secondly, as was the case with Bezalel, God equips us for a very important purpose: that we may do HIS work! When we work at our jobs, are we aware that it is in fact the Lord Jesus whom we’re serving (Colossians 3:23-24)? I realize that just because we’re working in a Christian ministry, it doesn’t automatically mean we’re always and fully locked into God and what He may be doing. Ephesians 2:10 reminds us that we’re God’s handiwork, that we’re created in Christ Jesus to do good works that God has prepared in advance for us to do. So, what is the work? Just as Bezalel was tasked to make the items, the holy things, necessary for the worship of God, you and I are likewise called to craft the holy things of God that reflect His glory. Bezalel made the ark of the covenant, the table, the utensils, the lamps and lampstand, etc.  
 
Of Building His Kingdom
 
We, on the other hand, make and mold lives of Christlikeness and present the finished products to God for His pleasure! Like John the Baptist, we’re the friends of the bridegroom who prepare the bride of Christ and present her in all her glory—or, more accurately, in Christ’s glory—to Him at the last day. For our field staff, the goal of discipleship is to present, one by one, students from all the nations before God at the end of time, each of them forged to full maturity in Christ.  
 
But it isn’t just our work with students, we also have our families, our kids, our church small/home groups, our team members at work, our relations with colleagues in the field, etc. As Ephesians 4:11-13 puts it: “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” And if Bezalel made objects that represented and reflected God’s glory, then it’s the same for us with our students, kids, colleagues, and the like. As we read in 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20: “For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you?  Indeed, you are our glory and joy.”  
 
And Doing It His Way
 
Thirdly and finally, like Bezalel, there’s an expectation that we are to do our work according to the way God has commanded. Like Bezalel, we too are called to build according to God’s specifications. Exodus 39:43 tells us that after Bezalel (and his team) finished everything, “Moses inspected the work and saw that they had done it just as the LORD had commanded.” In our case, we may have our earthly bosses and supervisors who check on us and our work. But ultimately, it is God who will conduct the inspection of our handiwork!  
 
Recall what Paul warned in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15: “By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.”  
 
Wow. Let’s take heed and build what will pass God’s inspection!

Moses had a tough calling, a near-impossible job. He led God’s people out of Egypt to the Promised Land. He led a rebellious bunch of gripers and whiners through dangerous and inhospitable territory for 40 long years. He interceded for people when God wanted to destroy them. His fellow leaders—including even his siblings Aaron and Miriam on one occasion—opposed his leadership. The people threatened to kill Moses over their shared hardships.
 
In Numbers 20, near the end of their 40-year-long journey, the Israelites arrived at Kadesh Barnea, located on the southern border of Canaan. As we know, Kadesh is significant because it was the Israelites’ original gateway to the Promised Land (Numbers 13:26). But it is also where the Waters of Meribah were located, where Moses disobeyed God by smacking the rock with his staff—not once but twice—to produce water for the people, instead of speaking to the rock as God had instructed him (Numbers 20:7-12). As a result of his disobedience, God refused Moses entry to the Promised Land. God told Moses: “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them” (Numbers 20:12). It would seem, for Moses, a case of “so-near-and-yet-so-far”: He has led the people of Israel for 40 years to this point, they’re on the cusp of entering the Promised Land, only for God to slam the door shut on Moses!
 
Conventionally understood, Kadesh/Meribah is where Moses blew it, where he dishonored God, where he got disbarred from the Promised Land. In Deuteronomy 3:23-28, Moses shared that he’d begged God to change His mind, but God rebuked him: Enough! Don’t speak to Me anymore about this matter! (Deuteronomy 3:26-27). But it may surprise you, as it did me, that God presumably already had in mind to ban or embargo Moses from the Promised Land 40 years prior on an earlier visit also to Kadesh—when the 10 of the 12 spies sent out by Moses to reconnoiter Canaan returned with a damaging report that discouraged the rest of the Israelites from taking the land (Numbers 13:26-32). Only Caleb and Joshua, the 2 dissenting spies, were willing to do it. Four decades after that tragic event—on the cusp of Israel’s eventual entry into the Promised Land—Moses recollected the occasion, in Deuteronomy 1:37-40: “Because of you the LORD became angry with me also and said, ‘You shall not enter it, either. But your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will enter it. Encourage him, because he will lead Israel to inherit it... But as for you, turn around and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea.’” 
 
Moses’ words here in Deuteronomy 1 are very telling: Arguably, it was at the very start of Israelites’ 40-year trek—the first time they were at Kadesh—where God said NO to Moses about entering the Promised Land, not 4 decades later, on their return to Kadesh/Meribah! Despite joining Caleb and Joshua in urging the Israelites to trust God and to take the Promised Land as God had commanded them, Moses nevertheless received God’s censure and was blocked from entering the Promised Land. Moses lived with this tragic reality and gross disappointment for 40 long years! Meanwhile, he still had an important job to do: He had to lead and pastor a disgruntled people, prepare them for the Promised Land, and mentor Joshua to replace himself as Israel’s leader.
 
For 4 long decades, Moses lived with personal disappointment while doing his job as best he could, without letting it distract him from his calling. Moses kept his focus, he stayed on mission with God, he carried out his responsibilities. However disillusioned he might have felt, Moses endured and persevered, he accepted God’s terms and conditions without resentment, he stayed faithful and obedient to God all the way through, he retained the joy of the LORD as his strength.  Moses wasn’t perfect: He was known as the humblest person on earth (Numbers 12:3) but he had quite the temper, e.g., smashing tablets at Horeb and smacking rocks at Kadesh/Meribah. To me, Moses was/is a rockstar, but this revelation of his long-suffering obedience—in the face of a long disappointment—blew me away! Do we have personal disappointments arising from promises God gave that have remained either unrealized or worse, like Moses’ case, which God seems to have rescinded, sometimes unfairly it seems? 
 
Still, it was so good and gracious of God to grant Moses a shot at standing in the Promised Land—when Jesus met Moses and Elijah at the Mount of Transfiguration on Israeli soil (Matthew 17:1-3)! I’ve always thought, OK, great that God finally granted Moses his wish, but after 1,500yrs?! But that’s probably incorrect: I’d like to think Moses stood with Jesus in the Promised Land right after he (Moses) died atop Mount Nebo/Pisgah and entered eternity into God’s presence, where time no longer exists. All that Moses endured on earth was worth it, because the LORD is worthy of honor and worship!

​I’ve been working through the series of Westerns by Louis L’amour, which are fast reads with simple plots and stories that are pretty much the same for every L’amour book. But about a dozen books in, I got stopped hard by this amazing quote, where the story’s protagonist says: “It is always easier to travel than to stop. As long as one travels toward a promised land, the dream is there, to stop means to face the reality, and it is easier to dream than to realize the dream” (L’amour, The Ferguson Rifle, p. 19).
 
I thought, man, that’s quite profound! Because the danger that L’amour points to is one that we in the ISI ministry also face with our God-given vision of “expanding the tent” (Isaiah 54:2-3). We’re working toward the fulfilment of His vision. We don’t know how long it will take us—only God knows—and some of us, including myself, may not even be around to see its completion, if ever. But there’s the very real danger of us chasing the vision but never stopping to face and deal with reality—because reality can be brutal and harsh. We find ourselves marching around walls that refuse to crumble, we face difficulty achieving unity of focus and purpose in our ministry teams, we’re disappointed with students and returnees who’d been doing so well in their spiritual walks only to drop out or turn away from Christ, we struggle with health and financial challenges that slow us down or stop us altogether. Reality can sometimes suck!
 
Our response to such situations could either be to call it quits—it was a nice ride while it lasted, but enough is enough, the trouble just isn’t worth it—or we may end up as L’amour describes it, where the dream remains a distant ideal that we keep heading toward but whose realization we keep deferring because we’re afraid of what we may encounter were we to stop.
 
The Bible has a very different perspective. In Psalm 84, we read: “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion” (vs 5-7). Unlike L’amour’s protagonist who doesn’t pause long enough, who doesn’t stop because he cannot abide reality, God’s pilgrims who journey toward Zion actually bother to stop, not only to smell the roses but to take in the aroma of decay and death, of the hard/harsh realities of where their pilgrimage/journey may have led them: to the Valleys of Baka, perhaps even to the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23:4).
 
Well, the truth is sometimes we’d much prefer to avoid such tough places and times, but God drags us kicking and screaming into those situations! As Christ’s pilgrims, we stop not to gawk like tourists, but to see the situation for what it is, that we may impart blessing: We roll up our sleeves and get dirty, helping and ministering and serving with what God has given us. We turn those dead and arid places, full of dry bones, into places of springs! We bring the life of Christ where there was only death!
 
The temptation is to be like the priest and the Levite who walked on the other side of the road to avoid the injured man in Luke 10; they didn’t wish to be inconvenienced—and get this, they justified their inaction using biblical principles! But the true pilgrim is the Samaritan who stopped to care for the injured man and tended to his wounds. And when we endeavor to do God’s will, He takes our meager offering, our 2 loaves and 5 fish, and He multiplies them; as Psalm 84:6 puts it, God supplies the autumn rains in addition to our efforts to bless.
 
What’s my point here? Simply this: as we in ISI continue to implement God’s Isaiah 54 vision, the real emphasis is what and how are we doing, along the way, as our journey takes us past numerous Valleys of Baka. Do we stop to bless, or do we roll on like a runaway freight train, refusing to pause even as we see needs crying to be met all around us? As for our endpoint, we’ll get there when we get there—or more accurately, when God thinks it’s time and we’re ready. And as Psalm 84:7 says, as we tend to the needs we find along the way instead of avoiding them like the priest and the Levite and L’amour’s protagonist, God will lead us from strength to strength till we appear before Him in Zion. That’s His promise to you and me!

​“When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over Israel, they went up in full force to search for him, but David heard about it and went down to the stronghold. Now the Philistines had come and spread out in the Valley of Rephaim; so David inquired of the LORD, ‘Shall I go and attack the Philistines? Will you deliver them into my hands?’ The LORD answered him, ‘Go, for I will surely deliver the Philistines into your hands.’ So David went to Baal Perazim, and there he defeated them. He said, ‘As waters break out, the LORD has broken out against my enemies before me.’ So that place was called Baal Perazim…Once more the Philistines came up and spread out in the Valley of Rephaim; so David inquired of the LORD, and he answered, ‘Do not go straight up, but circle around behind them and attack them in front of the poplar trees. As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the poplar trees, move quickly, because that will mean the LORD has gone out in front of you to strike the Philistine army.’ So David did as the LORD commanded him, and he struck down the Philistines all the way from Gibeon to Gezer” (2 Samuel 5:17-25).
 
David finally became king over all Israel, he conquered Jerusalem and made it his capital (“the City of David”), and he defeated the Philistines—not just once but on 2 separate occasions. The first time was at a place called Baal Perazim which is in or near the Valley of Rephaim, where, on God’s instructions, David and his men smashed the Philistines by way of a frontal assault (2 Samuel 5:19-20). We can safely assume that David undertook a frontal attack because, as we shall see, in the subsequent military engagement with the Philistines, God told David to tactically avoid “going straight up” (2 Samuel 5:23), which implies he did go straight up in the first engagement.
 
The second engagement against the Philistines also took place at the Valley of Rephaim, but this time, again on God’s instructions, David gained victory by way of a flanking maneuver rather than by frontal assault (2 Samuel 5:23-25). Same enemy, same battleground, but 2 quite different strategies. What’s the common thread here? 
 
David sought the Lord each time and received God’s game plan custom-tailored for each specific occasion. The temptation for us is to think: We’ve been here before, let’s rely on what worked for us previously and we’ll be fine. Or to conclude, this is too much, it isn’t worth the trouble, let’s just throw in the towel. But what is so impressive about David’s attitude and approach is that he did not take anything for granted! He certainly did not take God for granted! Two occasions, facing the same enemy the Philistines, on the same battlefield at the Valley of Rephaim. He’d already defeated the Philistines the first time, and we would not begrudge David—a seasoned military commander and a veteran campaigner—if he’d decided to take his foot off the gas pedal just for a bit. But no, he inquired after God, he waited on the Lord for direction, and he followed God’s instructions to the “T”. 
 
Likewise, let’s not be caught failing to inquire of the Lord and obeying His word, as we face another season full of trouble and uncertainty—but also a season full of promise and opportunity for us to see God move in powerful and miraculous ways!