STOP IN THE NAME OF LOVE

​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!