Floating Lanterns

I’ve been discouraged sometimes lately. Thankfully it hasn’t been everyday, but there have been days when I miss people so much, when I wish I could be there in the difficult times, and I wish I could celebrate with them in the happy times. There have been nights where I feel so tired or burnt out that I don’t see how I’ll have energy to face the morning. Times when I’ve just cried. I know I’m not the only one. But, God has been giving me energy to face new days, he has been giving me strength to keep going. He’s been giving me encouragement from His people. And this morning he gave me a renewed hope.

I was reading this morning in Acts when Paul was on trial telling about his “hope in the fulfillment of God’s promise…” So, as I noticed the word, “hope” two more times in the section I was reading, and as I prayed, God was breathing hope back into my spirit, into my heart. And the fulfilled promise Paul was talking about is Christ. On a whim, I flipped back to the Old Testament to read of a promise that has now been fulfilled in Christ. I read that to those who mourn, God will give a joyous blessing instead of mourning (Isaiah 61). Christ is giving me a joyous blessing! And that’s just one tiny verse, there are innumerable other promises that God has fulfilled in Christ! I hope to keep going back to them so that I can be reminded.

Then, to finish painting this hope onto my heart, God reminded me of an image. If you’ve seen the Disney movie, “Tangled,” you’ll remember that there was a king and a queen whose baby daughter was kidnapped and never found. Every year on the night of her birthday they would light and release lanterns that float up into the air, along with everyone in the village, hoping that somehow the lights could lead her back to them. The movie shows us the king and queen eighteen years later, preparing to release their lanterns once again. His face is the saddest, kindliest face you ever saw, and her eyes mirror his sadness when she reaches up to catch the tear slipping down his face. Then, they go together to send their lanterns into the night sky.

Slowly, brilliantly, thousands of lanterns are lit and released, floating together in the sky, defying the dark, making a golden path in the air. What an image of hope! Out of sadness, out of dark, hope can still grow and shine. This is the gift that God is giving me today, and I’m going to keep asking Him to help me hope, to help me remember how he fulfills His promises, and to remind me of the picture of golden glowing lanterns against the black night sky.

Marita -- a testimony from Kirambo

Some of you may have seen this testimony already, but we thought it would be good to put up so you can see it here.

Love you all,

Brad & Chelsea

Chapter One of the Great Story

As followers of Jesus here on earth, we get glimpses of God's glory and beauty (Psalm 96), His deep and overwhelming peace (Philippians 4:6-7), His contagious and overflowing joy (John 15:11), life as God intended it with Him. We who are in Christ have stepped into His Kingdom (His rule and reign) and can therefore begin to experience His shalom (absolute peace that comes from right relationships with God, self, others, and the rest of creation) here and now. We can experience His will being done here and now, but we are still also seeing the effects of sin and rebellion all around us including; selfishness, war, sickness, poverty, harsh environment, broken families, evil, greedy leaders, etc. We are called to enter into God's restoring work in us and all around us (Colossians 1:14-22). He allows us to partner with Him in this ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:14-21)! This is what we are called to and what we are striving to be a part of in Rwanda with Discipling for Development.

In the past months the Lord has been teaching me and calling me to a new understanding about the hope and glory of our future, for us who are in Christ! I have been realizing that in much of my life, I act like life here on earth is the end goal. We praise God when He protects us and we are so grateful (when we stop long enough to notice) that we are still breathing in oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide; we are still here! It is the Lord's love and grace that keeps us and protects our lives here on earth and with this life I am called to serve Him with all that I am, but He is showing me that this life is not the end goal! The goal is God's glory and the goal is entering into life to the absolute fullest, life with God in all of His glory, life without pain, sorrows or tears (Revelation 21:3-5)! Life without the effects of sin!

We live life here on earth, but as followers of Jesus, we are strangers here! Our home is in heaven with God (Philippians 3:20)! So when one of our loved ones, who love Jesus, stop breathing and living life here with us it is not a surprise to God and it is not even bad; it is because God loves them that He takes them, it is actually really awesome because they have reached the next part, for which we are preparing and looking forward to! Yes, it is really sad to lose them because we love them and we miss them so much! It hurts horribly to lose our loved ones! I for one, want to learn more about this future hope and allow the Lord to build my excitement and anticipation for what is to come...to enter fully into His glory! "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him." (1 Corinthians 2:9)

A glimpse of God's glory

C.S. Lewis explains this better than I can in the final book of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle. Some children are on a train when they experience a sudden jerk, then find themselves pulled once again into their beloved land of Narnia. Aslan is the mighty lion in Narnia that they loved and who loved them. (emphasis added)

'There was a real railway accident,' said Aslan softly. 'Your father and mother and all of you are--as you used to call it in the Shadowlands--dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.'

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.