Happy New Year!

2010 is upon us, and I thought I would start off the new year by blogging about a good book I finished in 2009. Faithful Women & Their Extraordinary God is a book by Noël Piper, the wife of John Piper. In this little book, Noël gives a biography of five different women: Sarah Edwards, Lilias Trotter, Gladys Aylward, Esther Ahn Kim, and Helen Roseveare.

Hebrews 13:7-8 says, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

In reading Christian biography, we can be encouraged to “imitate the faith” of those saints who have come before us. The reason this is possible, regardless of living in different centuries or circumstances, is because of the latter part of Hebrews 13:7-8: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever.” That is, God does not change. The same God who enabled Jonathan Edward’s wife to support and encourage him throughout their marriage, who sustained Lilias Trotter in pioneer missionary work in Algeria despite her fragile health, who brought Esther Ahn Kim through the trial of imprisonment in Korea, is the same God who is with us today.

Jim Elliot once said, “Missionaries are very human folk just doing what they’re asked. Simply a bunch of nobodies trying to exalt Somebody” (Shadow of the Almighty, pp 46). Not all of the women listed above were missionaries, but they were all ordinary women whom God worked through to accomplish great things.

The biographies that most impacted me were those on Sarah Edwards, Lilias Trotter, and Helen Roseveare. Regarding Sarah Edwards, Noël writes on page 15, ” Her entire life would be played out against the backdrop of political uncertainty and imminent war.” Despite these tenuous circumstances, Sarah raised a family of eleven children, and ran a warm and hospitable household that was always open to travelers, especially to apprentice pastors, who would sometimes live with the Edwards’ for extended periods of time. Samuel Hopkins, one of these apprentice pastors, wrote this about Sarah Edwards:

“She had an excellent way of governing her children; she knew how to make them regard and obey her cheerfully, without loud angry words, much less heavy blows…If any correction was necessary, she did not administer it in a passion; and when she had occasion to reprove and rebuke she would do it in a few words, without warmth [that is, vehemence] and noise..Her system of discipline was begun at a very early age and it was her rule to resist the first, as well as every subsequent exhibition of temper or disobedience in the child…wisely reflecting that until a child will obey his parents he can never be brought to obey God.”

Lilias Trotter was born in London in 1853, and she would end up being a missionary in Algeria. Before she got to that point, though, Lilias divided her time between pursuing art and ministering  on streets of London. When she was about twenty-six, Lilias reached a crisis point. Her artistic talent was so great that her mentor, an artist named Ruskin, stated that if Lilias would devote herself to art, “she would be the greatest living painter and do things that would be immortal” (pp 45).

“This was an agonizing decision. Running parallel in her life were two all-consuming passions – art and ministry. She knew it isn’t possible to be wholly consumed twice. It is not possible to give yourself totally to two different masters. But, she came to see, it is possible that one of the passions could become servant to the other. Still, she had to decide which passion would become the master of the other” (pp 45)

Lilias weighed her choices and prayed for several days. Finally she made her decision to pursue ministry for the glory of God.

“She was free now to throw herself wholeheartedly into her ministry in London. She remained Ruskin’s friend to the end of his life, though he never understood her decision. And she still loved art – how could she not when her soul was so tenderly vulnerable to beauty. But she enjoyed her art now as a gift, not a passion. Much later, she realized even more strongly the importance of focusing on Jesus, rather than on all the good things he gives us” (pp 46).

Regarding the decision, Lilias herself wrote:

“Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless worlds at once – art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on. And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the ‘good’ hiding the ‘best’…It is easy to find whether our lives are focussed, and if so, where the focus lies. Where do our thoughts settle when consciousness comes back in the morning? Where do they swing back when the pressure is off during the day? …Dare to have it out with God…and ask Him to show you whether or not all is focussed on Christ and His glory… How do we bring things to a focus in the world of optics? Not by looking at the things to be dropped, but by looking at the one point that is to be brought out. Turn your soul’s vision to Jesus, and look and look at Him, and a strange dimness will come over all that is apart from Him” (pp 46).

Helen Roseveare, born in 1925, was called into medical missions in the Congo. Before she went to Africa, Helen trained in England to become a doctor. While in college, and as a young believer, Helen often became frustrated with herself. She felt that growth in the Christian life should be one mountain peak after another.

“I found frequently that I climbed in glorious sunshine…my face set determinedly for the nearest peak I could see. As I reached it, I reveled in the sense of achievement and victory and in the glorious view…Then, slowly, my imagination would be caught by the next peak ahead…and eventually the resolve would form to set off upwards again… As I went down from the present peak into the valley between the mountains, I was often shadowed by the very peak I had been enjoying. This I interpreted in a sense of failure and this often led to despair…I see now that I was wrong…The going down was merely an initial moving forward towards the next higher ground, never a going back to base level, so to speak. The shadow was only relative after the brightness of the sun; the valley could provide a period of rest for working out the experiences previously learnt, a time for refreshment preparatory for the next hard climb. had I understood this meaning of the sunshine and shadow in my life rather than interpreting my various experiences along life’s way as ‘up’ and ‘down’, I might have saved myself many deep heartaches” (pp 147).

Once in Africa, Helen found the medical work overwhelming. There were so many urgent needs to meet, but not enough manpower, supplies, and time to meet those needs. God, however, used Helen’s experiences to sanctify and refine her, and made her a great blessing. The very people she was ministering to often became God’s blessing to Helen, as this story relates:

“Sunday evening, Pastor Ndugu called me out to the fireside where he and his wife, Tamoma, were sitting…We prayed. A great still silence wrapped us around… Gently he leaned toward me. ‘Helen…why can’t you forget for a moment that you are white? You’ve helped so many Africans to find cleansing and filling and joy in the Holy Spirit through the blood of Jesus Christ. Why don’t you let Him do for you what He has done for so many others?’ He…opened up to me hidden areas in my heart that I had hardly even suspected, particularly this one of race prejudice. I was horrified…I was out there to share…the Good News of the gospel. I loved my African brethren…But did I? The Spirit forced me to acknowledge that subconsciously I did not really believe that an African could be as good a Christian as I was, or could know the Lord Jesus or understand the Bible as I did. My caring had in it an element of condescension, of superiority, of paternalism… Opening his Bible to Galatians 2:20, he drew a straight line in the dirt floor with his heel. ‘I’, he said, ‘the capital I in our lives, Self, is the great enemy… Helen…the trouble with you is that we can see so much Helen that we cannot see Jesus.’ …My eyes filled with tears. ‘I notice that you drink much coffee,’ he continued…apparently going off on a tangent. ‘When they bring a mug…to you…you stand there holding it, until it is cool enough to drink. May I suggest that every time, as you stand and wait, you should just lift your heart to God and pray…’ and as he spoke, he moved his heel in the dirt across the I he had previously drawn, ‘…Please, God, cross out the I.’

There in the dirt was his lesson of simplified theology – the Cross – the crossed-out I life… ‘I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galations 2:20). I cycled back to Nebobongo…Before I could say anything, John Mangadima burst out: ‘Oh, Doctor, hallelujah! …You don’t need to tell us, your face tells us. We’ve been praying for you for four years!’

And I had gone out to them as the missionary-teacher” (pp 160).