JULY 13

OUR PERSONAL PROMISES

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Hebrews 13:5

“Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Matthew 6:28-30

“So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Psalm 119:36

“Incline my heart to Your testimonies, and not to covetousness.”

Philippians 4:12-13

“ I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Philippians 4:11

“Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content:”

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We are reading a book by Corrie ten Boom, with daily recordings she made to broadcast over Trans World Radio.  Her Dutch family  sheltered Jews during the Nazi invasion of Holland.  As a result, she, her sister Betsy and their father were taken to concentration camps in Germany. The Lord did many miracles to allow both Corrie and Betsy to bring the Gospel to the other women in their camp.   Their father was murdered in an extermination camp and Betsy was sick, dying just two weeks before Corrie and the rest were freed.  After her freedom, Corrie traveled the world, telling everyone even in remote areas, about salvation through Christ, besides radio and writing many books.  This one is entitled, “Not I, but Christ.”

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SUMMER 1977

Surely my life has changed.  But don’t call it retirement!  I must tell you that it is more like getting “new tires.”  My life is no less productive, but it is different.

I don’t travel any more.  My career as a tramp for the Lord has ended as far as I can understand, and my work is now writing books and making messages for films, which will reach perhaps more people than I reached with my talks at meetings.

I am enjoying this life immensely.  I now have time to study, to read, and to write my books without interruption.  I am living in California and enjoying the climate and the little garden I have here.

Once when I was in solitary confinement, I was called out to be questioned.  Going from the building where the cells were, I had to cross a square to a small building where people underwent interrogation and were tortured.  While walking across the square, I saw some tiny white flowers.  Shepherd’s purse was growing between the bricks used in the construction of the square.

When the guard who accompanied me looked the other way, I bent down and picked some of those little flowers and tucked them in the bosom of my dress.  When back in my cell, I took a broken medicine bottle, arranged my “bouquet,” and put it behind my cup so that the guards couldn’t see it when they looked through the peephole in my door.  That tiny bouquet was my garden, and I enjoyed it as the only nice thing in the cell.

Now I have a garden with little lemon and orange trees, and I enjoy them every moment I work outside or sit on one of my garden chairs, which some dear people gave me at a “patio shower.”  I am surrounded by beauty and love.

“I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, there to be content.  I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound:  every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”    (Paul said that when he was in prison, seen in Philippians 4:11-13).

I was ready to accept my poor little bouquet of six blades of grass and three little flowers as my garden because of Him who was in me, and I could say then with Paul when he wrote from his prison to the Philippians, “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord:  for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ.”  (Philippians 3:8).

Yes, I know how to abound and I know how to be poor.  “Brethren, I count not  myself to have apprehended:  but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth to those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”  (Philippians 3:13-14).

Thank You, Lord, that You strengthen us to do Your will, no matter what our circumstances.  Holy Spirit, please fill us with the zeal Paul had to count all things loss for the sake of knowing You.  Amen

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