Everything Changes

Sometimes it seems as if the only constant in life is that everything changes.
Let me explain; in 1994, my Dad finished To Train Up a Child.
I remember walking to the mailbox down our long gravel driveway to see how many letters we received. I remember mom laughing in disbelief the first time we got over 10 letters in one day!

Everything changed.

That year we decreased the size of our garden because Dad did not have the time to serve God in this new ministry and sell tomatoes. We cleared out the sunroom that we used to store garden supplies and spent more evenings folding newsletters.

Everything changed.

It took a lot of faith for Mom and Dad to upend their comfortable life and choose service over certainty.I remember when the letters started flowing in and asking heavy questions, and I remember the weight of my parents answering them and seeking God for wisdom to say the right thing.
Not much had changed for us kids. We swam in the creek on hot days, had a big garden, worked on the tractor…we grew up.

Everything changed.

Somewhere along the line, we stopped being kids. Rebekah, Gabe, and I ended up traveling the world. We helped missionaries in Albania, tribes in New Guinea. We even got to pray on the banks of the Sea of Galilee! It was amazing.

But everything changed.

My sister got married, then I got married to a girl I met at a missions conference. Life was perfect, but life was different, because everything changes.
Mom and Dad continued serving the Lord. Dad preached in the prison every week, traveled at times, and never stopped disciplining families. We finally got the Good and Evil printed and saw it begin to be used by God.

If things would just stop changing you could finally get good at your given task and not stress so much.Instead, everything changes.

I ended up working in Hawaii. We got involved with a local church and, as my parents taught me, I helped as much as I could.Eventually, the pastor asked me to take over the church.It was terrifying. It was exciting! It required me to trust God without a safety net.

Still, everything changes

.After 5 years pastoring in Hawaii and many tears of joy and sadness, my Dad called and asked me to come home and take over No Greater Joy. For 30 years it had been the task that God had set him to. One that he carried out with poise and acuity. However, everything changes. At 78 he is tired; he doesn't have the energy to accomplish all that he feels like God needs done with the resources he's gathered. And so, God has called him to make another great leap of faith. To sit down.

Because everything changes.

As David gave Solomon the resources he needed to complete the temple of God, my Dad, and those before him, have gathered the resources for us to reach the world for Christ.

My friends, it is our turn!

The Good and Evil is now in nearly 80 languages. We are printing many thousands every year in places like Pakistan and India. As the moral fabric of America collapses, godly families stick out like sore thumbs. We are going to need each other. We have grown up in a generation unchallenged, and untested by the suffering that is endemic of the Bride of Christ. Yet, everything changes. As I read the letters that come in every day, I can’t help but reflect on how much they have changed from the ones that were so heavy on my parents 30 years ago. Pornography has ravished the Bride of Christ. It is with tears that I report that the church in America has been defeated by the lust of the flesh. The wholesome homeschoolers are wholesome no longer. Sodom is in our homes.
Still, there is hope.
Our Redeemer lives!!
That never changes!

Saints, we need each other.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. Hebrews 10:25

As the world tears itself apart from immorality that only brings pain, we need to encourage one another and be about our Father's business.
As we strive to reach the world for Christ, pray for us.
Join us. Be obedient to the commandments of Christ and preach the gospel. So many of us feel inadequate to the task that God has set before us. You may feel like you will never measure up to the enormous task that is set before you. Saints, I'm not asking you to accomplish the whole thing; just take the first step and see.

Everything changes, even you.

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:28-29