Setting yourself up for a miracle

I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, “The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.” So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.
Ezra 8:22-23

Have you promised something would happen and then felt that you had possibly just brought a disaster on yourself? Or, to put it spiritually, have you ever set yourself up for a miracle?

The summer of 2006 I led a Spanish missions team to Nepal. One of our activities was to organize and play in a soccer tournament for a series of small villages around Kathmandu. Despite being monsoon season, we hadn’t had any major rainfalls during the tournament. However, on the day of the final game, huge clouds gathered above us, turning darker every second, threatening a massive outpouring of water. Because major rain made playing on a dirt field absolutely impossible, our local partner, who was not a Christian, called me and the team leaders over for a meeting: “Look, we know it will rain in less than 1 hour, so we cannot play the final game. We’re going to have to cancel.” Although it was sad to cancel because the tournament had gained momentum (literally the whole village) had come to watch with great expectation, and our other commitments wouldn’t allow us to play it another day, I trusted his knowledge of the weather and decided to agree with him. However, when I spoke up to say “Ok,” out of my mouth came these words: “Don’t worry, Jesus won’t allow it to rain until the tournament is over.” Aghast, I practically covered my mouth with my hands. What had I just said!? This was not a little summer rain, this is a monsoon that is clearly about to explode! He looked at me straight in the eye and, convinced, quickly replied: “Ok. I believe you, let’s play. Your Jesus will keep the rain away.”

We exited the clubhouse and he announced to the crowd (that is, to the whole village): “Kenny’s Jesus would keep the rain away for the rest of the tournament.” As the crowd cheered, my teammates looked at me as saying: “When it starts raining, what?” I took them aside and said “Guys, I have no idea why I said what I did, but we better get praying.”

To make a long story short, although the clouds never left, it didn’t rain for the remainder of the game. What’s more, after the trophy ceremony (we didn’t win), we were asked to give a speech in which we shared our reason for being there, Jesus. Literally the moment we finished the ceremony with a prayer,  sheets and sheets of water suddenly started pounding down. In less than 20 minutes there was at least a foot of water covering the field.

Needless to say, the villagers (and us) was impressed and interested in this Jesus who could stop rain. The next Sunday at least 30 new people, mostly youth, showed up in the small home that a local missionary was using for church services. He reports that most of them have continued going until now.

I believe that this was a miracle from God.

Like Ezra we often find ourselves in situations where we feel we need to proclaim that a miracle will happen. It’s not that we must find random things to proclaim and put God to the test, but sometimes the Holy Spirit does urge us to set ourselves up in situations where we depend absolutely on God. In his mercy he allows us to be his mouthpieces at times, to proclaim what he will do and see it happen! Other times his grace also withholds the miracle we had foolishly proclaimed without first hearing from him. We should respond to both situations with thankfulness, and yearn to grow in our ability to hear God clearly and immediately obey in the same way Ezra does throughout the book with his name. Not only will we grow in joy for being closer to our Father, we will also be a light to the nations, a testimony of who God is and what he does for those who seek him.

Lessons in leadership

A few days ago I went to chapel (a daily worship service that is held on campus) in which one of the professors here spoke from the Bible. During the sermon I looked around the room and saw a large number of professors sitting in the crowd, carefully listening to and receiving the word from their colleague. It surprised me, because so often I have been around people who will only receive instruction or pay attention to people that are above them in knowledge, position, titles before their name, etc. Rarely would you see people like that taking time out of their busy schedule to listen to someone who is at their “level,” or lower.

But leadership, or a great part of it, includes learning from everyone you can and supporting people as often as you can in what they do. Humility is essential for the task.

One of my great mentors was Toñi, the worship leader at Amistad Cristiana for many years. The first time she asked me to lead worship I expected that it was because she would be gone and needed someone to fill in and figured that I couldn’t mess it up too much. But I was blown away when she appeared to play and sing as part of the band. She let me lead, but made a point to come and support me, submitting to my leadership. It boosted my confidence not only in myself but also in her as a leader. I learned that I was trusted and that made me trust her more and want to learn more from her.

I want to be that kind of a leader, who is secure enough to be humble and to support those around me whether they know more or less than I do. That, I believe, is what makes good leaders.

Is Greek helpful for personal devotionals?

Recently I started reading a bit of the New Testament in the original Greek during my personal devotional. I read Romans 6:11 and used a Gramatical Analysis (a book that analyzes what grammatical particularities each word has) to help me with the parts I wasn’t sure about. I was surprised that despite my very low level of Greek, and with the help of dictionaries and grammars, I was already seeing some of the subtleties in the original that are lost in translation. Here’s what I discovered:

The ESV version of Romans 6:11 reads: “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Although this is a very correct translation, there are a few things that appear in the Greek that make Paul’s point even more interesting and down to earth.

1) μὲν…δὲ – this combination of words basically means “on the one hand” and “on the other”. In this case it is before “dead” and before “alive”.

2) νεκροὺς vs. ζῶντας – the first word [nekrous] means dead and it is a noun in the accusative case (direct object). This attributes it a static, and in this case a past meaning. You are dead already, no need to revisit that. The second word [zōntas] is a present participle (a verbal form). It is well translated as “alive” but includes the subtlety of an action, of something still going on (living). In other words, the dead part is done, already dealt with, but now we are living continuously to God, not just “made alive” to him or something of the sort.

If we add the meaning that the connectors “to” and “in” have, we could conclude that the original readers probably understood it something like this:

“So you also must consider yourselves, on the one hand, already dead to sin (you no longer exist in relation to it), but on the other hand, you are now living to God (for him, with him, by him) in (through) Christ Jesus.”

Our salvation from sin isn’t a static thing. It affects us every day as we live out this salvation. It is only possible to live, once rescued from sin, in or through Christ. It isn’t because of good works, but because the ultimate good work has already been done which frees us from a life under sin and self-enslavement. Instead, we are to live to God and only through the strength and life of Christ, who beat death on the cross.

I think the original readers had the privilege of enjoying the vitality and sense of the immediate of the text when they heard it for the first time. We also can see it as such, but perhaps it takes a bit more time and effort. This is why it is useful to study the original Greek and learn how to explain its subtleties to readers hungry for the Word of God.