Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: Now, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the world needs encouragement. One of my favorite books was this children's book which I carry with me everywhere and I read it not along with my Bible, but it's up there: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. If you have grandchildren, you need one of these to read often to your children. It's a wonderful little book because this little kid needs encouragement and he represents so many of us. It isn't just in the big things that we get down and hopeless; it's in the little things.

He went to sleep with gum in his mouth and now there's gum in his hair. When he got out of bed this morning, he tripped on the skateboard. At breakfast, Anthony found a Corvette Stingray car kit in his breakfast cereal box, Nick found a junior undercover agent code ring in his breakfast cereal box, but in his breakfast cereal box, all he found was breakfast cereal. He needed encouragement; it was going to be an awful day.

At school, Mrs. Dickens liked Paul's picture of the sailboat better than his picture of the invisible castle. There were two cupcakes in Philip Parker's lunch bag, and Albert got a Hershey bar with almonds, and Paul's mother gave him a piece of jelly roll that had little coconuts sprinkled on the top. Guess whose mother forgot to put in dessert? Alexander's. And he's decided that he's going to go to Australia because of all of this.

After school, his mom took them all to the dentist and Dr. Fields found a cavity just in him. "Come back next week and I'll fix it," said Dr. Fields. "I think I'll go to Australia," says Alexander. "I'm having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day," he told everybody. No one even answered; no one even cared. Then they went to the shoe store to buy some sneakers. Anthony chose white ones with blue stripes, Nick chose red ones with white stripes, he chose blue ones with red stripes, but then the shoe man said they were all sold out.

Some of those Alexander problems are ours. We need encouragement and often it's the things that are little that get us down, not the big things. But down we get. If it isn't kids, it's mom struggling through the daily doings of Nazareth living and ending up with the child saying to her, "Why do you say 'Thank goodness' instead of 'Goodnight, Mommy' when you kiss me goodnight?" Moms need encouragement for all sorts of ordinary daily reasons as well as the biggies.

Then the teenagers. I was reading in Time magazine that suicide is the third biggest reason for death in that age group in the United States. Kids are discouraged. They feel they're hopeless and there's no future for them. Of course, the things that are happening in their families, when we think they're doing great, they're not doing great at all.

Then the senior citizens struggling with fears of their future. Who will look after them? Have you ever thought of the old people now who have children, some of them all their children, who are divorced? Who is going to look after them? Strange new partners with their children who have no link at all with the mother and the father? There are many, many reasons for fears as the old people around us get older. They need comfort and encouragement. This can often paralyze us because if you become hopeless, psychiatrists will tell you that if you lose all hope, then you die. The person who is dying who still has a will to live because there's hope—once hope is taken away, they die very quickly.

You've got to have hope or you get paralyzed. I have had people say these things to me, real-life situations as I've traveled around in ministry. Over in Pennsylvania, one woman told me her daughter is preparing for the mission field, she's doing her nursing, and she has contracted AIDS from a patient. They were losing hope. Somebody else told me in another part of the country that her daughter has just come out of the closet. She and her lover have bought a house and they now want all the siblings to take their children to meet this new person that is now a part of their family. She expects to be invited for Christmas dinner. Two of the daughters have said no, their children will not visit, and suddenly their whole family is split apart. There is a huge sense of hopelessness in that Christian family that is suddenly coming apart.

Then I sat with a woman whose seven-year-old daughter told her that Daddy likes to take her to bed when she's out of town on business once a week and do things to her. "Is this all right, Mommy?" I tell you, there's a whole lot of need out there and people need encouragement. As I sit opposite people like that and as I face them daily, I will be listening to people that need encouragement and hope.

I believe what I believe: that God is the God of all comfort and that He lives within me, and that He is going to give me ideas and words and strength and help for these people that need encouragement. I often sit there and in the words of Paul say, "Who is sufficient for these things?" It is so bizarre, the things I listen to, so incredible. I sit there thinking, who is the person that is big enough? There is no person that is big enough that is sufficient to give an answer to this.

But we have a God who the Bible says is the God of all comfort—wonderful counselor, comforter. The one who in the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Counselor, can come alongside to help. Part of the love of God contains this idea of comfort, of encouragement, of someone that can breathe freshness and life to those that pant after it when they are down and discouraged. Chesed. He is the God who, in loyalty to the people that He claims to be His people, has promised comfort and help. He has this determination to supply the same to those people that are in need.

As I go back to Pennsylvania, to Virginia, up in the mountains where all the churches in the area have gathered for a women's convention, I will do my thing. I will do my talking, but I will do my listening too. There will be people that will come for comfort and I know who I can direct them to because God is a God of love and comfort. "The Lord is my shepherd; His rod and staff comfort me." And that's my first question: is the Lord your shepherd? If not, let's get you into that relationship with Him. Let's lead you to Christ. Let's get you into that. Hook you up, connect you to the God of all comfort.

His rod and staff will comfort you. The shepherd's rod was a club to fend off the wild beasts, those that come against us. The crook was there to guide and control the sheep. When we know the Shepherd, He does those things for us. He fends off the wild beasts that would tear us apart. So the rod and the staff represent God's constant vigilance over His own and bring comfort because of His personal presence and involvement with His sheep. The shepherd leads the sheep through very deep ravines, through shadowy parts, but He gives His comfort.

How does He give this comfort? How does the love of God become real and practical when we need comfort in all these minimal and maximal situations that we find ourselves in? First of all, He gives it directly through the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "I'm going to send you the Comforter," and He used a word exactly the same as me—Christ without His body, the third person of the Trinity. "I have to go because if I didn't go, the Comforter would not come," He said to His disciples. And so He went via the cross and the resurrection to heaven, and on Pentecost, He sent forth His Holy Spirit.

Now, we must be born again by the Spirit. As we are born anew, we've been born once physically, we are born spiritually and the Spirit of God comes into our life. Who is He? The Comforter. So we have within us, every Christian has within them, all the comfort that they need. It's learning to appropriate the comfort that you have. It's like having a bank full of all the money you could ever possibly want, but you have to draw on it. You have to sign the check; you have to go and turn that potential richness into practical reality. So we live in the Spirit, Paul says, we live by the Spirit. We learn to walk in the Spirit, not grieving the Spirit, not offending the Spirit, that all that comfort might be ours in our daily moment-by-moment walk with Him.

He is the counselor, the comforter that I need and for this I have Jesus. Next time you need comforting, say to yourself, "For this I have Jesus by His Spirit living in me. He is the God of all comfort. Lord, I have all the comfort I need. If I am not being comforted, there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with the deposit of Christ that you have given me. There's something wrong with me; there is something I am not doing or knowing how to do that will bring that comfort to my heart and to reality."

So through directly the Holy Spirit, God can comfort us. Secondly, through the Word of God. The Holy Spirit teaches us. He's our teacher who takes this Word of God and makes it make sense. His textbook is the Bible. Psalm 119 is a devotional Psalm in praise of the Word of God. It's a devotional exercise. It was written as a thing that could be used in the congregation with a choir and antiphonal response. Some of it would be said and the audience would say it back, rather like we use our hymn books for readings.

How do we know God loves us and will help and console and comfort us? Because the Bible tells us so. "Jesus loves me, this I know." How do we know? Because the Bible tells us so. The Bible tells us in Psalm 119 that it is through the Word of God that comfort comes. God in Chesed gives us a book to read. You just need to know where to go to find your comfort. This is the green pastures. Where do you go, where do you graze to find that comfort? God will lead you. How does He lead you? By His Holy Spirit, who is the Comforter, who will lead you to comforting places in the scriptures to help you.

He gives us a book to read, and in David's life, in examples of this book, we see him drawing comfort from the Word of God. The Word of God brought him encouragement when he needed it and comfort. Psalm 119:52 says, "I remember your ancient laws, O Lord, and I find comfort in them." There you go. "I remember your ancient laws." Now, David needed encouragement and comfort. We're going to think of some of the times today how he needed that comfort and encouragement. We hear his statement: "I remember your ancient laws, O Lord, and I find comfort in them."

The Bible is full of ancient laws and they are still relevant today. If I did not believe that, I would not be doing this. We would not be working our heads off for the Lord if we did not believe that. As we travel the world and as we get missionary letters and as we think through our Christian heritage, it has been the Word of God that has gone into a culture and changed it forever. Operation Mobilization is a favorite mission of ours. They are all over the world but specifically in India. They have just come out with a stamp—the whole nation of India—to commemorate the life and work and the change it made in India, the life and work of William Carey.

Now, that's close to my heart because William Carey was English. He was a cobbler, that's all, a simple humble cobbler. In fact, he said, "The God who can do for and through a poor shoemaker, the much He has done for and through me, can bless and use any. The very humblest may trust Him." He was a humble cobbler. He had hardly any education. When he went in front of his missions committee in his local church, they refused to send him. He didn't have the qualifications. But he eventually went anyway, and he went to India in the early part of November 1793.

The work started among a subcontinent that stretched before him, numbering millions who had never so much as heard the name of Christ. He was accompanied by his wife, four young boys, his wife's sister, and fellow missionary John Thomas. The obstacles were numerous. They were unknown with neither influential connections nor means of a livelihood. They entered India as illegal immigrants because the British East India Company forbade missionary work. They were life-threatened; diseases were rampant. The languages and diverse culture was largely unknown.

In the face of all these difficulties, however, Carey's achievements under God were absolutely incredible. Apart from those things in the field of education—he started a college which later became a university, he insisted on Bengali as a medium of instruction, he wrote textbooks in Bengali, Marathi, Sanskrit, and Arabic as well as English—this is a man that didn't finish his education in England. He translated two great Hindu epics into Bengali. He established a network of more than 125 village schools. He pioneered the education of young women. He brought the modern printing press to India. He pioneered the paper industry. He launched India's first newspaper which is still published today, the oldest English newspaper published in India, The Statesman.

He was a colossal social reformer. He wrote against sati, the practice of widows throwing themselves onto their husbands' funeral pyre. He translated the Bible into six major Indian languages and parts of the Bible into 33 other Indian languages. In the field of industry, he gave India its first steam engine. He introduced the concept of a savings bank. But in the face of all of these difficulties he faced, his achievements under God were many. But for Carey, there was one overriding objective: to translate the Word of God into the languages of the people. His trust was in God and in the power of the scriptures.

In just over 40 years, he translated the whole Bible into Bengali, Oriya, Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit, and Assamese and the New Testament and other portions into many other languages. Why? Because he believed in the power to change the continent. My daughter has been to India. She said it was the worst experience of her life. She will never ever forget going along in the taxi with leprous hands coming through the window, sitting in a hotel for the last night before they flew out with an open place where they could have drinks and have their food with people dying underneath on the street, literally the death carts coming to collect the body while the restaurant people tried to eat.

India is incredible. Talk about the need for comfort. What is the answer? The answer is this: this brings comfort. Do we believe it? Do we believe it enough to live it out in our lives, to move heaven and earth in order to get the Word of God to people? How does God's comfort come to us? Through His Word. The written Word. Psalm 119:41, "Comfort me with your love. May your unfailing love come to me, O Lord, your salvation according to your promises." Psalm 119:76, "May your unfailing love be my comfort according to your promise to your servant."

The Word is a source of comfort. In Psalm 119, we have these sort of words: law, statutes, precepts, commands, laws, ordinances, degrees. The Word, most of which have to do with His redeeming acts, covenantal words, His promises to us. When we are hopeless, if somebody comes along and promises us something, it gives us hope and that's what the Word of God does. "I remember your ancient laws." They are absolutes. And you know what people are trying to do today? They're trying to change this. They're trying to say, "Well, it was all right, but it needs revising into something that it doesn't mean."

David said, "If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction." It is, he says, for all generations: our generation, our kids' generation, our grandchildren. This is not going to change. There are absolutes here that do not change. And the Word of God is the Word of God. It is trustworthy and we can tell our children that and their children too. David says, "I rise before dawn and I cry for help. I've put my hope in your word. My eyes stay open through the watches of the night that I may meditate on your promises. Hear my voice in accordance with your love."

Your statutes last forever. There is a durability in the promises and the comfort of God that comes to us. "Great peace have they who love your law." If you ladies have not read "Through Gates of Splendor," I pray you will before the week is over. Buy one; you should have it in your library anyway. Give it to your children; give it to your neighbors. This is a classic piece of your missionary heritage—the story of the five martyred missionaries. I often draw on examples of this.

But I was deeply moved as I read it again, as I looked at pictures of these women, all of whom had little babies when their men were killed: Elisabeth Elliot, Olive Fleming, Barbara Youderian, Marge Saint. As I read about them hearing the news as they had found the bodies, the thing that struck me was just absolutely incredible is how the Word of God brought them comfort. Yes, the Holy Spirit brought them direct comfort taking the Word of God, but it was the Word of God.

As I came face to face with the news of Roj's death, my heart was filled with praise. He was worthy of his home-going. "Help me, Lord, to be both mommy and daddy, to know wisdom and instruction." I wrote a letter to the missions family: "I want to be free of self-pity. It's a tool of Satan to rot away a life. The Lord has closed our hearts to grief and hysteria and filled them with His perfect peace through His Word." Over and over again. The answers to questions why remain a mystery. This much we knew: "Whoever shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospels, the same shall save it." There was no question to the present state of our loved ones—they were with Christ. It was to the Word of God we turned. Over and over again, it was to the Word of God we turned.

And I was struck with that, and I know that in my little troubles as I have turned to the Word of God, comfort has come to me. So it is through the Word we receive comfort and it is through the Word we can pass on that comfort to others. There's a wonderful passage of scripture in 2 Corinthians 1. I'm going to read from Phillips: "Thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He is our Father and the source of all mercy and comfort. He gives us comfort in our trials so that we in turn may be able to give the same sort of strong sympathy to others in theirs. Indeed, experience shows that the more we share Christ's suffering, the more we are able to give of His encouragement. This means that if we are experiencing trouble, we can pass on to you comfort and spiritual help. For if we ourselves have been comforted, we know how to encourage you to endure patiently the same sort of troubles that we have ourselves endured. We're quite confident that if you have to suffer troubles as we have done, then like us, you will find the comfort and encouragement of God."

The best passage to go and really dig into if you're looking for comfort in the scriptures is 2 Corinthians chapter 1. We can comfort others. David found comfort, we go to his Psalms. He, in turn, comforts us through the comfort he himself received from God. Now, David, as I said, needed many, many times when he needed comfort. Another way that God comforts us through the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God, is through a friend. And the story of David and Jonathan, if you would turn to 1 Samuel chapter 17.

David had just killed Goliath. He comes to Saul with the head of Goliath in his hands. Jonathan, his son, has watched this take place. Jonathan, a mighty warrior, Jonathan, a giant of a man spiritually. His father is the king, and here's this little kid who's just killed this giant and stands there with the trophy in his hand and Goliath's sword in his other hand. After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David and he loved him as himself. From that day, Saul kept David with him and didn't let him return to his father's house.

So David, it says in the King James, "soul was knit" with Jonathan and Jonathan's with David. Saul at first said, "I want you to come and be my personal assistant," and so David went from the sheep to Saul's court and he went back and forth for a time. Remember that Saul had said, "Whoever kills Goliath can have my daughter in marriage, Merab." He now reneges on that because he begins to be jealous of David and he gives Merab to someone else and she's married off.

But Michal loved David, and Saul said, "Good, I'll make him fight for her." He said, "You've got to kill 200 Philistines, then you can have Michal." David went out and did it, much to Saul's surprise. Called his bluff, said, "Now can I have Michal?" And so he married the second daughter of Saul. But Saul began to try and kill David, and Jonathan talked to his father and said, "He's your servant, he's doing all this, don't you see you don't need to fear him?" Saul said, "All right, he can come back to court."

And so David came back to court in an uneasy truce. But David could see that Saul had it in his heart to kill him. In chapter 20, as David is playing his harp, a spear is thrown at him and Saul tries to kill him. He also tries to kill Jonathan for trying to protect David. And so Jonathan goes to David and says, "Look, I can see that my father is trying to kill you. This isn't going to work; you're going to have to run away."

And they make covenants, four times I think Jonathan and David get together and they covenant. Jonathan gives him his cloak, he gives him his bow, he gives him his weapons of war, and it's a symbol to say "You're going to be king and I'm going to serve you." He gives away his inheritance. Jonathan was meant to be king—he was Saul's son—and he said, "No, no, no, I know, I can see God's hand on you. I will serve you." That is chesed love. That is love coming back to someone else.

Jonathan shows us what real love is all about. And David runs away and he has all these adventures. He gets himself in a mess with the king of Gath and has to pretend he's insane to get out of it, scrabbling on the wall and letting saliva drip down his beard so the people of Gath said, "Look, he's mad, let him go." And he runs away and he's hunted and he's in trouble with the Philistines and with the other people that live around, he's in trouble with Saul.

In 1 Samuel 23, Jonathan goes to him and it says that he "encouraged him in the Lord." He "strengthened his hand in God." He "encouraged him in his faith in God." He "helped him to have strong faith." He strengthened his hand in the Lord. What a wonderful thing it is when through a friend, through a Jonathan, you find strength and encouragement. We can all be Jonathans; we can all help and encourage other people through strength and faith and encourage them in the Lord when they are down.

Do you know anyone that's discouraged? What have you done to encourage them? Have you passed on a little bit of encouragement that you have received? Have you thought of an incident in a Christian book that you have read that you have sitting on your shelf? That book can be your messenger; you can send it, you can give it. There are so many ways. Let your encouragement go to others that are in need. Be a Jonathan. You say, "Well, I need a Jonathan." Do you know how to find a Jonathan? "Let those who would have a friend show themselves friendly," the book of Proverbs says.

And so you be a Jonathan and you find that somebody is a Jonathan back to you. Giving comfort brings comfort back, brings you friends. You have to start. If you just sit there all your life waiting for somebody to be a Jonathan to you, you'll never find a Jonathan. But as you actively engage in encouragement, as you get out there, as you exercise a ministry of presence with someone that needs an encouraging word, then you'll find that those very people that you encourage become your friends and your encouragers. You love like Jonathan.

David ended up in a cave, in the Cave of Adullam, hunted by Saul, hunted like an animal. I want to turn you in these last minutes to Psalm 42, which is believed to be David's Psalm. It's believed to be his Psalm because they're pretty sure he wrote Psalm 43, but Psalm 43 is part of Psalm 42. Somewhere in the putting it into the scriptures, it got divided. We know that he wrote Psalm 43, so we presume he wrote 42 because they are considered one Psalm.

"As the deer pants for the streams of water..." And here again you see, "For the director of music," David gave it to them. "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God." The background is the Cave of Adullam. The background is David desperately hunted like a deer is persecuted by the hunters. He felt like that little hind. As I looked at this Psalm, I just divided it very simply into some headings. We start off with a dry deer. "I pant, I'm open-mouthed with longings for your commands. I'm on the run, I'm persecuted. I'm a disconnected deer," says David. "I'm alone, I'm frightened. I feel cut off from God and just when I need Him the most."

That's how David felt. He felt just when he needed God the most, he was panting, he was thirsty, he didn't feel comforted, satisfied, couldn't find that refreshment of spirit he needed. He was a deserted deer. People were saying to him, "Where is your God? Where is your God?" When he was in the cave of Adullam, everybody turned against him, even his own men who'd come to him and they wanted to stone him to death. He found himself totally alone.

The scriptures say David encouraged himself in the Lord. Others can encourage you, the Holy Spirit can do it, the Word of God can do it, but there comes a point where you have to appropriate it. He was absolutely alone, even his very closest men and people. And how did he do that? He panted after God, even though he felt disconnected, deserted, disappointed, his soul panting after God. He was a drear deer. He was a dry deer and he was a drear deer. The big "D" for depression.

He was disappointed with God and everybody around him were saying, "Where is your God?" I was reading in a book about an incredible testimony of a man in prison who became a believer and he was in a cell with a lot of people that weren't. One of those men in the cell tried to persecute this Christian and destroy his faith. "I got away with everything for a while, but you always reach the end of your rope. I got drunk, I got into a fight, I found myself in jail. There was a guy in my cell, a Baptist who prayed a lot and would always cross himself before meals. Many people, including me, mocked him for this."

"Out of boredom, I dragged him into dispute over the Word of God and he began to win. Just for the fun of it, I began defending atheism. I really couldn't have cared less about God or atheism; I just wanted to break him, break his confidence in this God and that Word of God that he read. That was the main thing. Arrogance pushed me on and I achieved what I wanted. My cellmate stopped talking, he fell silent, he began to cry. Then he began to pray that his faith would be strengthened and that his belief in the Word of God would remain strong. And he prayed out loud, louder and louder. He strengthened himself; he found courage in his God."

"I suddenly felt no satisfaction in my victory. A horrible weight fell upon me; I felt sick like I'd done something mean. He just kept on praying and praying, but more calmly now. Suddenly he looked at me and smiled and I was amazed at his face. There was something joyful about it, pure like it had been washed. And the weight immediately fell from my soul and I understood that he'd forgiven me. And then a light of some sort penetrated me and I understood that God existed. It wasn't even so much I understood, but I sensed it with my whole being: He exists. He alone has always been and always will be. He's everywhere. He's our Father; we're His children, brothers one to another. And I forgot I was in a prison and felt only one thing: a great joy and thankfulness to the Lord who revealed Himself to me who was unworthy."

Isn't that amazing? Because a man lost without any help, his own cellmates turning against him, his family far away, encouraged himself in the Lord. And what happened? He started off panting, doubting, in depression, a drear deer. And he ended up praising God, a dear deer. "By day the Lord directs His love." However dark the night, He gives me a song in the night. God gave this man a song in his cell, a song in the night, and he sang it. He encouraged himself in the Lord, he drew on that Holy Spirit of comfort just when he needed Him more.

And he looked up and he smiled because God is a God of love and He forgave that cellmate that was giving him such a hard time. The power of that converted a man who became a worker among prisoners for the rest of his life. We can rely on the unchanging quality and put our hope and confidence in God Himself. The Psalmist ends up in this Psalm a delighted deer. He is just delighted. One thing he has found: "My heart delights in Thee." He is focusing on God alone. He is getting back to basics. Oh that my soul and His may be so knit together that Him and Him alone may be all that matters.

Sometimes I think God allows things to happen in our life so that we may be driven back to a situation in our own spiritual lives and hearts where there is only one person in the end that we can turn to for comfort. Sometimes He takes all the props away. Sometimes He takes our family away; sometimes He takes our children away, and we just have this huge hole in our lives. I don't know what God feels about this—He must feel pretty depressed about it—but in the last event, we turn to Him, not in the first, for comfort and for help.

As the deer pants after the water, so pant we after you. And maybe He takes our ministry away, maybe He takes all these things away. I love everything I do: I love all my ministry, my writing, my speaking. But if I could never speak again for Him, would He still be enough for me? Am I loving the work of the Lord more than the Lord of the work? In the end, He drives us to Himself that we might find in Him hope and comfort and presence so that nothing else matters.

And as I got to the end of "Through Gates of Splendor," I came across the way they end the book when Jim Elliot, who was a poet, was found lying face down in that river. They went and found a few things left in the camp they'd made in their treehouse, and one of them was his diary. And as they had camped out there and as they were trying to make friends with those natives that eventually murdered them, he had written night after night in his devotional diary. That diary, of course, is the basis of many of these books.

But one of the pieces that he had written had been written either the night before he went to glory or shortly thereto. And they end the book with this: "For the wives and relatives of the five men, the mute longing of their hearts was echoed by words found in Jim Elliot's diary: 'I walked out to the hill just now. It's exalting, delicious to stand embraced by the shadows of a friendly tree, with the wind tugging at your coattail and the heavens hailing your heart. To gaze and glory and give oneself again to God. What more could a man ask? Oh the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth. I care not if I never raise my voice again for Him. If only I may love Him, please Him, mayhap in mercy He shall give me a host of children that I may lead them through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose finger ends set them to burning. But if not, if only I may see Him, touch His garments, and smile into His eyes, ah then, not stars nor children shall matter, only Himself.'"

And then the prayer: "O Jesus, master and center and end of all, how long before that glory is thine which so long waited Thee? Now there is no thought of Thee among men; then there shall be thought for nothing else. Now other men are praised; then none shall care for any others' merits. Hasten, hasten, glory of heaven, take thy crown, subdue thy kingdom, enthrall thy creatures." And he got his wish the very next day. But oh to have a faith—I long for it—where nothing matters but Him. And if through all our little troubles, they bring us to that point, then thank Him for them and praise Him for them. For the God of all comfort then becomes all, all that we need and all that we want.

Let's pray. Lord, we praise you that you are the God of all comfort, the God of mercy and compassion, the God of love. And that you have given us the Comforter, the Consoler, the Holy Spirit, that He may live within our hearts. And we may draw on Him; we may comfort ourselves in God like David did. And in those times of depression when we are dry deers and drear deers and depressed and down and feeling disconnected and disturbed, why, oh soul, art thou disquieted within me? When we ask ourselves in this Psalm as David did, "Why, oh soul, are you so depressed?" may we find the answer he found: "Hope thou in God. Put your confidence in Him and in God alone, in God alone, in God alone."

May we draw on your comfort through your Spirit, through your Word, through other people, through the Jonathans you graciously give us. But remind us that we must be a Jonathan if we would earn that right of Christian friendship and love. O God, may we never trust other people before we trust Thee. May we turn in our troubles, little and big, to the God who is big enough for all our little and big troubles, who can absorb them, who is not surprised by them, who can supply us with grace to help in time of need.

And may we say as Jim Elliot was able to say: "Oh, if I only I may love Him, if only I may please Him, mayhap in mercy He may give me a glimpse of Him that I may touch His garments, smile into His eyes, ah then, not stars nor children shall matter, only Himself." Lord, show us how it is that we can come to a faith like that because that's the sort of faith that's going to matter, and that's the sort of faith that's going to move the mountains, and that's the sort of faith that's going to commit itself to showing up where you want us to show up and have a ministry of presence and comfort and help to a world that is panting for what they know not. And yet we know, Lord, they're panting for you. Help us, Lord, to bring that comfort to a hurting world. We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen.