Life's Weather

15 April 2018

Dear Phyllis,

Well winter is definitely over in Thailand. The temperature is up to a comfortable 100 F every day. Two weeks ago we had an unexpected severe cold snap where the thermometer dipped to the low 70s and I almost froze. It got so cold in the morning I had to go inside and put on a T shirt to work in my shop. Then towards evening it got so bitter I had to put on a long sleeve shirt. I closed the window of my bedroom and slept under a blanket. But from now on for the next nine months we can expect very reasonable weather. We are right at the end of the dry season, and surprisingly this is the time for flowers to bloom. In the states and Japan we wait for spring rain to bring out the flowers but in Thailand the prettiest time of the year is when it is the driest.

That is the way it should be in the Christian life. Samuel Rutherford said, “Grace blooms best in winter”. That is true. It takes severe testing to bring out the finest qualities of grace. It doesn't take much grace to be happy when the sun is shining and a warm south breeze is blowing, but when every thing goes bad and the chilly north wind of adversity is in your face, that is when grace really looks the most beautiful. It has been said, “When the going gets tough, the tough gets going”; and you really don't know who is tough until the hard times come.

Three months ago I ran into a church by mistake. I was looking for a friends church and got lost. I finally saw one that looked like the one I was after and went inside to ask if that was James church. No. Wrong one. But it was after 11:00 and I decided to stay anyway. As the service went on I wondered, “What kind of a church is this?” To find out I decided to give it one more try to see who they were. Beulah Christian Church has become my new home church. I say this is the best church I have found in Thailand and am now a regular member. I have been anxiously waiting for a chance to speak and today was my first time up.

When I knew I was on the schedule this Sunday I asked the Lord what he would have me to say. I thought He said to speak on “What is your goal in life?”. For two weeks thoughts have flooded my mind. My mind went back to a message I heard Joe Carroll preach in 1962 on David.

David was one of the most gifted, outstanding, men in the Bible. He is the only one where God said he was a man after His own heart (Act 13:22). He was easily the greatest king Israel ever had. But few people realize he first came to prominence as a musician. Saul was having problems being harassed my evil spirits and they said, “Let's see if we can find someone to calm him down by music”. David had the reputation as being the finest harpist in the country and was brought to play before Saul to calm his spirit (1 Sam. 16:14-23).

David is probably best known for being the man who killed Goliath. When the Philistine giant challenged Saul's army there wasn't a man in the country that would face the giant until David showed up. David said, “I'll take him on”, and when he cut off Goliath's head he was a national hero soldier. David was a great poet. He wrote one third of the psalms we have in the Bible. He was a brilliant military man and a leader of men. He took 400 men who were disgruntled with life and molded them into an army to be feared. He was a great statesman. His 40 year reign was sandwiched between Saul and Solomon. In the the days of Saul Israel was a very poor country. There were only two swords in the entire country and the Israelites didn't own a file (1 Sam. 13:19-23). Solomon followed David as king and during his reign Israel was the riches county in the world. In 40 years David had taken that rag-tag poor country and made it into the prosperous nation that Solomon inherited.

David was truly a multi-gifted man with many talents. But if we would ask him, “What was your goal in life? What was the one thing your wanted to accomplish?”; I believe he would tell us what he wrote in Psalm 27:4 - “ONE THING have I desired of the Lord. THAT WILL I SEEK AFTER: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life: to BEHOLD THE BEAUTY OF THE LORD, and to INQUIRE in His temple”.

When I heard that message by Joe Carroll I thought, “That has got to be the most important message I have ever heard. If that was David's goal I couldn't do better than to make it mine”. I choose it to be my life verse and the goal of my life. For the next 30 years I preached a number of plagiarized Joe Carroll messages and was very satisfied with my position.

Then in 1989, 1990 my world collapsed. My wife left me and I lost everything including, my marriage, my family, my home, my ministry, all my support, and my friends. From 1989 to 1992 I frantically and furiously fought to save my family. I prayed until I'm sure God got tired of hearing me. At my lowest point I wound up a honey wagon man driving around Ikoma pumping out toilets and septic tanks. (A honey wagon is a vacuum truck to pump out toilets. We call it honey wagon because the contents look somewhat like honey.) Driving a honey wagon is not a very fulfilling job and at night I couldn't go home and say, “I really had a great time pumping out 20 toilets today”. I had no friends and nothing else to do. My life wound up three phrases – having devotions in the morning, driving a honey wagon for 8 hours in the day and sleeping at night. I wound up going to bed at 8:00 and getting up every morning at 3:00 AM for devotions as I had no friends and nothing else to do.

As I started meeting with the Lord at 3:00 Am Jesus spoke to me. He said, “You have been talking about Psalm 27:4 for 30 years but you have never practiced it”. David said the one thing he was going to seek was beholding the beauty of the Lord and the one thing I was pursuing was the salvation of my family. I said. “Okay, I quit. I will stop praying for my family and seek just one thing – to behold the beauty of the Lord and and be on speaking terms with God.”

The next morning I got up at 3:00, got dressed, and had a cup of coffee. Then I sat down before the Lord and said, “I am not going to pray about a thing. I am not going to ask God for anything or even thank Him for anything. For two hours I am simply going to sit here and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.” I had been doing this for a few weeks and was talking to a girl at church one Sunday. I asked her if she had ever done that. “No” “Try it. Set aside 15 minutes every day; don't pray abut a thing but just sit there quietly before then Lord gazing at His beauty. Then come in next Sunday and tell me what you saw.” The next Sunday I asked her, “Did you do it?” “Yes” “What did you see?” “I didn't see a thing.” “Neither did I.” I would wait before the Lord every morning but my mind was all over the place. I never saw a cotton picken thing.

That brought up four major questions; (1) Are you supposed to see something? (2) What are you supposed to see? (3) How do you see it? and (4) If you don't see anything – WHY? Answering those four questions became to focal point of my life. That was 26 years ago. Today I know the answers.

I was supposed to speak in church for 30 minutes this morning. I spoke for 1 hour and this is as far as I got.

See you next week, bill