The Lord has put it on my heart to share a few of the testimonies from my Race while under quarantine. Although I didn’t spend much time blogging while on the field, He has blessed with so many amazing stories of His power, His justice, His love, and His people.
My squad spent the month of November in Malaysia. Two-thirds of us lived on Penang island, while the rest of us lived about an hour away on the mainland. As part of the former group, I spent the month partnering with Penang house of prayer (PenHOP). When we arrived, our hosts informed us of PenHOP’s weekly schedule: four hours of worship every Friday from 8 pm to midnight (appropriately titled “Friday Night Burn”) and 7 hours of worship and intercession on Tuesdays.
My time at PenHOP was eye-opening. The Lord used every single session there to teach me something new. Here’s a testimony from our first Friday Night Burn:
We were singing Open Space.
Violet, one of our hosts, grabbed an open microphone and said:
As I was sitting there, my heart was grieved. As I heard you guys singing to the Lord, it became a personal response that your hearts are open to the Lord. But what is grieving my heart is the thought of God looking at you guys, and saying, “Do I have a generation in America? Do I have a generation in America that will give themselves to the Lord, that will love the Lord with all their heart, that will be waiting for the return of Jesus?” And even as you guys may have sang this as a personal response, I thought that you as a collective body are representing a generation in America, saying, “Lord, look upon us. There is a young generation that will say ‘Yes, Lord’, that will give themselves to the Lord.” The Lord has not forgotten America. The Lord will restore generations. The Lord desires your generation to take a stand in your country. Your response tonight is not for yourselves. Your response tonight is for your generation in your nation. Lord, I ask as we sing this again as a response, that it will be a strong and collective call for the generations in America to rise up, to love you, that God would have His rightful place in the nation.
Violet put the mic down.
It was powerful. A woman from Singapore that I did not know just spoke such clear love about my people. She stepped aside and began to kneel before the Lord, but she wasn’t done.
We started singing, responding to this convicting call to intercede for the United States. As we sang, Violet, who was no longer front-and-center, began to weep.
Of course, there is no “normal” for weeping, but this was different. Initially, the cries—largely drowned out by the worship band—seemed to be derived from some sort of hysteria. She was screaming. I can remember thinking, What the heck is going on? I probably said it out loud. This lady is absolutely insane. Why is no one helping her?
But as her cries continued, God opened up my eyes. He showed me what love looked like.
In front of me was a servant of the Lord so grieved by the lostness of a people not her own that she was wailing in sorrow. She was humbling herself before the Lord, she was making a fool of herself, out of love for a generation that she didn’t know.
I know this generation. I’m part of this generation. I’ve lived with this generation for eighteen years and I’ve never loved them like this lady is. Their sin doesn’t grieve me. Their lostness doesn’t phase me. Their stubbornness doesn’t motivate me. That’s painful.
Praise God that He surrounds us with brothers and sisters to teach us. How beautiful is the humbling, yet empowering voice of the Lord. How amazing is it that we are all different parts of one body. Praise God for unity in Jesus Christ.
About five months later, I’ve returned to my people. I’m back at home in the midst of my generation. The blindness that Violet mourned is the same blindness that covers my neighbors. The fear that grips those who have never tasted the goodness of Jesus Christ is close beside me. I’ve been blown away by the fear that can be unleashed in a 20 minute news program. Fear is everywhere. Fear is powerful. Fear is dominating.
But the church must set itself apart.
“But we do not want you to be uniformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep…For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the cloud to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).
By turning to the same form of panic that the world embraces, we profane the hope of our Savior, deeming this crisis too great for our God. By mourning the same way the world does, we nullify our hope of an eternity with God.
The church must set itself apart.
Does not Jesus clearly call His people out of conformity to the world, saying “For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” In other words, Jesus is saying “Let the world do the worrying. Don’t be like them. Will not the creator of all things give abundantly to those who pursue Him?”
We have a Provider who is a very present help in times of trouble. The Creator sustains us as a Father, spiritually and physically.
“For God, who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).
Let us cling to the goodness of our Father and excellence of the hope for His kingdom. Let us eagerly desire (and obtain) the spiritual sustenance that our Father promises in Jesus’ name as we radiate light to a world of darkness.
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others…” (Matthew 5:14-16).
“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:1-2).
We must set ourselves apart.
God has placed His people on the earth to love the same way Jesus loved. We are called to rejoice in the midst of trials because the hope of glory is too great to overlook. We are called to grieve the wickedness of this world from a place of love because eternity with God, made free at Christ’s expense, is too great for any man to be separated from. We are called to glorify Jesus Christ.
Therefore, we cannot let fear ruin our witness. We cannot let panic hide our light. We must cling to the Lord in faith, that we might glorify Him in boldness. We must love our neighbors enough to grieve the fear and panic that they’re living in. We must function to glorify the Lord in all things.
Eradicating fear can’t be done in a blog post. It can’t be done in a Facebook post or an Instagram story. That’s not what the Lord is asking for. He’s asking for a people to isolate themselves: to drown out all the noise and listen to His voice. He will reward those who seek Him. He will run to those who turn to Him. It’s who He is.
But the church must set itself apart.
