Broken

Last night Linda and I were talking about the day and its troubles like the furnace dying and my laptop camera going fuzzy, making it useless to record videos for ministry. We reminisced about the bad things that often happen near to STM overseas. Linda commented, “Well at least nothing broke before the trip last fall.”

I thought a moment and replied, “What? Nothing broken? My foot was broken!” We had a good laugh together. These times teach us that enduring a little trouble is part of the cost of extending the frontier of God’s worldwide kingdom. Interestingly, this is exactly what I am preaching on this Sunday from Nehemiah 6:1-15.

I rarely go overseas to evangelize. I figure that the people I minister to can do that much better in their own language. God has gifted and called me to strengthen the church leaders’ lives, marriages, and ministries.

For the upcoming STM, both groups asked me to speak on building up the marriages of the pastors, evangelists, and church planters. These marriage sessions are always very challenging as it is entering a spiritual battlefield, but I know the difference between the joy and love from a great marriage and the loneliness, pride, sadness, and bitter spirits that occurs with unhealthy marriages. God’s inheritance for His people is to have great marriages!

So please do pray for me. The Lord has lately given Linda and me several opportunities of marriage counseling to sharpen my mind and focus my prayers. One coordinator identified what these couples are seeing on the web are penetrating cultural barriers and enabling these couples to see other options (not always good).