Jan Vickers: Hope in the Valley (Pt. 1)

Today's post is written by Jan Vickers; Jan and her husband Robin reside in the UK and are close friends of David and Elaine.

Psalm 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me, your rod and staff they comfort me.

Dark valleys can be very different for each of us. They can come upon us very suddenly; a worrying diagnosis, a relationship crisis, a financial problem. Sometimes they can creep up on us slowly from within; anxiety, depression, addiction.

For my husband and myself we have walked the valley of the shadow of death over the past few years. Robin was an officer in the British army (now safely retired!) and he was posted to Iraq for a year working in a very dangerous area of Baghdad. He walked the valley of the shadow of death daily, but so did I waiting and hoping and praying at home. On his returning home, I was then diagnosed with breast cancer and went through the usual treatments of surgery and chemotherapy. This time Robin had to walk his own dark valley of supporting me. On my recovery he was then posted to Afghanistan for a year – we continued walking. Again on his return, not to be outdone, I was diagnosed with metastatic cancer which means the cancer is spreading and I am now under palliative care. We continue walking!

Coming from a theological background which believes in God’s supernatural ability and desire to heal, and faced with the medical prognosis and reality of my health, it would be understandable that that could cause problems for me! Yet I have found that I can walk with one foot on the path of expectation that today could be the day I am healed, and this is God’s desire for me, and the other on the path of my as yet unhealed life-shortening illness. OK, sometimes both feet leap onto one path but then soon I am back on both paths again.

The reason why I am walking in so much peace and faith I can only put down to the truth of the verse above. “I will fear no evil for you are with me.” The presence of God.  Life has become very simple. Jesus is my Saviour. Jesus is my Healer and He is with me. So I hang out with Him! He knows how to lead me in paths of righteousness. He is not confused and bewildered by the valley I am in. He encourages me to keep walking through, not to settle and make my camp in the valley. He provides what I need for the journey as He is the God of all comfort, endurance and encouragement. He has the wisdom, the tools and strategies and is able to protect and comfort my heart within the valley.

Where God is there is goodness and as I look to Him I see it all around me. He has said “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me every day of my life.”(Ps 23:6) That means every day! It means the days when I feel the “same power that raised Christ from the dead is working in my mortal body”  (Rom 8:11), as well as the days I feel pain. It means the days to come of joy and sadness, of enjoying and leaving my loved ones. It means the day when “I know in whom I have believed” (2 Tim 1:12) and will step into eternity with Him.

That is why we can say with the Psalmist “I will fear no evil.” I once heard said, there are no longer good days and bad days but days of grace. That grace may be expressed through supernatural intervention, of being sustained with favour and good things, or it comes in strength, endurance and courage. There will always be sufficient grace.

Hope is the confident expectation of goodness and sometimes we try to define what that looks like. “Goodness is that I get healed.” That would be good! But if we do not get healed does that mean our lives are without His goodness and therefore we lose hope? No! In everything the Good Shepherd is doing good and His goodness is so much more than our limited definition of good. Therefore we never have to be without hope.

When I imagine the days to come, good or bad, I think of the Lord’s presence in them and that settles my heart. He will be there, my source and my salvation. I need not fear.

Rob and Jan at home.

Jumping off a cliff again

One night many years ago, I had decided to get down on one knee and ask Elaine to marry me. I was convinced it was God’s will, and I knew she would accept. Yet at the last moment, I had a sudden and very real sensation I was about to jump off a cliff. I did jump, and I have never regretted it. Apart from my decision to follow Christ, it was the best call I have ever made in my life.

But the problem with God is that he seems inclined to find more cliffs for us to jump off. Just when we’ve finished congratulating ourselves on our last apparently great step of faith, we find ourselves, like it or not, back at the edge again.

And so it is with Elaine and I. Most sensible people my age are thinking how to stay in their secure jobs as long as they can to pad their retirement fund. But for me, it’s the cliff again. I found myself last week announcing to our church that next year, we will lay down our leadership (and my job) to pursue a wider call of God. We can’t do what God is calling us to do and look after a local church at the same time. Our financial plan is spelled faith, as it always has been.

This is why we are doing such a crazy thing. The things we feel called to do -- raising up young leaders, mentoring couples, preaching and teaching, writing books -- all boil down to one thing: leaving a legacy.

One of the biggest problems with Christian leadership is the tendency of leaders to build their ministry around themselves. When they retire, die, or (God forbid) suffer a moral failure, everything disappears overnight. Yet Jesus taught us to build around others, not around ourselves. He devoted himself to developing a small group of disciples, rather than accumulating a large number of church members. Disciples carry the heart and values of those who have gone before them, and take it to the next generation.

Our highest and most strategic task as leaders is not to build large churches around our own gift, but to invest in those young men and women who will transmit the values we believe in to the next generation. In the world, people are taught to make their boss look good. Christian leaders should be taught to make their followers look good. Or as a friend of mine put it, success is successors. The greatest joy of a parent is to see their kids excel.

It’s a very sad thing when leaders lose their edge as they grow older. Age should bring wisdom, but it can also bring an unwanted kind of conservatism -- the unwillingness to risk or take up a challenge. As much as young leaders need to seek out the wisdom of experience, older leaders need to recharge their batteries by spending time around people half their age or less. The benefits of wisdom and experience are meant to give us a platform to find higher cliffs to jump off, not slide into a world of safety nets.

Jesus risked everything right up until the last minute. The cross did not look like a very good career move. It turned out to be the best call he ever made.

He left behind no megachurch, no media empire, no stack of best-selling motivational books. What he did leave behind was something far more valuable -- disciples who would carry on his work. At the cross, he looked like a failure. But when the Holy Spirit fell just a few weeks later, the seeds he sowed in that small group of disciples sprang quickly up, and his kingdom has been advancing ever since.

At 63 years of age, let me give you a piece of advice. Give everything you’ve ever learned in God away to those half your age. Then find a cliff and start jumping again.

A pile of stones will help you

A number of years ago, in the middle of a massive challenge, I drove out to the waterfront to a place I often pray. In that place, I cried out a prayer of utter desperation that God would deliver me and my family from a very threatening situation. And I asked him to do it by the end of that month. Well before the month ended, we had two miraculous interventions which saved our family and our church from untold grief. I often remember how God met me there. But the Bible teaches us there is more to remembering than just thinking about what happened in the past.

The question we have to face in crisis is not the reality of God’s sovereignty, or his love or faithfulness toward us. The question is what our response will be to what we are going through. Will we respond with a trust which opens the way for God to do whatever he wants with us? Or will we respond in bitterness or anger, which will close the door on his work in our lives? Or will we be so filled with fear we will panic and make foolish decisions? Much of this depends on how well we have learned to see the hand of God in our lives. And we learn through remembering!

God told Moses to instruct the Israelites to recite the story of their deliverance from Egypt to each generation so they would never forget the mighty works and faithfulness of God. When they first left Egypt, Moses said this: “Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place” (Exodus 13:3). And when they were about to enter the Promised Land forty years later, he repeated his message: “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (Deuteronomy 5:15).

The Hebrew verb for “remember” (zakar), used in these passages, means a remembering which results in action. For God to remember his covenant means he will act on his covenant promises to save his people: “I will not spurn them... but I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers” (Leviticus 26:44-45). For you and I to remember the commandments means that we commit to obey the commandments: “So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God” (Numbers 15:40).

Twenty-five years ago, we had friends called Martin and Cindy who were experiencing severe financial testing. Reading their Bible, they found God’s people being commanded to remember the past acts of God in their lives. And so they decided to put a stone into a jar on their dining room table every time God provided for them. The jar, which eventually filled up, reminded them of God’s faithfulness. A few months ago, I had lunch with Martin and Cindy and found out they still have a jar on their table -- and it is full.

Remembering the great works of God and his acts of faithfulness gave the Israelites a framework or perspective. It showed them how to understand their hardships and battles from a place of faith, not fear. The same God who had delivered in the last battle would rescue them again.

Can you remember how God has met you in the past? Can you remember how he was faithful when you had lost hope? Can you ask him to do the same for you again? Can you cast yourself on his great mercy? Or, in the words of my son-in-law Josh, can you learn to collapse into his will?

A good Biblical memory will serve you well. You have it. Use it!

India calls (part 2)

In the first part of this account, I told how I first met John Babu, one of the most amazing men I have ever encountered. And I told something of his incredible but true story. It was 1978 when God spoke to me about India. He did not open the door for me to go until 1996. The delay was not disobedience on my part, just the timing of God. When God gives us a word or promise, our greatest mistake (especially if the promise is a good one) is to assume it will be fulfilled tomorrow. More often, we find ourselves in the good Biblical company of Abraham, who “through faith and patience” inherited the promise (Heb. 5:12). If God has promised you something, don’t give up because it does not immediately fall into your possession. Press into God, wait on him, see what he is doing in your life and submit to it, and allow him to fulfill his word to you. Remember what Paul said about God’s faithfulness to Abraham: “Whatever he has promised, he is able also to perform” (Rom. 4:21).

I could try to describe myself as a Christian version of Indiana Jones, but I don’t think I could get away with it. The truth is I was quite apprehensive about traveling to India, and so I enlisted the help of my friend Andy Gower, an English businessman I knew who travelled extensively and would be able to hold my hand in case of unknown third-world terrors. Just as well, for when we landed in Mumbai, even though it was midnight we were immediately disgorged into a seething and uncontrolled mass of humanity. Amidst the chaotic order that is India, Andy hailed a taxi to take us to the domestic terminal for our internal flight to Hyderabad. The domestic terminal was a long ways removed from the western airports I was used to. I recall thinking, “Oh my goodness, this is like the third world!” and then realizing it was the third world (Indian airports have greatly improved since).

We arrived at Hyderabad and received a warm greeting from John’s sons. As a matter of fact, we had garlands of flowers placed around us. Was this Honolulu? Well not quite, but it was a great welcome. John and his family lived in a compound right next to a Hindu temple dedicated to the goddess of traffic accidents. It seems people often fell into a coma and were killed in accidents as they drove by the place. John’s sons later informed me they had regular visitations from demonic spirits from next door angry that the kingdom of God was invading their space and ruining their party. This was all a very faith-building experience as you couldn’t get in or out of the compound at all without driving by this temple.

Lots and lots of amazing things happened during our visit, but let me tell this one story. The church had started many outreaches in the sprawling city of Hyderabad. One night, John said I was to speak at one of these, located in a slum area. I overheard John telling his son under no circumstances to leave Andy and I alone. More faith-building! We drove and drove. Finally we left the car and continued the journey by foot as the road gave out. We left the hubbub behind and proceeded by footpath through darkened areas. We were warned to look out for cobras. Through all this I naturally maintained perfect peace of mind! Finally we arrived at a small concrete hut and in we went.

Let me tell the story of the family who lived there. Just a few weeks before, one of this couple’s six children was diagnosed with meningitis. They had no money to pay for medical treatment and the child became critically ill. They heard that the Christians who held meetings in a small meeting place nearby had a god who could heal the sick. The dad carried his dying son into the meeting. He was prayed for and instantly and completely healed. The entire family became Christians.

When I entered their tiny concrete hut, I saw the shelf where only weeks before their idols had sat. In their place was a picture of Jesus not unlike what used to be on the wall of my Sunday school classroom growing up! Not an idol however, simply their way of honoring the living God. About forty people were crammed into the twelve-foot square room that was home to this family of eight. Under the dim light of one 25-watt bulb, I could barely read my Bible, let alone see who was sitting at the back. I was asked to preach on the work of the Holy Spirit. Never have I felt so helpless, trying to convey my sophisticated western thoughts through translation to a group of people so utterly foreign to me I didn’t know how to communicate with them even though I desperately wanted to.

I finished. I prayed for some folk. I felt I had failed. But after we left, the pastor told me four Hindu folk had given their lives to Christ that night as a result of what I had said. That was truly the Holy Spirit, not me.

I remember many things about that visit. The night the cobra visited right outside my window and was killed while I slept through the excitement. The mosquito bites I had that turned out to be bed bugs. The amazing young men and women at the Bible school at which I taught and their sacrificial abandonment to the cause of Christ. And my dear friends Prem and Neelima. Prem was John’s youngest son and Neelima had just become pregnant. The doctors told her she had only a small chance of carrying the baby. I prayed over her, told her the baby was a boy and would be born without any issues. Abishek is now a young man almost twenty years old!

As I drove off on my way to the airport in an old Jeep with an exploding tire, John sat on his porch and waved good-bye to me. That was the last time I ever saw him. He passed into the Lord’s presence not long after. He was a father in God. I look forward to seeing him again.

India calls

Here is the latest instalment in my Chronicles of Faith series.  The story starts a long time ago and involves a lot of miracles. If you’re interested, read on! I went to England in 1977 to do a PhD in New Testament studies at Durham University. One of the first friends I made there was a guy called Richard Peach. Richard and I used to have heated theological arguments. They often infuriated me because even though he was a school teacher, not a theologian, he was often right and I was wrong. Richard had an unbending sense of call to India. When he finished his studies, he was hired as a teacher at a school for missionary children in a place called Ootacamund in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. One of the last things I recall him saying was this: “God has called me to India. I don’t care if I ever see England again.” The fact is, he never did. One day Richard took a group of children from the school out swimming and in the process he was caught up in the river current and tragically drowned. When the news reached Durham, many of us grieved. Why would God take such a young life so full of commitment and promise? But God encountered me in the midst of it with a word, and the word was this: one day I also would go to India and do what Richard wanted so badly to do -- to share Christ with the Indian people.

The years went past. I returned to Canada from England. Every time I heard someone talking about India, my ears pricked up. But nothing happened. Until the day a friend in Canada told me he had an Indian leader coming to visit his church, and would I be interested in having him to speak. He casually dropped into the conversation that he had been to India to visit this man and they had visited a small town in south India called.... Ootacamund. Of all the hundreds of thousands of towns and villages in India, this was the one he mentioned. Immediately I knew this was my doorway to India.

And so John Babu, the great apostolic leader of Andhra Pradesh, walked into my life. I use “apostolic” in its simple Biblical form, as function, not title. John extended the boundaries of the kingdom into the regions beyond and the regions unknown, and he did so by the love of God, and by undeniable signs and wonders. Let me tell his story as he told it to me.

John Babu was one of a small group of national security advisors to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. His self-description as a policeman was a gracious understatement. John was a non-practicising Hindu. He drank a lot. He beat his wife up most days. He was not a great dad to his eight children. But he was good at his job. One day his doctor told him he had damaged his liver so badly he had only four months to live.  Distraught, John visited a nearby Hindu temple to plead with the gods. Once inside, he heard an audible voice saying these words, “I am the god you are looking for. My name is Jesus Christ.” The voice instructed him to leave the temple immediately. Stunned and trembling, he sat down on a bench outside. The voice continued to address him. He heard that if he died, his fate would be to be thrown into a lake of fire. He saw the lake in front of his eyes and was terrified. But, the voice continued, if he put his trust in the one who was speaking to him, he would be saved. John immediately surrendered his life to a god he did not know. The Holy Spirit took hold of him. Immediately, he went home to tell his family what had happened. His oldest son later told me it was the first time his dad had not come home and beat somebody up. He was a visibly changed man. As he shared what had happened, his wife Anna and all eight children put their trust in Christ. The next time he visited his doctor, he was told he was completely healed.

But this was only the beginning of the story. A few months later, Jesus spoke again to John. He was to leave the police, move to a town called Armoor and start a church. John obeyed the Lord. He left all his earthly security, his position which gave him many advantages in the city and state, and his government salary and pension. Armoor was the place he had previously gone to arrest Hindu militants, and John was not popular there. He was sold a plot of land with a tin shack in the middle of it. John, Anna and their eight kids took up residence in the middle of what turned out to be a cobra-infested swamp. The militants who sold him the land expected him and his family to perish. But instead, they prayed the cobras out. The locals expected the entire family to die and were perplexed when nothing happened to them (read Acts 28:1-6 for a similar story!).  Before long, a thriving church existed.... with no fewer than two thousand people converted to Christ. John began to travel from town to town and village to village, eventually establishing several hundred congregations throughout the state of Andhra Pradesh.

In his life, John saw six people raised from the dead. I don’t know if the following incident counted as one of the six, as John was not physically present when it happened. Let me tell you a story that would be unbelievable if it were not demonstrably true as it was witnessed by hundreds of people. As the churches grew, outreaches were established not only in the larger towns but also the smaller villages. Andhra Pradesh had a population of over eighty million people and had thousands of towns and villages as well as larger cities such as Hyderabad. A high-caste (Brahmin) Hindu lady died in a village a small group had been started in. The omens were consulted and the cremation was set for the time determined to be the most auspicious for the best hope of a higher form of reincarnation. As the funeral pyre was about to be set alight, the Hindu priest halted the proceedings. In a mocking voice, he said Christians had come to the area and claimed to have a god who could raise the dead. He ordered the small group leader to be brought to the ceremony. “Now we will see,” he declared to the man in front of the assembled crowd, “what your god can do.” Trembling with fear, this ordinary believer held out his hands over the pyre and called out to the Lord for help. The woman lying dead on the pyre was physically resurrected. And no, she was not in a coma, nor had the doctor made a mistake. She had been dead for many hours, and her body was decomposing in the Indian heat. As she rose from the dead, panic spread throughout the crowd of hundreds who eye-witnessed the event. The small group leader began to preach Christ. Half the crowd became Christians, the other half fled in terror.

But the most amazing part of the story is this. When later they asked the lady what had happened to her, this is what she said. She recalled experiencing darkness, but into the darkness stepped a man. The man was dressed in clothes so white they were blinding. As he held out his hands over her, she noticed he had bleeding wounds in both wrists. Then she woke up. But a strange thing occurred. There was another man standing in exactly the same position as the first man. His hands also were stretched out over her in exactly the same way. But his clothes were ordinary and there were no wounds in his wrist. That man was the small group leader.

The militant high-caste Hindus put out the equivalent of a contract on the lady. Her response? “I’m not afraid of death. I’ve already died once!” Many many hundreds of people came to Christ because of her testimony.

How often do we realize that we stand in the place of Christ? That ordinary man represented Christ in a way even he had no concept of. Christ, in one sense, is made flesh in us. An army of theologians trying to explain how Christ is made real in his many-membered body, the church, could not have come up with anything so closely approaching the truth as is illustrated in the experience of this humble, (to us) nameless, and probably illiterate Indian brother.

Have I got your attention? Then read the next instalment!