o f righteous wrath? Both! Righteous wrath toward sin and abiding love toward the sinner. “He that spared not His own Son” (Romans 8 :32) forever satisfied me that God loves lost man kind. Now I heard the cry of the millions across the sea. They suddenly became my personal responsi bility. I could not avoid, and do not think I really wanted to, those searching questions Paul asks in the book of Romans: “How then shall they call on Him in Whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in Him of Whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?” (Romans 10:14, 15). Was it China or was that simply a boyhood dream? I set about to find out. Each week I went to the library to study the people and customs of a different country. I bought a National Geographic World Map and in alphabetic order prayed for dif ferent countries each day. At the sacrifice of other things, I made it a point to hear every missionary speaker possible. Every missionary biography I could get my hands on I read. I sought out missionaries to question them about their work and the needs of their fields. In order to understand “ faith missions,” I asked three to put me on their mailing lists. The more I searched, the more intense grew the conviction that God did want me to serve Him in China. Yet this seemed so insane. God knew, bet ter than I, that language was by far my poorest subject. Even with a sympathetic teacher and some special tutoring, the best grade I could obtain in Spanish was a “D.” My conscience told me I hardly deserved even that! It just did not make sense. It was so illogical that I should go to China to a people whose language is one o f the most difficult in the world. Another thing did not make sense. The Chinese language is tonal and I am only one grade point above tone deaf. One should be musical to speak Chinese and artistic to write its characters. I am neither musical nor artistic and, to add insult to injury, I possess a good “ forgetter.” How could I be expected to retain thousands of Chinese characters which to the novice look as if they were written by a drunken chicken? “No,” I said to myself a hundred times, “ it just is not logical. God does not want me in China. What if I went, flunked the language, and came home a missionary casualty? Such action certainly would not bring glory to God.” As I struggled with this problem, I was reading through the book of Exodus. Assuring God and attempting to reassure myself that if it were not for the “ language problem” I would gladly go, I opened the Word of God. It was Wednesday and my reading was in the fourth chapter. In verse ten, 22
I was struck with the excuses Moses made for not obeying Jehovah’s order: “ I am not eloquent,” he complained, “ I am slow of speech, and o f a slow tongue.” “And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man’s mouth? . . . have not I the Lord?” (Exodus 4:11). My excuses were not too different from the ones Moses made in his encounter with God. I felt re buked. In the same way God answered Moses’ argu ments some three thousand years ago He now talked to me, “Dick, who made your mouth? Have not I the Lord ?” Thoughts raced through my mind with such ra pidity they tumbled over one another. In obedi ence situations that seem illogical become reason able. Does not acceptance of God’s will guarantee success? Will He not enable me to do whatever He appoints me to do? Does not the treasure in an “ earthen vessel” bring more glory to the treasure? Is it not like God to give you the task and even send you to the place that is hardest for you so that His grace may be manifested more fully through you? Like a man whose cataracts were removed so that he could see again, I saw that God had a right to send me any place and that I had a right to be lieve He would see me through. God stopped Moses’ arguments with a command to-obey and a promise to enable him to do it, “Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say” (Exodus 4:12). That morning God gave me the same command and assured me with the same promise. My re sponse was not sensational but it was sincere, “ I will go, Lord, and trust You to teach my mouth the Chinese language.” Beside the verse I wrote, “ God’s promise to me for China.” God kept His promise, and after a few months of struggle with strange Chinese words, I broke the sound barrier. What about that girl ? Here also God was faith ful. Seven years after I first laid my eyes on her lovely face, we stood together in the city o f Han kow, China, and repeated our sacred marriage vows. God never withholds what is best for us if we are in His will. Why should He? Then why should you and I delay in discover ing His will? When you pray, “ Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10), you are asking God to work out His will in your life on earth as perfectly as the angels in heaven perform His will. Have you been mumbling words or do you mean it? I have learned that the fruit of “my will” is frustration and failure. The fruit of “ Thy will” is life, exciting, fulfilling, and meaningful. What then must one do? Sincerely, honestly pray, “Thy will be done” and then put “muscles” to our words! THE KING'S BUSINESS
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