 Thus far, the Lord has provided  The Layman – Volume 35, Number 4 – Posted July 19, 2002
So, while he prayed and waited on the Lord, Taylor got a copy of Luke written in Mandarin Chinese and began to study it. One small step led to another small step and then to one step further. Within three years, Taylor had landed in China and begun preaching. Within 16 years, he had begun the China Inland Mission, a new type of missionary outreach based on Christians going to the interior of China to live among the Chinese, eating and dressing like them while preaching the gospel. Even though the China Inland Mission grew into a large and important organization, its growth proceeded just one step at a time. Often Taylor and other missionaries were down to their last bit of resource – rice or health or personnel – and not certain of where next to go when God provided. Taylor lived under two mottoes: “Ebenezer” and “Jehovah Jireh.” The first comes from I Samuel 7:14; God had saved the Israelites from attack by the Philistines, so Samuel set up a stone to memorialize God’s very tangible help. Samuel called the stone Ebenezer, which means “Thus far has the LORD helped us.” And that is where we, too, start as Presbyterians: looking back on what God has already done for us. As we worry about the constitutional defiance and disorder before us and about where our denomination is going to be next year, let us look back and see where God has brought us. We can begin with November 1993 and the Re-Imagining Conference. Many of us remember our disbelief that reports of the pagan ceremonies and language dispensing with the need for Christ could really be true. But we learned that it did happen, and we wondered how we could turn the denomination around from such error. Well, we were not given a ten-year plan, but looking back, we can see that God took us one step in the right direction in 1994 when the General Assembly said “theology matters;” later, some Louisville staff left. And we can see that each year since then God has taken us a little further along. Just 12 months ago, many of us felt despair because of the defeat of Amendment O and the refusal of the General Assembly Council to respond to “What ‘s the big deal about Jesus.” Yet with the Confessing Church Movement and resounding defeat of Amendment A, we can affirm with Samuel and Hudson Taylor: Thus far the LORD has helped us. Now, we still impatiently peer ahead toward that grand goal that the PCUSA will be everywhere telling the good news that we have life in Jesus because of his death for our sins, that the PCUSA will be vibrant and growing and making disciples of all peoples as Jesus commissioned us to do. We like to plan ahead, laying out a list of future objectives and timelines for getting them done. But we can’t often find places in the Bible story where God lays it all out for his people. Rather, he calls them to remember what he has already done for them so that they trust Him for the future. Which brings us to “Jehovah Jireh” – God himself will provide. That is Abraham’s response in Gen. 22:8 to his son Isaac’s question as to where the lamb for the sacrifice is; Abraham can only see the proposed sacrifice of his son, yet he trusts God to provide the unseen. God does. We think we’ve been struggling long in this denomination and we impatiently want a roadmap of exactly how and where we will arrive and get renewal “done.” Let us learn from Hudson Taylor – wait prayerfully upon the Lord and trust that God himself will provide. He has indeed helped us thus far. Peggy Hedden is vice chair of the Presbyterian Lay Committee. |
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