Suffering and Glory
This week I received another email from pastor and professor (and missionary and hero of the faith!) Ajith Fernando and I was (yet again!) reminded of the goodness and the glory of God … and thus drawn to worship Him more rightly.
Since so much of peacemaking involves suffering … (check out my “Search Past Blog Entries” on Suffering and you’ll see that I’ve posted on this topic a LOT), I thought it might be a particular encouragement to you all. Hope so.
Sending you my love,
Tara Barthel
PS
If you don’t yet know Dr. Fernando and his ministry and books, I urge you to get to know him. Of all of the ministries and missionaries we can support and pray for in the world, I think he is (by far!) at the top of the list. Thanks, friends! — tkb
PPS
This is just a TINY excerpt from a long letter to his supporters on his recent trip to Cambodia. I do hope that we can all pray just as he gently requested.
SUFFERING AND GLORY
My next assignment was with a group called Timothys All Programmea ministry which brings together key Cambodian leaders for fellowship, mutual mentoring and instruction. The church here is very young, and therefore this is a vitally important ministry as these leaders will help forge the ethos of the church God is building in Cambodia. The contact was made through Sri Lankans Inpa and Vana Eliezer who have served here for nine years under CMS Australia. How proud I was to see Sri Lankans doing such a good work!
I spoke on the Minister’s call to Joy and Pain. Soon I realised that I was not qualified to speak to these people on suffering. They had gone through the Khmer Rouge era that saw the death of 1-2 million people out of a population of about 8 million. One lady in our group had lost her husband and little child. A pastor had lost his mother and brother. I proceeded with the teaching with the confidence that what I have to offer to these people was not my wisdom but Biblical truth which is God’s unique Word to them.
As a Bible teacher I do not usually encounter spectacular results in my ministry. My hope is that, through the teaching, Christians will be edified and equipped to serve God better. The response of the 17 leaders at this retreat was more marked than when I usually teach. I think what happened was that they were provoked to think biblically about the suffering they had gone through.
I came prepared to give four messages. There was so much discussion that it took three sessions to finish my first talk. One of the participants was also going to give a message for which he had prepared an extensive hand-out. He graciously handed over his session to me so that I ended up teaching five times.
During my last talk, I began to explain the biblical concept of glory and how John used glory as his favourite way to refer to the death of Christ. Suddenly the thought struck me that the Hebrew word for glory is kabod which is one of the names by which Cambodia is called. I felt I should challenge the people to help make the Cambodian church a communicator of the glory of God in suffering to Cambodia and whole world. Surely this is an idea that is sorely lacking in much of Christian thinking. Even in Cambodia the heresy that those who follow Christ should not suffer is being peddled by some teachers. My prayer is that the Cambodians will show the world that their suffering has become a means of reflecting the glory of Christ.