7. Bringing Our Hearts Back into Focus
chapter seven
Bringing Our Hearts Back into Focus
I plopped down in an empty chair in the terminal at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and heaved a big sigh. I had 16 days of nonstop traveling and speaking behind me and now had two hours between plane connections to catch my breath. Usually I do not mind waiting awhile in the terminal—I enjoy watching people—but on this day I was tired of it.
Why am I doing this? I asked myself. What’s it all about, anyway?
I was exhausted from sleeping in strange hotel beds with pillows that seemed to grow harder every night. Even the hot chili powder I brought with me to spice up my food had run out. After pouring my heart out to groups all over the country, I was drained and angry with the world. I was even angry with my office staff for booking all these speaking engagements. I had approved the meetings, of course, but it felt better to shift the blame away from myself.
I walked over to a pay phone and dialed the Gospel for Asia office in Dallas. I do not even recall who answered the phone.
“This is K.P.,” I said tersely. “I just want to say one thing: Do not book any meetings ever again unless you check with me directly first.”
When I hung up, I felt worse than ever.
“Don’t these people understand I’m not a machine?” I said to myself aloud. “I’m only a human being.”
As I wallowed in my self-pity, I knew I had to get up and go on, no matter how I felt. And there was a plane to catch. But how was I to find the strength to continue?
None of us remains the same in our enthusiasm and commitment. If we do not feed continually on the things of the Lord—His Word and His presence—we cannot hope to finish the race.
You may have begun your walk with the Lord with wholehearted enthusiasm, ready to die for the cause of the lost world. As followers of Jesus, after all, our purpose in life is not to build an organization, attain financial security, be loved or respected or remembered for noble deeds. What really matters is what Jesus said in the Great Commission: focusing our hearts on reaching this generation with the Gospel.
But as time went by, certain things began to eat at that purpose—the distractions and cares of the world, your own personal problems, discouragement, fears, the enticements of your friends. Suddenly you find yourself looking for a way to get out of the battle. Maybe your Christian life is just not challenging enough. Maybe it no longer seems worth investing your life in. Maybe when you first made your commitment, the leaders in your church or Bible study were on fire for the Lord and really helped you grow, but now that you have known them longer, you see areas of compromise.
Shifting the blame, just as I did at the airport, is an easy way out. I have seen this happen in many organizations and many lives. What is actually happening here? Over a period of time we can lose our focus.
Moses told the children of Israel,
Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.
Deuteronomy 8:2
God allows adverse circumstances for a reason— whether they be weaknesses, people we work with who rub us the wrong way, decisions we must make that go against our emotions, unfulfilled expectations, misunderstandings, ingratitude, loss of our rights, shattered hopes. Suddenly in the midst of our labors for His kingdom, God takes us and says, “You are in the wilderness. I want to see what will keep you going. When your emotions run dry, when your feelings are gone and there is nothing left to hold onto but bare facts—will you stay with Me?”
Out of the Shadow-Lands
As I wallowed in the muck of my self-pity at O’Hare Airport that day, I had one of those rare encounters with the Lord. Right there at the gate, it was as if time stopped for a few moments.
I heard a voice in my heart asking me, Who asked you to do all these things? Didn’t I tell you that My yoke is easy and My burden is light? Who made it so hard?
Spiritually, I realized, I was dry inside. I had been so busy in my service for the Lord that I had lost sight of the Lord whom I was serving. I no longer had the continual outpouring of Christ’s strength that Paul talked about: “I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13).
Lord, I said, I know what You are telling me is true. I am so depressed and tired and weak. But Lord, I want You to help me.
At this point the ticket counter had opened for passengers to check in and get their boarding passes. I could see the gate behind it just beginning to open. Soon I would walk through that doorway and board the plane. Suddenly, as I looked at it, the Lord painted a wonderful picture before my mind’s eye.
A few weeks earlier I had finished reading The Last Battle, the final book in C.S. Lewis’ classic allegorical series The Chronicles of Narnia. In it, Lewis tells the story of the adventures of eight English children in the land of Narnia with Aslan, the great lion, who portrays a type of Christ. The Last Battle recounts the end of the age for Narnia. As the children watch through a doorway, the old world is destroyed before their eyes and another land opens up before them. It seems to them almost exactly like the old, yet somehow different.
Digory, one of the older children, explains it to the rest:
... The Narnia you were thinking of ... was not the real Narnia. That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia, which has always been here and always will be here. ... You need not mourn over Narnia. ... All of the old Narnia that mattered, all the dear creatures, have been drawn into the real Narnia through the Door. And of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow or as waking life is from a dream.
Lewis concludes the book (and the series) this way:
And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
As I recalled these final scenes from the book, it was time for me to board my plane.
Then the fog of my self-pity vanished. I could see clearly once again. I realized that all my aches and pains, my schedule, the bland food, the hard pillows, the strange beds—all these were just a shadow of what was yet to come. My everyday life here on earth was not the real thing. It was temporary and would soon pass.
I looked toward the gate and thought about the door the children had gone through to leave “the Shadow-Lands,” as Lewis called them, and enter “the real Narnia.” It was time for me to live again, not for the illusion, but for the reality. That gate to my flight was a door to that reality, if I would choose to accept what was set before me.
I jumped to my feet. I knew I had the strength of the Lord to face the tasks before me. Nothing could stop me now! I marched straight for that boarding gate, through the threshold and onto my next connection. The attitude of my heart was changed. I was no longer running on empty. Once again the strength I was receiving was not my own; it was from the Lord.
And the meetings that followed were different somehow. I could tell that, despite the inconveniences, the tiredness and the discomfort, my heart was in focus once again.
The Bottom Line
Within the past decade the world has experienced events that no one dreamed about. We have stood by in amazement while whole countries were reshaped practically overnight, world systems crumbled into the pages of history books and political maps changed faster than cartographers could redraw them. For all this to happen, there must have been a tremendous confrontation of spiritual forces in the unseen world. We can see the effects of it on the cutting edge of missions. The hand of God is moving in an unprecedented way. People are hungry for the living God in a way that we did not see even 10 or 20 years ago.
We may not understand all that is taking place in the spiritual realm, but this one thing is clear: The coming of Jesus Christ is very near. Right now the possibility to reach our generation with the Gospel is better than at any other time in history. The opportunities are unlimited and the Church has the resources.
But what I see happening in Christian circles concerns me deeply. Believers are being bombarded from all sides to invest their time, efforts and finances in everything but a lost and dying world. Material things, trips, social gatherings, building projects, the comfort of their families—all these and more may come at the expense of souls who are lost for eternity. And believers who have already committed their lives to reaching the world with the Gospel are in danger of losing their focus. When emotions are down and times are difficult, it is easy to focus on self and want out of the battle.
Ultimately two major forces influence what happens on earth: the living God and the powers of darkness— Satan and his demons. The Lord, through His mercy, is seeking to bring as many people as possible to repentance, so they might know Him and reign with Him forever. Satan, on the other hand, is seeking to take as many people as possible with him into hell.
One of the most successful ways he does this is by causing us believers to forget our purpose. He wants to get us so wrapped up in who we are and what we are doing day to day that we are no longer able to answer the questions Why am I here? and What am I living for?
Why are we here on earth? What is the purpose behind our lives? It is for the multiplied millions of people, more than 2 billion of them, in fact, who have not yet been reached with the Gospel and are on their way to hell. They are not rats or snakes or monkeys, but human beings like you and me, and just as precious in the sight of God.
If you were inside your home and suddenly heard someone outside yelling, “Your house is on fire—get out, get out!” would you stand there and talk it over with your family? Of course not! You would find any way possible to get out.
The situation in the world is much worse than a house on fire. The souls of more than 2 billion people are at stake and we have an opportunity to take countless ones with us to heaven instead of allowing them to die in their sins. So how can we live comfortably for ourselves while millions slip into an eternal hell?
We can do it because the enemy has managed to replace our focus on eternity with a focus on other things. Gayle Erwin, one of the board members for Gospel for Asia and a very dear friend, shared with me a modern-day parable that sheds light on the condition of the Church today:
On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occurred, there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat; but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea. And with no thought for themselves, they went out day and night, tirelessly searching for the lost.
Some of those who were saved and various others in the surrounding area wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought, and new crews were trained. The little lifesaving station grew.
Some of the members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge for those saved from the sea. They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building.
The lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely, because they used it as a sort of club. Fewer members were now interested in going out to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do the work. The lifesaving motif still prevailed in the club’s decorations: There was a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club initiations were held.
About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, and some of them had black skin, and some of them had yellow skin. The beautiful new club was in chaos. So the property committee immediately had a shower built outside the club, where the victims of the shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.
After the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s lifesaving activities because they were unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted on lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save lives of all various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast. They did.
As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that occurred in the old. It evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving station was founded.
History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that seacoast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along the shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.
Our purpose in life, according to the obvious moral of this parable, does not consist of hobnobbing with our friends, going to school, graduating, finding a job, getting married, having children, sending them to school and so on. If we see only these parts of life, we will bog down continually. We need to see beyond all that.
When William Carey heard the strong call of the Lord to go to India in the late 18th century, his wife, Dorothy, resisted his decision and refused to go with him. He knew he could not disobey God, so he chose to go on even if she would not. The ship pulled away from the dock and sailed away, leaving her behind.
Then something on board broke down and the ship had to return to port for repairs. During the delay Dorothy reconsidered and chose to go to India with her husband. Later, however, she lost all ability to cope in India and suffered a mental breakdown. Carey was left to care for the children alone.
William Carey spent many years in India serving his Lord, and they were not easy ones. He paid an extremely high price to follow Jesus. His list of personal problems went on and on—but he saw beyond the pain and remembered the purpose of his life. Carey, whose challenge to the Church helped to found the “Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen” in 1792 (later the Baptist Missionary Society), and with his extensive contributions in linguistics and Bible translation, is known today as the father of modern missions.
Just a Bunch of Sheep
Throughout the Bible human beings are compared to sheep. Do you remember what one of the predominant characteristics of sheep is? They stray quite a bit. If left to our own devices and if we do not watch our hearts diligently, we, too, will always head the wrong way. It may take months or even years, but eventually our actions will follow the direction of our hearts. We will find every reason under the sun to justify our actions and choices until finally we are out of the battle, no longer serving or even following the Lord.
They say cars are designed with a built-in obsolescence factor—to run well for a few years, then begin to break down and become obsolete. Manufacturers hope the consumer will return to the dealership after a few years and begin the process all over again. In the human heart there is a built-in obsolescence factor, too. It does not matter how powerful and influential you are, how much education you have, how self-controlled or holy you consider yourself—your heart, if you do not guard it, will break down.
I have seen this principle played out too often in individuals’ lives and in the Church at large. Many churches have drifted from the heart of the One they call Lord and Master. Now, instead of making it a priority to rescue the lost millions of the world from a Christless eternity, their programs revolve around themselves. They put their own agenda—whether buildings or staff or special programs—as first priority in their budgets. Missions falls somewhere down the list.
I met with a couple recently who talked with me about their calling as missionaries to France. After sharing in churches for two years, they were still unable to raise even 70 percent of the support they needed to enable them to get to France.
Proverbs 24:11–12 warns us:
Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?
Not long ago I spoke in a church that was involved to a limited extent in missions. After the meeting I had a bite to eat with the couple who had been our contact for this meeting. Our conversation lasted well into the night.
“You know, Brother K.P.,” the husband told me, “I never really understood what’s happening in the Church with regard to missions until I read your books. Our church offers solid, Bible-based teaching. In fact, it’s one of the best Bible-teaching churches in the region. But with all this knowledge, I am sad to tell you we are spending more money on our own social programs than on missions!”
I do not want to make a big case out of this or pass judgment on anyone, much less the Church at large. But I do want to ask one question: Have the hearts of the members of the Body of Christ wandered so far from the reality of what is happening that they are impossible to bring back?
Our tendency as horizontally oriented humans is to forget the war going on behind the scenes and interpret everything in our lives through the filter of our five senses—what we see, hear, smell, touch and taste. Anything that has to do with these senses is our first approach to solving problems. Circumstances dictate how we feel and what we do. And we think in terms of ourselves rather than in terms of the purpose God has given us as believers. We have strayed from the focus of our hearts.
But we are not created for time. We are created for eternity. Our lives right now are little classrooms in which we are learning to be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29). And why did Jesus come into this world? What did He live for? “To seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10).
Everything else in life becomes incidental when we gain this focus. Clothes, food, hairstyle, makeup, bank account, education, degrees, plans, ambition, spouse, children—none of these can possibly be the most important thing in life. The more we become like Christ, the more we, like Him, will make world evangelism the top priority in our lives.
Shankar, a national missionary in South Asia, was born in a leper colony to parents who were themselves stricken with the disease. In order to save Shankar from contracting it, Brother Thomas, a Gospel for Asia national missionary leader, raised him in a home he had built for the children of leprosy patients.
Shankar received a good education, and with it a chance to make a better life for himself. But during his time with Brother Thomas, Shankar gave his life to the Lord and received a call to full-time ministry.
Just before Shankar’s graduation from Bible college, he told Brother Thomas, “I will work among my own people, the lepers, and tell them how the Lord has changed my life. I will tell them how He can save them.”
Today Shankar has laid down everything he has gained—his education and chance for a better life—to live and work as a missionary in the leper colonies. He did not lose his focus but set his heart on being a follower of Jesus.
I urge you to examine your own heart. Look at the things you do and the activities you are involved in for the sake of the Lord. Ask yourself honestly, Why am I doing this? Search your heart. Be real with yourself.
Seeing the Big Picture
Apart from the things of the Lord, I believe there are two things we value most in our lives: We want to feel important, and we want to be part of something important. No one wants to waste his or her life. But when we are involved in any work for the Lord, it becomes difficult at times to keep sight of how our investment in His kingdom is making a difference. Satan can use those busy times in our lives to breed discouragement and bitterness and render us ineffective in the work of the Lord.
We need to see the big picture of what the Lord is doing so that the enemy will not use our immediate struggles, frustrations, disappointments or the demands on our time to cause us to become discouraged. Let us not become sidetracked or myopic, our vision fogged. I plead with you to remember that life on earth, no matter where you are, has its struggles, conflicts and discouragements. Ask the Lord for the grace and maturity to look beyond the immediate (which tends to take precedence over everything else) to the lives of those people you are influencing through your obedience and service to Him.
Joseph had done nothing wrong and walked in purity and commitment. He was obedient to his parents and his brothers. What did he do wrong to be sold into slavery and thrown into prison for 13 years? What did he do wrong to lose everything he called his own? The Bible gives no reason. Those 13 years were crucial, though, for Joseph to be able to reign as governor over Egypt and save the Israelites—and his own family—from starvation.
The Body of Christ reminds me of an elephant. Did you know that the elephant is the only creature who does not know how big his body is? His eyes are too small and he has two huge ears sticking out right beside them! So he walks around like a little animal, led by a small boy with a stick.
We are not able to see all that results from our efforts for the Lord, but let me encourage you to pursue what He has given you to do. What you are doing is more than just “work.” We can be encouraged, knowing by faith that God in His mercy is able to use His Body to make an incredible impact on the world.
Restored to Tenderheartedness
During the heat of the First Gulf War, I was as glued to the news as anyone. I kept my radio on as much as possible, straining for any new piece of information. Usually I spend my early morning hours preparing for my daily radio broadcast, but during that war I had a hard time concentrating.
As believers committed to reaching the lost, you and I are given more information about what is going on in the world today than ever before. We know more about different religions and unreached people groups than the generations of believers who went before us. But let me ask you a question: How seriously do you take this information? The war we deal with on a daily basis—the battle that rages for the souls of men and women like you and me—is infinitely more serious than any war on earth.
When a Scud missile hit a military barracks during that war, killing 28 soldiers and wounding hundreds, America was shaken by the news. It shocked and moved the White House. The media could talk of nothing else. But does it move us to think that more than 2 billion people living in the world today do not know the love of Christ? That 80,000 people are slipping into eternity without Christ every 24 hours?
I remember a particular victory won by the Coalition forces late in that First Gulf War. After hearing the details I walked calmly back to my desk to resume my studies. Then the conviction of the Lord came on me so strongly that I had to sit down. The reality of what I had heard hit me with full force. It was more than jet fighters and a few missiles. It was the fate of thousands of people, whom I saw suddenly as the Lord did—desperately lost.
Is it nothing to you that these people are dying and going to hell? the Lord asked me.
Then I realized that I had not thought about the eternal implications of the news I had heard or spent even one minute to stop and pray that these people would have a chance to come to the Lord. Although I had heard news of the deaths of some of them, still I had gone about my business.
The Lord spoke strongly to my heart that day. I could only repent of my attitude.
Somewhere along the way many of us have become so familiar with certain kinds of information that our hearts have become hardened and cold. Here are the questions we should ask ourselves: Does my heart still beat with the same tenderness and passion for the dying world? Are there tears in my eyes for the lost and dying millions? When I hear news of the world around me, does my heart break for those who are going to hell? Do I get up in the morning to spend time with the Lord and pray for the lost?
I have to come continually before the Lord and ask, “Lord, am I getting too used to it all? Do I simply get up before congregations and say the same things over and over? Or are the burden and vision still fresh in my heart?”
No Price Is Too High
In the normal course of human nature, things never improve. We begin to take the things of the Lord casually. We find all sorts of reasons why our thinking is correct and why we should justify ourselves and our behavior. And unless we allow the Holy Spirit to renew our hearts and minds continually, deterioration will set in. It is like putting sand into the gears of a machine. They still crank, but the grinding noise is constant and the machine must work harder for anything to happen.
With the many needs and opportunities on the mission field, please do not let your involvement stop with “I’m doing the best I can.” As followers of Jesus, the things we do—whether praying, giving, sending or going—determine to a great extent what happens on the other side of the world. So I encourage you to search your heart. Is the passion still there? Is your heart broken?
No one can restore that freshness or passion for you. You must come before the Lord and allow Him to renew the focus of your heart.
Amy Carmichael was one who never lost her focus. One of the great pioneer missionaries to India, she wrote a book called Things as They Are. This is what she saw one night as she lay in bed:
... I stood on a grassy sward, and at my feet a precipice broke sheer down into infinite space. I looked, but saw no bottom; only cloud shapes, black and furiously coiled, and great shadow-shrouded hollows, and unfathomable depths. Back I drew, dizzy at the depth.
Then I saw forms of people moving single file along the grass. They were making for the edge. There was a woman with a baby in her arms and another little child holding onto her dress. She was on the very verge. Then I saw that she was blind. She lifted her foot for the next step ... it trod air. She was over, and the children over with her. Oh, the cry as they went over!
Then I saw more streams of people flowing from all quarters. All were blind, stone blind; all made straight for the precipice edge. There were shrieks as they suddenly knew themselves falling, and a tossing up of helpless arms, catching, clutching at empty air. But some went over quietly, and fell without a sound.
Sentries were set at intervals, but the gaps were too great. Why, Carmichael agonized, was no one stopping them at the edge?
Then I saw, like a little picture of peace, a group of people under some trees with their backs turned towards the gulf. They were making daisy chains. Sometimes when a piercing shriek cut the quiet air and reached them, it disturbed them and they thought it a rather vulgar noise. And if one of their number started up and wanted to go and do something to help, then all the others would pull that one down. “Why should you get so excited about it? You must wait for a definite call to go! You haven’t finished your daisy chain yet. It would be really selfish,” they said, “to leave us to finish the work alone.”
Another group wanted to send out more sentries but could find few candidates. One sentry, a girl, was compelled to take her furlough though there was no one to take her place.
Once a child caught at a tuft of grass that grew at the very brink of the gulf; it clung convulsively, and it called—but nobody seemed to hear. Then the roots of the grass gave way, and with a cry the child went over, its two little hands still holding tight to the torn-off bunch of grass. And the girl who longed to be back in her gap thought she heard the little one cry, and she sprang up and wanted to go; at which they reproved her, reminding her that no one is necessary anywhere; the gap would be well taken care of, they knew. And then they sang a hymn.
Then through the hymn came another sound like the pain of a million broken hearts wrung out in one full drop, one sob. And a horror of great darkness was upon me, for I knew what it was—the Cry of the Blood.
Then thundered a voice, the voice of the Lord. “And He said, ‘What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.’ ”
The ... darkness still shuddered and shivered about me. ...
What does it matter, after all? It has gone on for years; it will go on for years. Why make such a fuss about it?
God forgive us! God arouse us! Shame us out of our callousness! Shame us out of our sin!
Many in the Church in the West criticized Amy Carmichael for writing like this, telling her she was condemning them as though they were the worst of heathens.
But unless we think carefully, make deliberate decisions and allow the Lord to break our hearts continually, we will walk in the way of all flesh.
When was the last time you wept because your heart was burdened for those dying who have never heard the name of Jesus? When was the last time you spent an evening praying over a world map? Let us not lose the focus of our heart and leave the battle because we are unwilling to live with the reality that half the world is still waiting to hear the Gospel.
The cry of the lost world comes loud and desperate to our ears. Let us be willing to hear and respond to it. He is waiting to do major things through us, but we must bring our hearts back into focus. When they are, we can no longer live for ourselves—our own needs and desires, struggles and disappointments. Instead we will be ready to make sacrifices, laying down our very lives so that others will know Jesus.
In the next chapter we will be looking at four attacks Satan uses against believers whose hearts are set on winning the lost world for Jesus.