I was reading today in a really good book by John Piper called “Let the Nations be Glad – The Supremacy of God in Missions.” One of the chapters is about the supremacy of God in missions through prayer. I’m going to share with you the opening paragraph of the chapter:
Life is war. That’s not all it is. But is always that. Our weakness in prayer is owing largely to our neglect of this truth. Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie-talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against the powers of darkness and unbelief. It is not surprising that prayer malfunctions when we try to make it a domestic intercom to call upstairs for more comforts in the den. God has given us prayer as a wartime walkie-talkie so that we can call headquarters for everything we need as the kingdom of Christ advances in the world. Prayer gives us the significance of frontline forces and gives God the glory of a limitless Provider. The one who gives the power gets the glory. Thus, prayer safeguards the supremacy of God in missions while linking us with endless grace for every need.
I really like the imagery Piper gives us here. While reading this I had a vision of something like a scene from “We Were Soldiers” with Mel Gibson where the soldiers are in a real bind, surrounded by the enemy with no real chance of escape or survival. In that moment, these frontline soldiers are able to call back to base with their trusty walkie-talkies for reinforcements and the full force of the army they represent comes crashing in with jets to obliterate the enemy. Now, of course, our mission is not to destroy the people God has called us to, but rather to destroy the enemy that is keeping us from them. We’re in a great big rescue mission where the culprit is the devil and his cronies and the hostages are those who they are keeping from the Good News of Christ in one way or another. In this scenario, I think the scene is much the same: we are battling it out, and it looks like we’re going to lose. But we’ve got God – the ultimate Army – on our side. All He really needs us to do is call in His Air Strike to release the spiritual darkness holding these hostages captive and set them free. After all of this, who gets the credit? It’s certainly not us – it’s the Great Big Army who made it all happen. We just happened to be the ones on the ground asking for help.
The Allison Family - 2010
It has been a really, really long time since I last put an update on here, so I wanted to do that. We have now been in Cambodia for almost a year and a half (not including the 3 months that we spent in the states). There have been a lot of ups and downs in just this short while that we’ve been here. We are so excited, though, to be living this dream and seeing God’s hand unfolding His works in front of us. This truly is one of the coolest lives one could live.
Thank you so much to all of you who have been praying for us. This is the best and most important thing you could be doing! We have just sent out our latest newsletter, so hopefully that will catch you up on some of the things we’ve been doing. You can subscribe to our feed if you’d like to also (use the orange button on the right).
I will try to post on here more often in the future. Thanks for reading.
(chum-reab-sua) – This is how you say hello in Khmer, the official language of Cambodia. We are working hard to learn the language so we can serve the Lord all the better in the future.
So far since we have been in Cambodia (a little over two months now) we have been blessed with a great house to live in in an excellent neighborhood where we can talk with our neighbors and grow our language ability. We have moved into our house, been given a new puppy, had 2 birthdays (Maggie and Chris), begun language study, hosted potential future teammates, and much more.
It’s really exciting to be in Cambodia working towards what we believe God wants us to be doing. That having been said, it is also sometimes discouraging living here because we see what a huge task lay before us and how slow it will be. We do still believe that God wants us here and we will work our best to learn the language and serve Him – and He will do what He wants with us and the people we influence. We are learning constantly that ministry is all God’s even though it seems that is rests on us. Prayer is one of our most important jobs as missionaries.
Please keep us in your prayers as we work to learn the language, fit in here, identify with the people, and eventually bring people into relationships with the Lord. Please sign up for our newsletter (over on the right) if you are interested in receiving monthly updates. Thank you.
