The Redeemed Rose

 Here I am at CROSS Conference in Indianapolis, taking a youth group to hear about God's plan for missions, and I am struck with thoughts of my friend Danielle.  Why do I miss her so much more when I'm at a missions conference? Maybe it's because she spent a year of her life as a teacher-missionary in South Sudan. Maybe it's because I can picture her being here with me, and the thought makes me cry right in the middle of the crowd of conference-goers. But most of all, it is because she loved missions so much. She would be so excited to see all the different opportunities and ways that God has been working around the globe;  exuberant about taking the name of Christ to the nations. She would be beaming from ear to ear, green eyes glittering with excitement, literally bouncing up and down as she pulled me from booth to booth, talking a million miles a minute.    Her passion to make Christ known to unreached people groups puts me to shame. My husband tells me...

  Quick! Name the first person you would go to when you need to talk about your day. What about when you've got the flu? Or when your car breaks down? Typical answers are: best friend, doctor, mechanic. These are not necessarily wrong answers, but what about God? Do we seek His counsel first, or is He the runner-up? For this topic, I want to compare two kings in the Old Testament; King Asa (2 Chronicles 16) and King Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20).  "At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, “Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from now on you will have wars.”" (2 Chronicles 16:7, 9) In 2 Chronicles 16, King Asa has a conflict with the king of Israel, and so he pays the king ...