Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. 1 Corinthians 7:17
“For the first time in my life I know what I must do off in lonesome Lanao. I know why God left this aching void, for Himself to fill. Off on this mountain I must do three things:
1. I must pursue this voyage of discovery in quest of God’s will. I must because the world needs me to do it.
2. I must plunge into mighty experiments in intercessory prayer, to test my hypothesis that God needs my help to do His will for others, and that my prayer releases His power. I must be His channel, for the world needs me.
3. I must confront these Moros with a divine love which will speak Christ to them though I never use His name. They must see God in me, and I must see God in them. Not to change the name of their religion, but to take their hand and say, “Come, let us look for God.”
…My teacher, Dato Pambaya, told me this week that a good Muslim ought to utter the sacred word for God, every time he begins to do anything, to sleep, or walk, or work, or even turn around. A good Muslim would fill his life with God. I fear there are few good Muslims.
But so would a real Christlike Christian speak to God every time he did anything – and I fear there are few good Christians.”
Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “Boundless joy broken loose.”
The apostle Paul urged the Corinthians (and us) to “live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them.” In Frank Laubach’s case it was lonesome Lanao, a predominantly Muslim province in Mindanao, Philippines.
The same holds true for you, wherever you are in the world, on this Easter Saturday. When we live as a believer we show our faith through our words and deeds and serve as a generous “channel” of blessing to the world.
Laubach determined to discover God’s will, to pray and release God’s power in the world, and to confront people with divine love so they noticed something different and desire to know the God you serve.
Laubach continues by noting that the Muslims don’t do what their faith prescribes and that neither do most Christians. So why don’t we live as believers where God has placed us. Paul states elsewhere that we conform to the world.
Paul urges us in his letter to the Romans not to conform the world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. That’s my prayer for all of us in life after Easter. That the power of the resurrection will give us a whole new mindset for life.
And as I examine what this looks like practically, I think Laubach is spot on. It requires a perpetual pursuit of the will of God, prayer for God to work, and for us to serve as channels of divine love. Make it so in me, Lord Jesus.