Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. Jeremiah 33:3
“I have just returned from a walk alone, a walk so wonderful that I feel like reducing it to a universal rule, that all people ought to take a walk every evening all alone where they can talk aloud without being heard by anyone, and that during this entire walk they all ought to talk with God, allowing him to use their tongues to talk back-and letting God do most of the talking. For this seems to be the very thing for which I have been feeling all these weeks. You have followed my experiment and have seen many confessions of daily failure, as I tried to keep God in mind in the second person.
Well, today has not been a failure. The thought of God has drifted out occasionally but not for long. But this day has been a different day from any other of my life, for I have not tried to pray in the sense of talking to God but I have let God do the talking with my tongue or in my inner life when my tongue was silent. It has been as simple as opening and closing a swinging door. And without any of the old strain the whole day passed beautifully with God saying wonderful things to me.
Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “As simple as opening and closing a swinging door.”
I loved this reading because when I am at home, I love to walk alone, mostly listen, and sometimes speak audibly to God.
When I travel, I rarely turn on the TV. I love solitude to listen and talk with God out loud. Often I cannot walk unless there is a hotel treadmill because in many cases it is not safe to go outside, like tonight in Mykoliav.
I am in a tiny hotel crammed with American Red Cross emergency workers. Why? Most of the hotels in this city have been bombed, including the one I stayed at last year. No kidding, it was bombed just 2 hours after we left. No kidding.
The threat of danger is real but the presence of God is powerful. If I were to sum up my first two days it would be that people seem to have lost all hope. No one visits. Aid has largely ceased. Most feel forgotten.
The response to the REFUGE devotional has been huge! For example, today in the Kherson Oblast we visited a church that had been blown to pieces. While they continue to meet in a tent, we ministered tonight to a group from Chernivtsi.
They came with a team of ten to help rebuild the church. We saw them lay the concrete foundation. I shared remarks after dinner and they shared a song. And the pastor just messaged me.
“Thanks for REFUGE! I want to read it to our team as our morning devotion time. I was glad to meet you! May God bless you for your kind heart for our people!” I was not sure what to say to them. God gave me the words.
It looked simple, like Laubach says. When they asked me to speak to this team spontaneously, I whispered a prayer and God took care of the rest. He gave me just what they needed. I know that’s the case because I actually got a couple laughs out of them.
Before I visit another war-torn area under shelling at the moment, Odessa and Chornomorsk, I must comment on the header photo. God whispered to me on the long drive today. Stop the car. Snap a photo. I shot it as we traveled across Ukraine.
I saw abundant life. I saw it bursting forth from the ground. It reminded me that God had not forgotten these people and would supply what they needed. If you look at the header photo next to the Ukrainian flag, you will understand my joy.
Anyway, everywhere I go, I am proclaiming peace in Ukraine. I remind everyone that peace is not the absence of war, for war will always be with us. Peace is abiding in the presence of God.
Abide with me in perpetual surrender. It’s simple.