Frank C. Laubach: Tinged

And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. Hebrews 13:16

“Sometimes one feels that there is a discord between the cross and beauty. But there really cannot be, for God is found best through those two doorways. This grey-blue rolling water tinged with whitecaps, hemmed with distant green hills and crowned with colored clouds and baby-blue sky reveals God’s love of beauty – and God is so lavish with his paintbrush in the tropics. He is lavish everywhere if one only has eyes to see Him at work.

But when one comes to personality, one demands more than a pretty face or even a soul that sings for joy. There is in the universe a higher kind of beauty. It is the beauty of sacrifice, of giving up for others, of suffering for others. A woman has not reached her highest beauty until she lays down her ease and chooses pain for bearing and nursing her child. A man has not found his highest beauty until his brow is tinged with care for some cause he loves more than himself. The beauty of sacrifice is the final word in beauty.”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “The beauty of sacrifice is the final word in beauty.”

I read this and started to draft this post on the train from Lviv, Ukraine, to Przemyśl, at the border of Poland.

Then I shot this new header photo while walking through the peaceful apartment complex in Warsaw on the way to dinner with my wife, GTP Financial Controller and soon-to-be CFO, Dr. Olena Hetman, and her mother.

Imagine yourself after running a long race or finishing a huge project, you collapse. You left, as the saying goes, nothing in your tank. You drop with exhaustion from your sacrifice.

That’s how I feel today, and this reading from Laubach affirmed that there is nothing more beautiful.

The world says not to go to dangerous places, not to put yourself in harm’s way, and not to move toward broken people. You have to take care of yourself, they reason.

What if God wants something different from us? I think He does.

He wants us to taste the beauty of sacrifice. To have our brow tinged with care for some cause beyond ourselves. It does not leave us empty, though we might fee physically exhausted, we have been enriched by God.

Click here to read my trip report from Ukraine. When you read this I will be on my flight home.

Thanks for your prayers for recovery from this trip. And thanks to all of you who emailed me in response to Laubach posts from Ukraine. He has provided inspiration for my service. I pray also for you. Many have testified to tinged brows.

I praise God for this news. I will respond to your messages in time. I have had limited wifi to respond to emails.

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.” Lamentations 3:22-23

“It is that spirit of greed which Jesus said God hated more than any other. It is so diametrically opposite to the spirit of God. For God forever lavishes his gifts upon the good and bad alike, and finds all his joy in endless giving… You see, I feel deeply about us all. Beside Jesus the whole lot us are so contemptible. I do not see how God stomachs us at all. But God is like Jesus, and like Jesus, He will not give up until we, too, are like Jesus.”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “Joy in endless giving.”

The Russians mixed things up yesterday.

The drone strikes in Kyiv did not come until just before dawn. At least that made for good sleep. They woke me with similar shock as the 5:00am Muslim call to prayer in Pakistan.

And while I am wide awake by 5am on normal days, I am a bit sleep deprived this week. But no complaints. It was a great night of sleep.

Again, I turn to Laubach and find a strong connection. I saw the endless giving God from the window of the train yesterday.
The sun lavished light on the earth. The sky was bright blue. The life in the fields burst forth in color, green everywhere, yellow canola, and flowers of many colors.

It marked my last full day with Dr. Milan Hluchý, one of the most brilliant people I have ever met, he quoted Albert Einstein as we gazed on the beauty of a forest.

“There are two types of people. Those who see miracles everywhere and those who never see any miracles.”

Despite the ravages of war and death, this land produces life because of the endless giving of God. His miracles are new every day and we see them every minute if we look.

That same endless givign is directed to us, filled with grace, truth, hope, and love. Departing Ukraine today. Bring peace Lord. Though none of us deserves your love, pour our your mercy on this land

When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever he entered the Lord’s presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the Lord. Exodus 34:33-35

“We have got to saturate ourselves with the rainbows and the sunset marvels in order to radiate them. It is as much our duty to live in the beauty of the presence of God on some mount of transfiguration until we become white with Christ as it is for us to go down where they grope, and grovel, and groan, and lift them to new life. After all the deepest truth is that the Christlike life is glorious, undefeatably glorious. There is no defeat unless one loses God, and then all is defeat though it be housed in castles and buried in fortunes.”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “There is no defeat unless one loses God.”

It would be cool if the faces of people who spent time with Jesus glowed like Moses. Would yours glow?

As I spend time with people in Ukraine during the war, I see a lot of glowing faces. The war has them praying often and fervently. But Milan and I have had a concern as we talk on the long drives and train rides.

We think there’s a good possibility that people will forget about God if peace comes.

They will want to go back to aiming at enjoying life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There’s no worse place they could go. Imagine putting themselves in castles and stockpiling fortunes. Sadly, that’s my country, America.

But honestly, I know many people who have lost God in chasing worldly dreams.

So as I spend my last few days in Ukraine, I do it with a prayer for peace coupled with a prayer for perseverance. I pray the revival of faith will not die, lest the loses of life on the part of soldiers be in vain.

What about you? Do you glow, or have you lost God while housing yourself in a castle with a fortune.

And if you want my most recent devotional, REFUGE, to drip daily to your WhatsApp, click here.

I am a God who is everywhere and not in one place only. Jeremiah 23:23

“Our search for God through narrow straits has brought a sudden revelation, like an explorer who has just come out upon a limitless sea. It is not any particularly new idea but a new feeling, which came almost of itself.

Today God seems to me to be just behind everything. I feel Him there. He is just under my hand, just under the typewriter, just behind this desk, just inside the file, just inside the camera. One of these Moro fairy tales has the fairies standing behind every rock looking at the hero. That is how I feel about God today.

Of course this is only a way of symbolizing the truth that God is invisible and that He is everywhere. I cannot imagine seeing the invisible, but I can imagine God hiding himself behind everything in sight. For a lonesome man there is something infinitely homey and comforting in feeling God so close, so everywhere! Nowhere one turns is away from friendship, for God is smiling there.

It is difficult to convey to another the joy of having broken into the new sea of realizing God’s “here-ness.” This morning our theme was “Jesus’ view of prayer.” It seemed so wonderfully true that just the privilege of fellowship with God is infinitely more than any thing that God could give. When He gives Himself He is giving more than anything else in the universe.”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “Symbolizing the truth.”

Yesterday evening, from Lviv, my wife sent a message to our “Forever Family” chat (to our grown children and their spouses): “Could really use some prayer covering!”

We are experiencing God through our service while feeling exhausted by the realities of war. We got little sleep Tuesday night because of the air raids. It’s so hard. Again, I could not fall asleep last night.

Air raid sirens coupled with the sounds of explosions in Kyiv kept me awake. My phone alerted me to find a bomb shelter. I just got away from windows. It was my second hard night in a row.

I was talking to a chaplain who visits the frontlines yesterday. He said he goes every month and has to remind everyone that God has not forgotten them. I understand how they feel this way.

I recall vividly speaking in the church in Chornomorsk on Tuesday night. I counted about 40 women and 4 men. Most were much older than me. You see very few young people anywhere, except Sophia, displaced from occupied Khersonska.

After my sermon, this sweet, young 18 year old girl came up to me. She started to speak and could not say anything. Eventually, I learned that her dad stayed behind in occupied territory to care for his aged in-laws.

That was over 3 years ago. She and her mom have not seen him since. One of millions of separation stories. And they are lucky to get one message a month. So hard. God is everywhere but for Sophia, but it seems like He is nowhere.

The Ukrainian people are against the wall but their gratitude has touched me. In a way, I don’t want to leave. God is everywhere holding them together, and yet they feel like He is nowhere. Pray with me for them to not lose heart.

Pray with me that God will give His loving presence to every person in this war-torn nation in some mystical and abundant way. That’s the generosity I am praying for today.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18

“Never did I so feel the need of a silent typewriter as at this moment, for every stroke clashes with the marvelous silence of the hills tonight. I am still under the spell of that hush and of that sunset. In all my life I have never seen a sight so beautiful as Lanao tonight…

I suppose there have been equally beautiful scenes since the world was created, but not more beautiful for me. For it adequately reflected the passion of love which I feel toward the Lanao people as I look and pray from the hill. And as I talked and tasted the sweetness of the luscious light, and told God that this was for me the masterpiece of his creation, he told me through my own voice:

“Ah, child, this is but the symbol of beauties, and wonders which I mean to give you when you are willing and ready. I must give them, I will give them, if only you will climb your spiritual hill and open your soul, eyes and look. This is what all life can have if you are willing. I ache with longings which poor little people cannot even suspect, to open up wider and ever wider universes of glory to you all.”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “This is what all life can have if you are willing.”

I am awake early. Traveling from Chornomorsk (near Odessa) to Kyiv today. I could say I am glad to get out of here because I heard five explosions last night and then the roar of ambulances. I said a prayer for those impacted but it was hard to sleep.

Now all is silent. With Laubach, I cherish the peace of silence.

But I saw something yesterday. I saw the faces of people who lit up because someone came to visit them. “No one visits us.” They said. “People leave here. No one comes here.” I saw agony behind their words.

I wish everyone reading this could see what I have seen and hear what I heard.

It changes you. When you have seen Jesus in the eyes of the brokenhearted, you want to gaze at nothing else because you have seen the salvation of the Lord. In a way, I don’t want to leave this place.

“It’s your third visit during the war?” People ask. “Are you crazy?” They continue. “We would leave if we could.”

I want you to think about the most unfortunate person in your world and move toward them today. Tell me what happens. Do it if you are willing. Then email me. I think you might be surprised (spoiler alert: you will see Jesus there).

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.

My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord. Let every creature praise His holy name for ever and ever. Psalm 145:21

“Last Monday was the most completely successful day of my life to date so far as giving my day in complete and continuous surrender to God is concerned – though I shall hope for far better days – and I remember how as I looked at people with a love God gave, they looked back and acted as though they wanted to go with me. I felt then that for a day I saw a little of that marvelous pull that Jesus had as he walked along the road day after day “God-intoxicated” and radiant with the endless communion of his soul with God.”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “I looked at people with a love God gave.”

Yesterday was indescribably good. It was a God-intoxicated day.

Milan and I met at 6:30am and met with the board of Hosanna Church in Lviv. It has sprouted since 2022 and has 150 people and no financial structure or budgeting. I provided teaching and templates.

Think about it, how many church boards do you know willing to meet from 6:30-8:30am?

Then a driver collected us and drove us to Ternopil where I preached at Strong Faith Church at 11am. Afterwards I met a nuclear physicist who had fled Kharkiv two years ago, landed in Ternopil and came to faith in Jesus.

Pastor Mykola Semenov serves 700 internally displaced families a week out of Strong Faith Church. That’s not a typo. But he needs help with bringing order and oversight to the ministry.

I thank God he’s our driver along with Sasha Volyanyk, GTP Country Coordinator for Ukraine. To provide coaching whilst we travel to Kherson, Odessa, and Kyiv.

And last night preached at New Church at 5pm. Everyone there was under 30 years old. And they were like dry sponges, soaking up truth and coach. But I felt all worked well only because of surrender to Jesus.

And they wanted Milan and I to stay with them all night. Got to the hotel after 10pm. And I forgot to add that people seem bereft of hope. Thankful that “endless communion” fills us to minister to so many with seemingly empty cups.

Have you tasted this? Give yourself in complete and continuous surrender. It’s the only way to live!

Headed to Kherson today from Ternopil. War zone. Pastor Mykola admitted to me yesterday that our travel there last year was his only visit to the war zone.

And he came back with such joy from the journey his wife wants him to return with us this week. And Milan and I have perfect peace. Jesus, I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything.

One person gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. Proverbs 11:24-25

“Inwardly this has been a very uneven week. As a whole my end of the experiment has been failure for most of the week. My physical condition and too many distractions have proven too much for me, and God has not been in the center of my mind for one-fifth of the time, or perhaps one-tenth. But today has been a wonderful day, and some of yesterday was wonderful. The week with its failures and successes has taught me one new lesson. It is this: “I must talk about God, or I cannot keep Him in my mind. I must give Him away in order to have Him.” That is the law of the spirit world. What one gives one has, what one keeps to oneself one loses. Do you suppose that through all eternity the price we will need to pay for keeping God will be that we must endlessly be giving Him away?

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “One Mew Lesson.”

I boarded this train at the Przemyśl Główny stations in Poland yesterday and have safely arrived in Lviv to proclaim peace in Ukraine in the name of Jesus and call everyone to take refuge in God.

Click to download my latest book authored with Dr. Michael Cherenkov, Refuge, in English or Ukrainian.

I am so stoked about my first meeting today. Because I am preaching in Ternopil at 11am and 5pm, my meeting with five humble servants at Hosanna Church runs from 6:30am-8:30am. What will we talk about?

The church is growing to 150+ with most of the people new converts during the war. But the church has no budget or financial accountability and transparency measures in place.

Doing an early morning seminar for the overseers of the church, praise God.

Then I will “talk about God” and finding refuge in Him in two churches in Ternopil today and I have peace. The more I make Christ known fearlessly, the more I will know life in Him without fear. The more I give Him away, the more I have Him.

This illustrates life in the economy of God. We only grasp what we give away. What can you give away today or this week?

Jenni will give herself to 20 students at the seminary here in Lviv this week, and undoubtedly the gain will exceed 20x of the effort and sacrifice. I will serve 3 churches today in Lviv and Ternopil and more stops on the docket by car and train.

Appreciate your prayers this week. On the move, unafraid of danger, and praying for peace.

Praising God that the more I sacrifice, the more I gain. Let me know if you want to join me on a trip sometime to experience the abundant economy of God firsthand. Milan Hluchý is with me for the second time from Czech Republic.

I am serious. He would say that it’s life-changing and the only way to live.

Give the Lord a chance to show you how good He is. Great blessings belong to those who depend on Him! The Lord’s holy people should fear and respect Him. Those who respect Him will always have what they need. Psalm 34:8-9

“The “experiment” is interesting, although I am not very successful, thus far. The idea of God slips out of my sight for I suppose two thirds of every day, thus far. This morning I started out fresh, by finding a rich experience of God in the sunrise. Then I tried to let Him control my hands while I was shaving and dressing and eating breakfast. Now I am trying to let God control my hands as I pound the typewriter keys. If I could keep this morning up I should have a far higher average today than I have had for some time.

This afternoon as I look at the people teeming about me, and then think of God’s point of view, I feel that this mighty stretch of time in which He has been pushing men upward is to continue for many more millions of years. We are yet to become what the spiritual giants have been and more than many of them were. Here the selection favors those who keep themselves wide open toward God and wide awake. Our possibilities are perhaps not limitless, but they are at least infinitely above
our present possibilities of imagination.

There is nothing that we can do excepting to throw ourselves open to God. There is, there must be, so much more in Him than He can give us, because we are so sleepy and because our capacity is so pitifully small. It ought to be tremendously helpful to be able to acquire the habit of reaching out strongly after God’s thoughts, and to ask, “God what have you to put into my mind now if only I can be large enough?” That waiting, eager attitude ought to give God the chance he needs. I am finding every day that the best of the five or six ways in which I try to keep contact with God is for me to wait for his thoughts, to ask him to speak.”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “Open toward God and wide awake.”

I think about giving daily, but rarely have had the notion of “give God the chance He needs” on my radar. It makes sense. Many people are moving about but few attuned to Him.

Those who try, and I will rank myself among them, fail even to stay connected the majority of a day. Too many actions of others or distractions around us shift our focus, redeploy our energies, capture our attention.

I hear today, the repeated clack of a train moving on the tracks as I move from Warsaw to Lviv. The faces of people tell stories. One reflects pain, another joy, another sadness, another mystery.

What does your resting face say? My often says focus! Today, I want it to say peace. Fill my heart with Your peace, Lord. Make me a conduit of your love. I wrote a book, that releases to the world today for this trip. I wrote it with my friend, Dr. Michael Cherenkov.

It’s called, REFUGE. Click to download it in English and in Ukrainian. Pray for me as I seek the heart of God as I travel. I want to give God the chance to speak through me to people when I preach twice tomorrow in two churches in Ternopil.

How might you give God a chance today?

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:19-24

“This conscious, incessant submission to God has proven extremely difficult, and I have surrendered for the past few days. And today and yesterday I saw evidences of the result. In an effort to be witty I have said biting things which have hurt the feelings of others, and have been short and impatient. I tremble, for I have told at least one of these men of this experiment, and he will think this is the result. It is very dangerous to tell people, and yet, I must tell and I must start over now and succeed. This philosophy that one can begin all over instantly at any moment, is proving of great help.

If this record of a soul struggle to find God is to be complete it must not omit the story of difficulty and failure. I have not succeeded very well so far. This week, for example, has not been one of the finest in my life, though it has been above the average. I have to make a greater effort next week. I have undertaken something which, at my age at least, is hard, harder than I had anticipated. But I resolve not to give up the effort. Yet strain does not seem to do good. At this moment I feel something “let go” inside, and lo, God is here! It is a heart melting “here-ness,” a lovely whispering of father to child, and the reason I did not have it before, was because I failed to let go. And back of that failure there was something else. A crowd of people arrived who, when they are in a crowd, wish to talk or think nothing of religion. I fear I have not wanted some of them to think me religious for fear I might cease to be interesting.

Fellowship with God is something one dare not cover, for it smothers to death. It is like a tender infant or a delicate little plant, for a long nurturing is the price of having it, while it vanishes in a second of time, the very moment indeed, one’s eye ceases to be “single.” One cannot worship God and Mammon for the reason that God slips out and is gone as soon as we try to seat some other unworthy affection beside Him. The other idol stays and God vanishes. Not because God is “a jealous God” but because sincerity and insincerity are contradictions and cannot both exist at the same time in the same place.”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “Incessant submission to God has proven extremely difficult.”

I am awake at 3:00am local time in Warsaw experiencing a bit of jet lag. It happens with travel. Rather than toss in bed, I determined wake up, read, and sit with the Lord. It has been a sweet time.

And I chose this post because it reflects the ups and downs of the human reality of following Jesus. Laubach alerts us that some weeks are better than others. That’s the truth!

Some weeks we feel in sync with God. Other weeks, if we examine our lives with honesty, we fail miserably to reflect the love or the generosity of God. Is that you today?

If so, this statement is for you: “But I resolve not to give up the effort.” Begin all over again today, right now, this minute. Forget your successes and failures and move on relying on God’s grace.

I praise God for an awesome meeting from about 11am to 3pm yesterday with the head of an influential network of European pastors and a few of his close colleagues. Today I speak to about 38 of them.

I pray to be in sync with God when I do, to begin again today. And then for my many speaking engagements and strategic visits across Ukraine to go well. Afresh God is reminding me just to focus on Him.

The best part about fellowship with God is the sincerity of it. He never turns us away when we fix ourselves to Him rather than Mammon which can represent anything else, any time. Let me give an example in real-time.

My iPad, which I use to teach, has quit working on this trip. It won’t recharge. I could allow that to derail me. He reminded me that I need nothing but Him. He will help me deliver His truth and love without the iPad.

I don’t know if Laubach’s vulnerability or my own helps you but I know this: “strain does not seem to do good.” If you feel strain, let it God. Draw near to God today and He will draw near to you.