A Simple Prayer of Trust in the Darkness

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have the desire in all I am doing.
I hope from that desire,
and I know that if I do this
you will lead me by the right road
though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore I will trust you always,
though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton

[HT: Kingdom People]

A New Small Group on The Holiness of God

When I was a college student, I read through one of the most influential books in my life. It was a book called, "The Holiness of God," by RC Sproul. (If you haven't read it, stop everything right now and purchase this book on my recommendation!) God used this book at a very crucial time in my life when I was wrestling with what the Scriptures taught about God and His sovereignty. I don't remember how I came across it--probably my friend Wes Baker recommended it. Nevertheless, it was a very influential book in my life as I began to understand something of the holiness of God and the depths of my sin and the incredible grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and his absolutely necessary death on the cross to secure my standing before ths holy God.

This book is among those "Top 5 Books" I would take with me to a desert island.

I purchased some copies of the book in Spanish to eventually use in our ministry here among university students. I gave a copy to my conversation partner, Pablo, and we were going to read through it together and develop some questions for an eventual small group study. We were up on the campus talking about the book the other day when Estella, a new Christian and an old friend of Pablo's whom I had previously met, stopped by. I told her about this book that we were reading (in my broken spanish) and told her that I thought she would benefit from it very much. Pablo threw out the suggestion that she join us and be a guinea pig for us as we try to develop some questions. She was very enthusiastic.

Pablo and I thought about it some more and thought we'd invite Obal too (the student president of RUF here) and he gave us an enthusiastic response as well. I just received a phone call from Pablo and he said that he just invited two or three more folks to join us as well, so I guess this means that I have my first official small group study over one of my favorite books with a group of university students here in Trujillo, Peru.

What does this mean? Well, at the very least it means that we need your prayers. Pray that this book will have the same or even better effect on the lives of these students as it had on me. And I could use a few more regarding my language acquisition. I still have to use that Spanish dictionary far too much. Thanks! We'll keep you posted.

Keep praying for Knox Anderson

As some of you know, our 18 month old little friend, Knox Anderson, covenant child of John and Rachel Anderson and our WPC family (John is the Asst. Pastor of our home church and one of my best friends), continues to need our prayers after suffering a near drowning. My wife has posted this link to keep our contacts up to date.