SOARING
by Ethel C Pechman

Reading a book titled "The Narrow Road" made me consider how I could change my prayers, making them more like the prayers of this book. Doing that led me to ask God to give me scriptures that would help me pray in a new way. The Lord did give me the Scriptures. I'll talk more about this later.

First, though, I must tell you what the book is about. It is written by Brother Andrew, a young Dutch boy who lived in Witte in the land of Holland. In 1940, Germany occupied Holland until 1945. By that time Andrew was 17 and a year later, he joined the army. Since the war was now over; Andrew joined the Dutch army to help get back their colonies for the Queen.

His mother had given him a little Bible to take with him, which he put in the bottom of his pack. It would be much later before he met God through that little Bible. He had picked it out of the pack one day after he had been to a tent revival meeting. After that meeting, he could not get enough of Bible reading. He started going to church until finally he accepted the Lord as Savior.

That is when God led him to learn about Worldwide Evangelism Crusade (WEC) Missions. He learned from his girlfriend, Thile, that WEC was a nonaccredited, unaffiliated enterprise that had no standing in any mission circle with which they were involved. "Church missions were run on budgets. A mission board waited until it had the money or at least knew where it was coming from, before they sent a man out. Not WEC. If they thought God wanted a man in a certain place, they sent him there and trusted God to worry about the details." This was not the kind of life Thile wanted to live. Thile said she did not want to see or hear from him as long as he was affiliated with that group.

After a job painting the WEC building in London, he was elated to become a member of the WEC. He was sent to the missionary training school in Scotland in 1953. They received no pay; everything was to be provided by God; they learned to completely trust Him. With that kind of training, he was ready to start his missionary work taking Bibles into persecuted countries. That was his mission.

Everything he did, obtaining Bibles and taking them behind the Iron Curtain, was done by receiving money from preaching at different churches, and being given money by those who wanted to give Bibles to those in other countries who had none. He never asked for funds; he prayed to God for them, and God obligingly answered his prayers. God never disappointed him; he always prayed for the Bibles he needed. He prayed at the borders; and God helped him get through customs.

One time he was at the Rumanian border with a large supply of Bibles; they were hidden in his small Volkswagon given to him by one of his Dutch neighbors before applying to Yugoslavia for a visa.
Now, at the Rumanian border, he saw a very long line of cars, each being carefully checked as to what they were bringing to the country. The border patrol was even taking off hubcaps on the cars, removing the seats and looking closely at everything. Of course, Andrew prayed; when his turn came, the border agent was checking his watch, counting the number of cars. Andrew was concerned about the amount of time spent on each car and decided to bring some of the Bibles up on the seat beside him. He thought by doing that, he would be showing the custom agent that he was not hiding anything. The custom agent waved him on, not even checking inside his car. Andrew was exhilarated. It made Andrew more trusting of what the Lord would do.

Brother Andrew was getting lonesome living in his childhood home. He very much desired a companion and prayed to God to find him a wife. He worried, though, about how she would be able to accept the terms of marriage awaiting her. He would be away much of the time and he did not have a paying job to support her. He talked with God about what she would have to deal with being married to a man like him But Andrew prayed desperately for God to provide him a wife and children to make a home. "He prayed three times and finally said if God refused him he would never ask again. He wrote the date July 7, and then snapped the Bible closed." It wasn't until September that anything happened for him to interpret an answer. In was in the morning, in the middle of prayer time that he had a vision of a face suddenly floating in front of him. It was Corrie, a blonde haired, sunny smile girl he had known as a child. He learned she was a nursing student in Haarlem, Holland and was told that Corrie lived in an apartment in Alkaamar.

He explained to Corrie that he was going to Hungary and would be back. He said he wanted to marry her, but that he did not want an answer until he came back. He told her the next month would be a fair sample of the life ahead of her. He said she'd be crazy to marry him,"but I do want you so!" When he returned he told her he loved her whether her answer was yes, or no.

The Narrow Road explains just what kind of road it is, one on which every step of the way is a step of trust. It is a step of truth, a step of belief, and a step of obedience. There is no sidestep or other path.
Each step leads you closer to understanding the way of God.

I began this article by saying what I had learned; about how Andrew trusted God, which changed my way of praying. I asked the Lord for special answers to questions I had, and he answered me with two different texts.
Romans 11:33: Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!

And the second one is:
1 Cor.15:27-28 ".when it says that 'everything has been put under him, it is clear
that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he
has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him, who put everything
under him, so that God may be made all in all.

The quotation from 1 Corinthians confirmed the idea I had about God and His son and has now clarified
the relationship between God and His Son for me. This gave me a stronger sense of trust, a deeper conviction of what God can do for me when I trust him. It pays to believe God completely, not doubting anything he has written in His Word.

It is my thought that most people do not believe the importance of obedience. Obedience promotes untold blessings. Most people want God's blessings, but do not realize it's the obedience that rewards us with God's blessings.

The story is a true one. It is a story of trust and obedience lived by Corrie and Andrew and the five children with which God blessed them. Andrew is now about 83 years old. Through his actions, he gives us the desire to trust God more fully with our lives.

When we put all our faith in the Lord and believe what He says, we will have perfect peace.



I love writing and have written much during my lifetime, but have only recently considered publishing my work.

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Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com







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