Coronavirus Contentment?

By Leighton Ford

A friend reminded me the other day that when the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians he was in prison in Rome … his own version of social isolation! He likely had chains on his feet when he dictated or wrote these famous words:

"I have learned to be content with whatever I have ... I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me" (Phil. 4:11-13).

How could he possibly have imagined then, that centuries later what he wrote while stuck in jail would inspire millions around the world!

I don't like the social isolation Jeanie [Leighton’s wife and Billy Graham’s sister—Ed.] and I have to accept for the sake not only of our own health, but for others.  I need to remember what Paul wrote:  that what happened to him helped to spread the Gospel, so that in prison he dared to speak the Word with greater boldness (Phil. 1:12, 14).

Note that he wrote twice that he learned contentment.  It didn't come naturally.

I had the privilege of knowing John Stott, that great teacher and preacher who ministered around the world.  When John was in a retirement home in England, physically limited, one of his former study assistants visited him.

"John," he asked, "Are you happy?"

"No," he answered.  "But I'm learning to be content."

So here's a COVID-19 prayer:  "Lord, I don't like this isolation.  Please teach me to learn the secret of contentment.  And help me to learn that you can use this COVID-19 time to spread your Gospel.  Amen."

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Leighton Ford is president of Leighton Ford Ministries and served for nearly 20 years as chairman of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. He has traveled to 40 countries to preach and teach (initially with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association) and now focuses now on mentoring younger Christian leaders.

Leighton and Jean Ford [Photo: Todd Sumlin, Charlotte Observer]

His wife, Jean Graham Ford, has personal experience with pandemics, having been a victim of polio in 1944. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association recently spoke with Jean about facing death at a young age, and asked what she would say to a COVID-19 patient today. Here is how she responded:

"Sometimes it's so difficult to trust our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet to me, there's no option. That happened to be ingrained in me, my trust in what He promises, my trust in who I know Him to be.  To become a child of God means a relationship, and it's a secure relationship that doesn't depend on illness or it doesn't depend on the weather.  It doesn't depend on what we're able to do or where we're able to go.  It's a relationship with God the Father, and that just doesn't change."

I just have to add that ten years ago, I had never heard of Leighton Ford. One night in a vivid dream, I was on a tour bus in Australia with my husband and some friends when a young man got on and sat beside me. As part of our conversation, he asked me if I was "familiar with the writing of Leighton Ford?" I said I wasn't, so he proceeded to quote some wonderful phrases from Ford's writing.

I woke somehow knowing how to spell his unusual name, wrote down a few details of the dream, and the next day was blown away to discover not only that Dr. Ford exists, but who he was and is. Born in Canada (like me), married to Billy Graham’s sister and a world-famous evangelist in his own right. I eventually got in touch with him and we have communicated on and off since, me enjoying and reviewing several of his excellent books. He recently published his memoir, A Life of Listening: Discerning God's Voice and Discovering Our Own.

Signs of mature Christians

● They speak the truth at all times
● They are good listeners
● They don’t take offense
● They are quick to forgive
● They are reliable
● They are supportive
● They have an appetite for prayer and fasting
● They rely on the Word of God
● The more God lifts them up, the more humble they become
● They need not defend themselves
● They are quick to repent
● They seek peace and pursue it
● They love people and are compassionate
● They know when to talk and when to be quiet
● They are full of wisdom in many aspects of life
● They respect people and are very sensitive to others’ feelings
● They have a lot of patience and are not short-tempered
● They fear God
● They give honor where it is due
● They are content with what they have
● They have good leadership skills
● They are hospitable
● They are not carried away by all kinds of teachings
● They are good followers
● They have a sacrificial spirit
● They don't gossip and look down on people
● They have faith
● They take part in church activities and attend church regularly
● They are clean in every aspect of life
● Their spirits are sensitive, they hate sin
● They don't act holier than others
● They don't compete with others

We each need to ask ourselves, ‘Am I a mature Christian?’ If we can say ‘yes’, then we are on the right path; if the answer is ‘no’, we must pray for help in the process until we can say ‘yes’.

With love, prayers and Shalom
In the mighty name of our Risen Lord Jesus Christ
Pastor Paul

Life is like a rainbow: You need both the sun and the rain to make its colors appear

As anyone following the news knows, the war against COVID-19 rages in almost every country and region on the globe. Some more densely populated places have been hit the hardest, New York City among them.

Not a region we usually ‘cover’, but a photo taken a few days ago by a woman in Long Island, NY has garnered deserving attention by a world weary of fighting in the prolonged darkness. What more wonderful symbolism than this: a quadruple rainbow. the rarest rainbow of them all!

Photo: Amanda Curtis
According to meteorologists, what Curtis actually saw was a double-double rainbow; that is, a double rainbow reflected in the sky due to a smooth body of water beneath it and behind her as she gazed up. Which makes at no less wondrous!

Those overarching colors of the spectrum always signify promise: the rain does end, the clouds do break up, the sun remains even if partially hidden … and will soon burst forth. Its peeking through even while the clouds and rain remain produces such an unlikely arc of brilliance and color even the most unbelieving heart has to smile at the show.

Biblically, the rainbow was to be a sign of God’s covenant of love between Himself and all living creatures on earth. No more village-sized wooden arks would be needed for flood protection.

A few great rainbow quotes:

“And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.”
―G.K. Chesterton

“No vision and you perish;
No ideal, and you're lost;
Your heart must ever cherish
Some faith at any cost.
Some hope, some dream to cling to,
Some rainbow in the sky,
Some melody to sing to,
Some service that is high.”
―Harriet Du Autermont

“Weekends are a bit like rainbows; they look good from a distance but disappear when you get up close to them.”
―John Shirley

And finally:
“Don't miss all the beautiful colors of the rainbow looking for that pot of gold!”
―Anonymous

St. Paul’s 12 key points to living in a lawless world

[Phil 4: 4-19]

1. Don’t be terrified by your enemies.
2. On behalf of Christ, you are not only to believe in Him, but to suffer for His sake!
3. Rejoice in the Lord always and … again … rejoice!
4. Have moderation in all things.
5. Be careful in everything you do; let all things be done with prayer and supplication to the Lord.
6. The Peace of God will keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
7. Think on these things: whatever is true, honorable, just, pleasing, commendable, excellent, praiseworthy.
8. Walk in the way of the Lord and the God of peace shall be with you.
9. Learn to be content in whatever state you are in.
10. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
11. “My God will supply all my need through His riches in Christ Jesus.”
12. We are in the world, not of the world; we are Christ’s and He is ours through God’s grace to us!

With love, prayers and Shalom
In the wonderful name of Jesus

Pastor Paul, Bibles for Mideast

A call for GRACE midst COVID-19, China, bats, and bugs

This is not the usual direction we head in with our ministry, and I want to make it clear we are not taking any stands or stances … except for truth and grace. Those are directions we always aim for.

Here is what is verifiably known. There IS a lab in the vicinity of the first outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China. Not far from there is a cave chock full of bats, many who were found to carry coronaviruses of various kinds. Bats have long been known to carry diseases, along with many birds and various other animals (think rabies, for example, or bird flu, or swine flu).

Research on coronaviruses in bats was indeed being—openly—studied. Here is just one published study, by Chinese researchers in 2017, available for any to read: Extensive diversity of coronaviruses in bats from China.

Scanning electron microscope image, in false color, showing COVID-19 viral particles (yellow) as they emerge from the surface of a PATIENT'S cell (blue and pink)

Labs around the world study such things all the time and for good cause. MIT scientist Jonathan Runstadler wrote in an article in 2018 that his lab, “along with others around the world, is working to understand how and why new influenza viruses may grip us again. To do so, we need to go far beyond human hospitals and into the wild, where viruses persist in animal populations. As disease ecologists, we aim to understand the dynamics of pathogens in the environment and their interactions with hosts. By understanding more about what’s happening with viruses in animals, we believe we can be better prepared to evaluate, predict and respond if an infection spills over to humans, making people sick.”

The 2009 influenza (H1N1) pandemic, or ‘swine flu’ originated in pigs from a very small region in central Mexico. Flus of bird origin have come fairly often, and thankfully scientists work diligently to create vaccines to inoculate us against them.*

Bats happen to host a far higher number of zoonotic viruses (those that can pass from animals to people or, more specifically, that normally exist in animals but can infect humans) than other animals, many of which have caused human disease and outbreaks. A 2019 study warned that bats could cause the next coronavirus epidemic in China, due to their geographic proximity to several urban hotspots.

The jury is still out on whether the current novel coronavirus ‘escaped’ this particular Wuhan lab, although we do know lab safety has been a problem in China. But if it did happen, they are hardly alone in experiencing such accidents.

A USA Today investigation back in 2016 for instance, revealed an incident involving cascading equipment failures in a decontamination chamber as US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers tried to leave a bio-safety level 4 lab that likely stored samples of the viruses causing Ebola and smallpox. In 2014, the agency revealed that staff had accidentally sent live anthrax between laboratories, exposing 84 workers. In an investigation, officials found other mishaps that had occurred in the preceding decade.

Now to tackle the idea promoted by some that the virus was ‘created’ in a lab: a bioweapon of mass destruction. Bio-terrorism and biological warfare have existed for eons … starting at least 14 centuries before Christ (gosh, He must be weeping), when the Hittites sent infected rams to their enemies.

While treaties and declarations to cease and desist in their creation have been signed and ratified, they have just as often been violated. Here’s just one doozy: the US Navy’s Operation Sea-Spray, when the coast of San Francisco in California was sprayed with two types of bacteria, Bacillus globigii and Serratia marcesens. These bacteria are supposed to be safe, but Bacillus globigii is now listed as a pathogen, causes food poisoning, and can hurt anyone with a weak immune system. As for Serratia marcesens, 11 people were admitted to hospital with serious bacterial infections after the San Francisco test and one person died.

We could go on and on with instances of this, in trials on innocent civilians (or sheep on a Scottish island) and in war, but the point is humans can make mistakes, or be outright bad, too often. Worth thinking about is how almost always, the malicious behaviour stems from fear. Fear that someone else might be seeking to control, to overpower. Fear of the unknown.

Now more than ever we need GRACE. If we think others are out to harm or control us, why might that be? More than likely, because they fear their ‘other’ (which may be you) seek to harm or control them.

I still, however, don’t think a lab in China already studying coronaviruses in bats would have any need to ‘create’ a novel coronavirus when all they had to do was find another infected bat.

All we know for certain right now is we have a global pandemic, impacting every person on the planet, and only common sense hand-washing, sanitizing and physical distancing—for as long as it takes—will get us through.

The blame game gets absolutely no one anywhere. Let us pray together in our collective isolation, extend the grace our Lord to the ‘other’ in our lives, and check our sources before hitting the ‘share’, ‘forward’ or ‘believe’ buttons.

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* All modern vaccinations are made from inactive, or severely attenuated (weakened) versions of the virus or bacteria they are designed to help your immune system fight. Hooray for the people of science who developed life-saving vaccines such as against polio and other horrid plagues of the past. At its peak in the 1940s and 50s, polio paralyzed or killed over half a million people worldwide EVERY year. That was until the Salk vaccine was developed in 1954, and as that became widely available, cases of course declined.