Ann Voskamp over de kracht van Gods Woord

I once ran into a preacher man you know it's about that end of the month of June the end of a long haul for him and he was kind of limping hard but I leaned in and I asked him anyways what's the greatest challenge facing the church on people of faith right now and he didn't even blink didn't miss a beat he just said biblical literacy it's kind of an absurd thing when you think of it every minute more than one half of all of us like 4 billion people on this planet we're liking a Facebook post it appears that we are all at least pretty much Facebook literate maybe even Facebook addictive we all have our own priorities only our own lack of love can keep us from this love letter only being captivated by other words can keep us from this word during our average 12 waking hours 23 words every single second grab our attention 23 words per second to our phones or emails a TV radio newspaper how many of them are his words there are days you can feel the weariness of it our minds are processing a hundred and five thousand words every day the equivalent of 12 complete books every single waking day we process the equivalent of two complete books but 550 pages each how many of his words do we read sit with incarnate and how is our heart hardening or scaling over every day in this world of hard knocks and hard roads they say when you lose your language when you lose how to speak that lilting tones of Dutch or the installations of Chinese the rhythms of the Romance languages that you become when you become alehrer in your mother tongue you become ignorant of your own culture your ways of thinking like your people of process in the world through the lens of where you come from in the world if we all lose our mother tongue that speaks our father's words don't we lose what it means to be human I asked a native Bible translator once he was standing there in the he was holding the reins of a camel and I said to him why why do you give your entire adult life nearly the last three decades of your life translating the language the Bible into the language of your people and this name was Joshua and he leaned forward and he says it's like giving them a weapon and he points over to the tree where these women were all standing around underneath the branches and he said one of those women told me once Joshua said he said now now you've given us a weapon that we can use which is God's Word it's like you've given us a spear we can fight spiritual warfare now Joshua that Bible translator he'd once beaten back a lion and I thought about how that the adversary he prowls around like a lion ready to devour someone and then Joshua held up the Bible he said this though this is powerful this weapon this is God's Word this makes us equipped and that now we have part of the weapon he said we have the New Testament but now we need the Old Testament and I thought what if the way you closed the mouth of any line that's about to devour you is to open your Bible you have a life grip on the sword of the word and you can slay the worries that have a death grip on your heart scripture is what makes us soul strong like your beginning the strength to spear your fears follow the lines of the words and they will show you the way the way forward the way through the way home the way to survive the attack of lions open the word and you see God's saying it right there it's like he's saying turn turn and look me in the eye don't look elsewhere unless you look me in the eye open up the word and look God straight in the eye and let him speak straight to your heart open the word look God in the eye and you can stare down anything threatening your heart I once met a woman northern Kenya named Debye Oh okay four hours of her day every day to walk one way barefoot over a range of rugged hills to hear the heartbeat of God and when I sat in front of do BIOS house several of her neighbors were joining us and I leaned forward on this tipsy white plastic chair to hear her tell her story how she had walked Brown trip eight hours a day with no shoes five days a week 26 miles a day a marathon to get more of God five days a week for four years there's the giving up that only gains there's a sacrifice that only fulfills there's a sacrifice that there's no sacrifice at all she thought this was worth it to get to literacy classes to hear God's words spoken from the book of John to learn to read from the book of John to learn to write to write her own name to learn her name as his beloved but after the birth of her twins to bio tells me she felt direly sick a raging fever uncontrollable infection and dangerous dehydration her neighbors wished death upon her and she wished she could find a way through when this is a world of brutally hard places that begs us to believe that we are still in hopeful places how could two by oh no the otherworldly thing that was about to happen now why in the world do we doubt the miraculous ways God still intervenes in the darkest hardest places dubia looked at me when I could see it in her eyes this radiating reflection of him what about told me the pastor came and he spoke the Word of God over me any challenges any obstacles that you were going through your God is with you to by oh and God will make sure away in all of your challenges that's what a word meant for somebody for me right now dubai oh she broke into a smile and she said right then I no longer see my great problems I only see my great hope my Bremen's and I nodded yes the hardest places can still be the most hopeful places dubai o tells me that when she was laying there in bed talking to God she said God look at look at the way my my people my neighbors are speaking of me they're wanting me to die because I have left everything for you and they say that I am sick because I've gone to follow you please give me courage Lord and in the darkened stillness of a room of her open heart to bio suddenly resonate with God the word of the inner chambers of her being I hear you and I see you and I know the goodness that you're doing to buy a lie still what did she hurt an answer and then a word reverberate it into bio that she had never heard or known in her life Galatians Galatians verse 9 the viola motionless in the dark confused what was Galatians she never heard the word Galatians bedridden in her fevered stupor and aching sickness Tobiah replayed it again and again and again what had reverberate it unmistakably unforgettably in her heart words that came from somewhere she'd never heard of I hear you and I see you and I know the goodness that you are doing Galatians verse 9 where Galatians even mean and then she said the church Mama's came and to buy out justice to the West 40 church mamas they come to tell me to keep on keep on and do not lose hope sister God is with you Tobias eyes questioned her she told me the story and she said I told the church mom as I tell them a voice comes within me telling me I hear you I see you the goodness that you're doing galatians verse 9 and right there to by his neighbor sitting across from henry and lawrence she interrupts to buy o story and she tells me she was there that day she was standing over tobias bed watching the deathly a woman murmur what she insisted she had heard in the chambers of her heart galatians this is not a word any of the church mamas know judy the neighbor she's animating adamant not a word in our in daily language not a word in the Gospel of John the only book of God's Word that we had in our mother tongue and Judy moves closer now to Debye oh just someone someone asked if anyone has an English Bible and the pages are turned and someone reads in English ah Galatians this is a word in the word of odd - beyal has heard a word from God and all of us in the room we had started to cry because of the Bible but because God speaks and I saw their looking in to the BIOS face and Judy's face as they told me this God speaks hope to those who sacrifice for the love of his heartbeat and I wanted what they have I wanted that God's word was spoken there and Judy said I can read English better than most so as I look through Galatians for every verse nine judy nods Galatians 1:9 Galatians 2:9 Galatians 3:19 Galatians 4 and on to the last book of Galatians Galatians 6:9 and I read what it says Galatians 6:9 and Judy knows it by heart now let us not lose heart and doing good for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary I was blinking in fact this is exactly what God told you by oh if I was smiling tears brimming at the memory that never leaves that God sees and God speaks I hear you and I see and I know but goodness that you're doing Galatians verse 9 and Judy whispers shaking her head let me tell you we got courage from this we got hope and Judy reached over to grab her BIOS hands but I was the one who has seized in that moment what am I giving up to get the courage of God the hope of God the word of God and I pulled in closer to the bio and I said to bio Debye you've personally been waiting almost 18 years to hold in your own hands God's Word in your own language and I nodded towards the fresh off the press new testament that was right there into BIOS laughs a 30 year undertaking of Wickliffe translators and not 24 hours prior I had witnessed a bio lead a celebration within a thousand men dilly people and their neighboring tribes gathering like a people to a holy flame to welcome the long anticipated coming of God in His Word in their own language and to bioship pressed open the pages in her lap and runs her fingers across the lines of the Bible the one book she'd longed for her whole life that she'd held on to for dear life that had saved her life and I've never seen think white like it and she traced the lines of that Bible in her own language like she was tracing her lover's face God's Word is cherished wanted spoke in their all our hope all our Kurds because God's Word was all of their love and all I could think is for all the duotone leather imitation Bibles collecting dust on forgotten shelves or suffocating under stacks of glossy celebrity magazines what is spoken in most suburban homes and our world stress is often spoken worry is spoken politics has spoken worries Facebook is spoken celebrity gossip football is spoken frustration has spoken and all the deafening noise there was this still small whisper there's God's words spoken here under this roof longed for here sacrifice were here wanted here heard here because his word gives us the hope the courage that we need who was willing to give up whatever it takes so God's word is spoken everywhere what if what if we give up whatever we need to hear God speak I looked down it at two BIOS worn feet now that she gave up eight hours a day around trip 26 miles a day for four years a marathon to get to God how there's a sacrifice that is no sacrifice at all there's a sacrifice that only fulfills and then overcome Dubai oh she clutched God's word up to her chest her arms clean heart wrapped around the word and she tilted her face heavenward and she said I slept with it under my pillow last night I met a woman named a bio in northern Kenya who lent me longing to want more of God and two bio flings her arms wide open over the word and there between her heartless sternum you can feel it like a burning that isn't a sacrifice but a passion for more you can have as much of God his hope miss courage in his love as you actually want and I talked to do BIOS pastor Pastor David about why having the word in their own language mattered and what he said reframed the urgency of biblical literacy for me there is no cultural transformation until you realize that the Bible is the foundation this voice was earnest how can we give a Christian education if we don't have a Bible available how can we only give physical water and not give the spiritual water of Scripture how can we go forward if no one supports a Bible translation who can trivialize the actual Word of God because it actually empowers people who feel dehumanized and Pastor David itemized the transformation on his hands the work of Bible Translators who brought robust holistic community development that equipped the Randy Lee community in Kenya to fully own direct and execute growth adult literacy programs he said for the entire community initially offered only to the women like Dubai oh and the program now has grown to serve men then a first-rate elementary and secondary education for generations of nomadic children David he's reaming off the hope like he's unfurling decades of undeniable evidence wells and water bore holes for every community household and all livestock herds next finger indigenous leaders who rose to our literary program to lead six mobile churches to reach the nomadic herdsmen six many flashes six fingers so I don't miss the chance to visualize a half a dozen mobile churches gathering across the desert sands and then an emergency response system to the medical community in natural crisis and now Pastor David leads forward so I can't miss the paradigm shift catalyzed by the gospel and now he said no more unchallenged child marriages he punctuated the air with his finger no more unchallenged females circumcisions now give every child equal rights now give a girl equal right to the boy and David points towards a herd of camels clustered around the Wills I was just in the village with my people telling them not to water the livestock first but to water but water first to our families because there's not enough water right now and they understand they agree with me I am one of theirs own telling this and I know the value of animals and I know what it means to grow up in a village without water but then pastor David he reached for his Bible me held it up in the blazing heat sort of igniting himself he said before the written daily people heard the gospel camels or more valued than children camels drank the limited well water before women in children and now he said now the priority goes to the children and I could feel the heat of pastor David's words the power of the gospel is actual good news to those who have no power because of the good news the dehumanised are recognized legitimize prize andrey humanized it's the word the rights hope across all the lives of marginalized it's because the word of god is spoken now that the community speaks boldly for commonly good look ever in Dili houses david look straight into the Sun straight toward this ring of bent Quig frame hots so they call it the min yada the circular village of 70 to 100 huts hides of camels and cows are woven through each frame along with tarp and cardboard a cowhide or a piece of salvaged tin swinging four doors and each house can be readily dissembled tied to the hump of a camel when they're in dealey move on across the desert david says in every rental house there is a king post a king post he says is the post that holds up the whole house all the other bent sticks and posts and david turns to me gripping the Word of God in his hand the word of the king this is our king post and it's like the spin of all the things in the world kind of slows for me and I'm jarred awake and this is a linchpin of everything unless the word of the king is a life's king post that life will eventually not stand if a life is built on hustling work instead of the holy word built on social media instead of scripture meditation build on this pursuit of comfort instead of prayer and the comfort of the Holy Spirit there is no king post and eventually nothing of any eternal good will be left standing the word of the king of kings and the Lord of lords is meant to be the supporting King post that holds up an entire life and not meant to merely be a supporting role holding up a bit part in her life where were the primacy and the priority of the King post collapses that life shall soon follow I was once in Haiti and we brought Bibles in Creole we were sitting apart playing with the kids and my farmer husband had offered Bible to a boy who could read and there were those three other boys around him and they'd never owned a book it never had a Bible of their own and they decided amongst themselves in this grand generous gesture that they were gonna they're gonna split the Bible between the three of them just to tear the Bible down its spine so each of them could carry a bit of a God breathed word home under their arm they were going to rip up a Bible so they all could have a bit of God the day that we were about to leave Haiti waiting for a bus to take us back to the airport after we had donated our water bottles and her work gloves our empty suitcases to the mission I mean just less than an hour left before we were all to get on the bus and I wandered back up to the guest house sort of dragging my hands along a chain-link fence that gives way to these raised foothills and fields and there are two Haitians were hacking away along the dead grass with these rusting machetes and I climbed a few steps out of the Sun into the shade of the now-empty guesthouse portico and that's when I I see this little boy come up out of the crosses I've never forgotten how I came up out of nowhere out of nothing out of the Badlands a hilly mile away from the boat the road this this child this little boy on the other side of the fence this little dusted boy knees crouching just on the other side of the chain-link fence and the men they just keep swinging whacking they're clanging machete slicing everything down and I stepped off the step and the boy crouched closer I was thinking a lot when the world my doing in a world right on one side of fence and this lone child is on the other side of the fence who's building these fences in and what if it's me who builds fences I take a few steps not to scare him and I kneel down fingers through a chain-link fence and how did I get here what am I going to do now and it's more than a mile to get around to the other side of this this fence and the boy points his lips his dry chapped lips and he open his mouth and he points his dirty finger to his mouth and do I see what he's saying without any sound my mind was racing my fingers can't really get to me I've got nothing left everything's packed donated give it away give it away there's only there's only one Creole children's story but Bible that we have left in the guest house left for the next guest to give away and emotion to little boy just to wait I flied the steps I grabbed the Bible off the shelf and there I am then climbing up a chain-link fence to get a Bible to a little boy and he climbs up the other side and we're both hanging on by our fingers trying to reach through everything that needlessly separates us and our fingers touch and it reached through the barbed wire at the top and I give him all I've got then all I've got is the heart of God and I'm just fool enough to believe God and His Word is enough and something aches in my gut and the Bible drops into his open hands and the boy drops back to the earth and everything else falls away the boys cracked lips part knee breaks into this gleaming smile and I don't know what we're all here for but it's got to be for this to get God's Word into people's hands it's got to be the word that he holds in his hands has got to be about being bred for the begging it's got to be about willing to be broken and given and giving away people are dying because a while to see Jesus I know there's really more than all this than any of us can see people are dying here because they need to find the real space and their souls and find a very real Savior who can fill it and all the hollow spaces people are dying because they need bread and we've got it in your hands and we either don't think it's really bread or we really don't care whyever be ashamed of the gospel why not be brave enough to use words and say here why not be brave enough to break open our own broken lies and be real because he really broke himself for us his Christ bread and our people starving to death and if we know why don't we open our hands keep it with God love is always good news never doubt that there's a love letter to bind up all the brokenhearted and it's signed with the scars of the wound did God lay here on weary head down on it feed on it break it and share it with all the hurting world love is always good news preached the gospel and use your words and your hands on your heart in God's Word because they are all necessary Jesus turns to a broken world and he says scripture cannot be broken John 10:35 the words of God always do their work all other words may be distractions or of abstractions or detractions but God's Word is always effective action is not my word a fire or a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces Jeremiah 23:29 his word cannot be broken but his word breaks idols breaks the darkness breaks brokenness his word cannot be broken it's for you to break the brokenness of you to break the brokenness of the world Reed God and you could read life when that one lone child walked away carrying all my hat all the bread of the Word of God I'd stood there watching him through the chain-link fence watched him walk away and so that all that vast emptiness with real bread in his hands no one told me but I would see that boy again in my dreams for years how he had opened his mouth and pointed to his parched lips and you could hear it clear as day like the heavens come down if you really love me feed my sheep

Channel: Wycliffe Bijbelvertalers Nederland

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Id: BCJVdUEBK18

Length: 24min 15sec (1455 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 27 2020