Gladly Would I Leave Behind Me (Valerie Elliot-Shepard Story) - Proclamation Youth Choir

[Music] i was really looking for my father's original journals and didn't find that but instead found my mother's letters to him it was a miracle because she really had forgotten that that she and my father had saved the letters from at least four years of their courtship every letter has so many profound truths in them that they're precious their treasures unbelievable treasures and both of them would quote not only scripture but they would quote who they were reading and my father and mother's love was huge and deep because they were so committed to loving god first that they felt that each of the other was a gift and my father's words in every one of his letters and journals were amazingly deep profound and always with this ideas we live for god and we live for god's glory not for ourselves it was the legacy of love and the legacy of truth and when i think of that line of my father's teach the believers darling that's exactly what my mother did through her books as well as through her writing when she died and i was in charge of planning a memorial service for her i said to my husband i can't carry this weight of the legacy and he said it's not you that carries it it's christ and it's christ that you are sharing with other people when you share the story so i hope to carry on the legacy simply by telling the story [Music] [Music] i am happy to share a little bit of my story and especially why the gospel being proclaimed by my parents has been such a wonderful influence on me as well as an influence on thousands of people who have been called to the mission field or just called to obey christ more completely when my mother and father met at wheaton they both believed that god wanted them to be single missionaries but then um surprisingly my father told her he loved her though they had not dated they've just been taking walks and studying together her senior year and his junior year and he had started keeping a journal in his junior year and in his journal he uh very carefully writes out the things that he's learning from scripture which i think is one of the first things we have to do if we're really seeking to do god's will we have to know his word and so he he definitely commented on and sought the lord through reading the bible and through prayer and in his journal he testifies to a lot of that prayer and his heart longings and when he falls in love with my mother he even says in his journal i don't know what to do i'm paraphrasing i don't know what to do about this love in my heart for her when i really think that i'm supposed to be a single missionary he thought he was to be like paul that single life was better and his father had strongly encouraged him to stay single in order to be on the mission field so anyway my mother and father uh really loved the lord first and that's a huge part of their story because they love the lord first they were very very committed to giving up their own wishes or desires both of them were very much loved and they loved their family their family loved them and they were very happy in their strong christian families that they grew up in because the word had been read to them every day of their lives and prayer had been a part of their daily lives they truly believed he was a real gods when they went to wheaton they were committed to being educated so that they could serve god well they start this long correspondence and they saw each other only five years excuse me they saw each other only five times in five years and they were short visits there was only one visit that was almost two weeks long but during that time their love grew grew deeper and some of the things that my father said to her in his letters to her were continual evidence of his decision that he must stay single until the lord makes it very clear to him that he's to get married so they don't get married and they don't get engaged until the very last year before they actually get married which is 1953 but one of the things my father said i'm going to give you several quotes because they show a lot of his absolute commitment to doing what the lord wanted him to do be on guard oh my soul of complicating your environment so that you have neither time nor room for growth in other words don't fill up your lives with the clutter of materialism or the clutter of the type of thinking that is in this culture nowadays what is it that i want i can do anything that i want to do i'm going to go for my dream if you think that way that's cluttering up your soul because your soul is made to love god and to learn from god so i'm going to read it one more time be on guard oh my soul of complicating your environment so that you have neither time nor room for growth and several more quotes which i think are very key in showing their absolute desire absolute commitment to being obedient my father wrote in his journal so this was not something he mentioned to other people but it certainly shows his thinking determination not desire determines destiny so you have to be determined to obey god a lot of times we have lots of desires but we don't fulfill those desires ourselves we have to give our desires to god and it's through christ's perseverance in us his life and his lordship over us when that we can determine to love him so determination not desire determines destiny and surely when we do become christians the holy spirit gives us the desire to please god and to do what he wants us to do but the determination to obey is something we have to keep asking god to help us be to be determined he also said answer to the rudder and not to the rocks in other words the the rudder is what steers the boat and it keeps the boat away from the rocks which are the danger places and it takes you straight towards where you mean to go but the rocks of course will get us distracted afraid fearful and many people have not gone to the mission field simply because of fear um one of the things he said in his letter to my mother is this we are so utterly ordinary so commonplace while we profess to know a power the 20th century does not reckon with oh that god would make us dangerous and i'm sure most of you know my father's famous quote which is he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose [Music] that means die to self and as they fell in love they both recognized they had to die to their own feelings in order to find out first what god wanted of them and so it took four and a half years approximately for them to finally realize in that last year 1953 that the lord would have them get married and it was january of 53 that my father actually engaged my mother and it was a very very joyful very very glad time but about missions and your many of your many of you all's desire to be obedient to the lord i would say that christ's mission to seek first the kingdom and to obey him above all your own desires and to go out and preach to the world jesus christ sometimes simply by your life of love and humility and sometimes by real words of proclaiming the gospel to people we are all commanded to do that i think my parents love for me and of course i don't remember my dad i was 10 months old when he was killed but my parents love for the lord and their love for me helped me to grow up in a very happy and secure environment even though i was in a quite a dangerous jungle the lord never allowed us to be seriously hurt by anything especially poisonous snakes one night my mother looked down at my bed we were sleeping in the outca hut that is the wyodani houses which had no walls just a thatched roof in the dirt floor and i was sleeping on a bamboo bed next to my mother and the fire between us the fire kept us warm at night and she looked over at my bed in the middle of the night and there was a black circle on my stomach and she hoped that it was a puddle of water because sometimes the thatched roof leaked and so she reached over to the black circle with her stick that she stirred the fire with and it was a black snake and it's slithered off my bed and off into the jungle can you see how god was protecting us she sang to me every night the great hymns of the faith she taught me that jesus was our shepherd and was taking care of us i'm so very grateful for that serious and long-term teaching that she gave me she loved me absolutely she spoke the truth to me she taught me to be careful in what i did to be careful with details and not to skimp over things she taught me to obey and so that example of teaching me to obey as well as knowing that i had to obey god was what taught me as i grew up that he was to be first in my life and though my parents were very unusual in their ability to speak well and ability to write well it was their hearts that god had changed their hearts had given them true desire to do his will and the last thing i'll say that my father said is as he left to go to the wyodani indians with nate saint in nate saint's plane as the five men all took turns uh getting there on that in that little two-seater plane my mother said what will i do if you don't come back and my father answered with teach the believers darling teach the believers and you know that's basically what she did the rest of her life writing books and speaking and even among the quechua indians whom she stayed with for a couple more for a couple more years and then we moved to live with the wyodani when i was three and a half but she kept on teaching the truth and those whyodanis as far as we know most of them became christians they did not fight against hearing the word and they seemed to accept it very simply but they they loved my mom my mom loved them and it was because of that love i think they understood that god was a good god and that god had allowed those men to come to them and they were wrong in killing them so teach the believers and you all are proclaiming the gospel to a world that desperately needs it and in this day and age the loudness of the culture lies and the the things that are said so glibly without any honor any respect for god is really awful so we christians have to be different we have to show that christ is first in our lives and not what i want it says in the scriptures that men will be lovers of self they will be disobedient to parents they will be disrespectful they will be dishonest and that is happening we're seeing it more and more may each of you truly seek to honor god in everyday life whether it's doing your homework whether it's singing for the glory of god and you recognize when you're singing you are praising and singing to him to a world that doesn't know how glorious and how wonderful he is may the lord bless you give you strength and give you that strong determination to obey him thank you [Music] our dreams are tawdry showy but cheap and of poor quality when they are compared to the leading of god they are not worthy of the aura of wonder we usually surround them with god only do with wonders his hand can work nothing less in my own experience i have found that the most extravagant dreams of boyhood have not surpassed the great experience of being in god's will i believe that nothing could be better his will is always a bigger thing than we bargained for but we must believe that whatever it involves it is good acceptable and perfect father let me lose my clutch on everything temporal my life my possessions lord help me release the tension of my grasping hand open it as christ's was opened to receive the nail of calvary that i might be unleashed from all that binds me god saturate me with the oil of the spirit then i may be a flame i seek not a long life but a full one like you lord jesus surely those who know the great compassionate heart of god must deny their own loves to share in the expression of his compelled by his call from the throne above from those round about and even from the damned souls below i dare not stay home while others perish it makes me boil when i think of the power we profess and the utter impotency of our action we are spiritual pacifists in this battle to the death with principalities and powers in high places american believers have sold their lives to the service of mammon and the tombs themselves are not colder than our well-fed churches their condemnation is written in the dust on their bible covers we are content to sit by and leave the enemies of god unchallenged young men are going into professional fields because they don't feel cold we don't need a call we need a kick in the past we need a stirring may god send us forth because he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose i pray that the lord will give you a hallow daredevil spirit in lifting the sword of truth consuming you with a passion that is called by the cultured citizen of christendom fanaticism but known to god as that saintly madness that led his son through bloody sweat and hot tears to glory how long dare we go on without passion and love not long i pray lord jesus not long [Music] [Applause] [Music] i have known passing treasures [Music] the sun [Music] me [Music] set free [Music] [Music] makes my grandson [Music] rising up [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] jesus you're [Music] my [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] lasting jesus christ jesus [Music] jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Hannah Snow

Views: 2,898

Rating: 4.9672132 out of 5

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Id: L7phr36R3SU

Length: 22min 58sec (1378 seconds)

Published: Sat May 22 2021