My husband knows my history-loving self all too well. When my 35th birthday overlapped a business trip I had accompanied him on, he arranged (unbeknownst to me) for us to dine aboard the Queen Mary — one of the largest and most luxurious ocean liners of yesteryear that carried British royalty, historical figures, Hollywood stars, billboard crooners … and the likes of me.
This past year has been the hardest season of my life. Circumstances beyond my control have caused me to feel, as Paul said, “…burdened beyond measure, above strength…” (2 Cor. 1:8). And through it all, the word that keeps coming into my heart and mind is “overcoming.”
The string of verses formed a golden chain of truth in the young woman’s mind that she went over link by link, verse by verse, in her memory. She sat motionless, face tipped towards the sun, deep in thought. Though God’s Word resounded in her soul, her lips didn’t form silent words and she didn’t dare breathe the words of the banned Book out loud.
Spiritual fire can feel very elusive in our modern, apathetic Christian world. Just as a dwindling campfire can be reignited into a roaring flame by being stoked, there are specific action steps that can do the same in our spiritual lives. I would like to explore three principles for the Christian life that naturally lead to spiritual passion.
I wearily sat down on the cold hotel bed, feeling completely overwhelmed as I watched my two toddlers toss restlessly in their portable cribs, coughing every few seconds. For the past two weeks our lives had felt like absolute chaos. Our four children, all under the age of six, had been hit with a serious respiratory infection that required us to give them nebulizer treatments several times a day.
Darlene felt the room sway as her hand groped for the barracks ladder. Her husband’s last words to her before he was carted away to his eventual death rang in her ears. Darlene’s surroundings screamed a different reality. The Japanese prison camp had every appearance of being Godforsaken. And now this — Russell was gone.