The Beachhead

It starts out small.

A single sedge “nut” or seed somehow finds a favorable enough environment to take root in the not so plant-friendly beach sand.  Soon it sends up more shoots, and eventually more sand is blown into the clump and is trapped there.  A small dune begins to form around the sedge.  It now has its own little micro-environment that is a little less harsh and barren than what is around it.  The soil scientist in me suspects that a soil will begin to form within the miniature dune.  Eventually a seed or piece of this sedge dropped by a bird may end up nearby, and if conditions are right, this process will start all over again.

Like a military unit, the sedge has set up a beachhead.  It will be able to expand out from here, causing the dunelet to grow and eventually be colonized by other plants.

Missionary work is like that.  We start out with a small group of believers and as people find a favorable environment within this mini-church, it begins to grow.  Eventually, people go out from these churches to begin new ones.

That is the situation in Thailand now.  There are not many churches in the country, though some areas or people groups might have many.  But people are beginning to go out from these churches to begin new ones.  Pray that the lives of these young plants won’t be snuffed out by the sand and surf around them, but rather, that they would find small areas of good soil on the beach from which to begin transforming the landscape. 

Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Matthew 13:8 (ESV)

Hopeless

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. ³Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:2b-5 (NIV) 

I saw an interesting statistic in the Bangkok Post this past week.  In a story about casualties from the flooding in northern Thailand, there was a count of suicides attributable to the flooding and people on suicide watch because of the flooding.
What would cause so many people to want to cause suicide at a time like that.  Was it because they had lost their rice crop and now owed money they could not pay?  Was it because they lost their home and had no money to rebuild or place to build for that matter?  Was it because they lost some loved ones?
Many people suffer these kinds of things and do not want to commit suicide.  So what is the difference?
Certainly if our hope is bound up in possessions and we lose them we can become desperately hopeless—perhaps hopeless to the point of suicide.  And in a culture where public shame is very bad thing, perhaps the shame of not being able to care for your family could cause suicidal despondency.  It doesn’t help either that there is not a lot of mental health assistance available in Thailand nor do many see the value in it.
But I find the verses from Paul quite interesting.  When times of suffering come, we can become hopeless.  But Paul says that suffering can actually produce hope!  This seems rather radical to me.  Yet it is only possible because of the last thing Paul mentions in this passage—the Holy Spirit within us.
With the Holy Spirit we should be able to get to the place where we could lose everything but not lose hope because we still have Jesus.  I’m not sure I’m at that place.
And so I am reminded of a song sung by Fernando Ortega:

 In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise, give me Jesus

Give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus,
You can have all this world,
But give me Jesus

When I am alone
When I am alone
When I am alone, give me Jesus

Give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus,
You can have all this world,
But give me Jesus

When I come to die
When I come to die
When I come to die, give me Jesus

Give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus,
You can have all this world,
You can have all this world,
You can have all this world,
But give me Jesus