Jim and Megan Pool aim to start church planting movements.
If you have a heart for America’s hurting people but don’t know how to help,
you may consider supporting Jim and Megan.
https://bambooinitiative.com/
They have a huge vision, and they are courageously on their way.
In Jim’s recent weekly MailChimp, he discusses The Hero’s Journey.
I’ll riff off of Jim’s Hero’s Journey idea with a thought about a Gap Analysis.

A Gap Analysis

1. The Christian life is an adventurous journey to heaven. The trail is narrow and has slippery slopes on both sides.

2. The Bible is long partly because God wanted people to describe some of the possibilities of how things can work out. The Bible is written in a way that a lifetime of meditation will not reveal all that is there. 

3. Sometimes, we feel stuck. Things quit working out. We’re not happy.

4. A Gap Analysis may be helpful.

a) What is your idea of a perfect future? Chances are good God created you for that.

b) Ask God about His ideas for you.

c) Dream big. But dream forward. Spend your time dreaming and praying about what you are moving toward and who you want to become.

d) What do you see as challenges or gaps between you and your ideal future?

e) After prayer, dream up a wild impossible plan that would be fun.

f) Make a picture or way to remind yourself, and tape it to the wall by your door. A big picture.

g) Start talking about it.

h) Soon, you’ll be there, and you’ll be on to your next plan.

DREAM

I had a dream this week. July 2023. It repeated three times. I saw the title of a book. I don’t know if I wrote it or how I came to see it, but the title was “Love and Faith: Learning to Live in the Now.”

Maybe all courageous Christians are writing this book as they move toward the dreams God wants them to achieve.

Adobe’s Creative Suite is diving into the AI thing. I cropped the cowboys from this photo of cowboys I took last week when they were in town for the rodeo. I asked Photoshop to create an oil painting of a bridge over a chasm. It’s original art and perfect for this illustration! I used the warp feature to add perspective to the horses on the bridge.

The gap between us and our ideal future may lead to an impossibly huge chasm.

It looks like there is a path, but we cannot see clearly. 

         Your word is a lamp to my feet 
         And a light to my path (Psalm 119:105).

      For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known (1 Cor. 13:12).

“Hindsight is 20/20, but the way forward is still foggy.”
Finally, we think we crossed the chasm. Thankfully it all went well. We’re tired, but it looks like we’re home-free. What could go wrong? Except that it looks like there is another chasm, and this is going to take longer and cost more than I originally understood. But then I remembered, “What else was I going to do with my life? That other path was going nowhere. This path is going somewhere. And plus, it kind of fun living on the edge. It grows on you.”

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matt: 6:24).

1. Start with prayer and dreaming.
2. Take the first step, and think about possible next steps.
3. Talk about it.
4. Soon you’ll be looking for a new dream because that one will be behind you.
5. A great secret is learning to enjoy the journey.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. 
For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it (1 Tim. 6:6-7).

Maycon’s funeral car driver asked me if I was Ricardo, Deanna’s husband. He introduced himself and said he used to be part of our church in Altamira in 1996-97, and he got baptized there. He has recently moved to Marabá. Altamira is 530 km West of Marabá.

Railson was at the funeral too. When Railan was ten years old, he hurt his foot and couldn’t step on it. After a rowdy church service where most people were unchurched and under 18, he came forward to prayer. I casually prayed for him, and God instantly healed him. We were all surprised. He kept stamping on his previously sore foot and dancing around for a long time. That doesn’t happen nearly often enough, but it’s sure fun when it does. Railan now has a wife and child and goes to another church. Railan told Clyde the healing story. He remembers it well.

Lucas is still struggling for life.

Tia Deanna’s Swimming Pool

Have a great week!

One of the young men who grew up had a single-vehicle motorcycle accident.
Clyde gave Maycon drum lessons back in 2009.
He was Ana’s brother, Ana, who married Douglas and Paula’s daughter. Paula and Ana are on the other side of the casket.

The men laid the casket inside this cement box, at ground level, on top of some thin boards. This is a family burial plot, and the remains eventually fall together at the bottom of a big hole. The man is shoveling cement onto the lid to seal it off.

Deanna traveled to Santarem this week to help cook for a dentist outreach.
Santarem is 1,000 km West of Marabá and where we started our missionary career in 1993.

Deanna spent a weekend with some of our best friends, Isa and Ribeiro.

The Bergquist family ministered in Brazil for 11 years. Eight years ago, they returned to Oregon. They returned for a month this summer.

The awesome Bergquist family!

God wanted to give wisdom to Adam and Eve so they could be His representatives. He started with the admonition to stay away from one tree. They decided to take things into their own hands rather than receive them from God.

The design pattern of taking or receiving runs through the Bible.

Will God’s People Take or Recieve?

1. Cain took matters into his own hands. Not good.

2. Noah was quietly obedient for 100 years until he surprisingly saved humanity—the ultimate training program for the ultimate leadership responsibility.

3. Abraham started well as he followed God into the wilderness, but then he took matters into his own hands. He left God’s chosen wilderness, took Sarah to Egypt, and offered her to the Egyptians to save his own life. When they were expelled from Egypt to return to where God wanted them, the Egyptian king gave them a bunch of stuff and people to get rid of them. Abraham and Sarah continued to vacillate between taking their blessing into their own hands and waiting to receive it from God. Hagar was an Egyptian maid. Thankfully God kept patiently working with them until they eventually received God’s full blessing and became the “father of us all” (Rom. 4:16b).

Stories of Poorly Prepared Leaders

• Saul had every opportunity to be a great king, but he behaved like a child having temper tantrums.
• Solomon had every opportunity, too, as the wisest person in the Old Testament, but without the proper wilderness experiences and training, he could not follow his own wisdom. Do what I say, not what I do. Who wants a leader like that?

Promotions For Those Who Pass

• Joseph did not take Potiphar’s wife. This cost him years in jail, in the short term, but qualified him to receive the top stewardship in God’s timing.
• Mordecai actively waited on God to ultimately receive leadership and save all the Israelites.
• Ruth kept doing the right thing, the right way, and eventually received a place in the lineage of Jesus.
• Daniel was sentenced to slavery through no fault of his own, yet by keeping God’s ethical code, he received honor after honor.

Notice how each of these servant leaders refused to take leadership. They quietly endured suffering until they received leadership from God. But God does keep working with the willing.

• Moses tried to take the lead when he courageously killed the Egyptian to start setting God’s people free. What a disaster. That failure cost Moses years on the backside of the desert, but he recovered his values and eventually received leadership from God.
• David was a servant leader. An example of David’s voluntary submission as a servant leader was when he chose to avoid King Saul. Even when grave injustice filled the land, rather than creating an army and leading a revolution or fighting guerilla warfare, David made a safe place in the Cave of Adullam for his brothers and family and for many others who did not fit into the current regime (1 Sam. 22:1-2). One time when David was fleeing from the irrational and unjust king, he hid in a cave. In a twist of fate Saul decided to use the same cave for a bathroom. David’s men thought God had delivered Saul to David and that David should take Saul’s life. David would have nothing to do with failing his test. David quietly cut off a piece of Saul’s robe to prove how easily he could have killed the man trying to kill him. Then his conscience convinced him that maybe even cutting off the corner of Saul’s robe was disrespectful (1 Sam. 24: 5). Evans (2004) argued that David was not conscience-stricken because he damaged Saul’s clothes, but because he had exercised power over the ruling king of Israel (p. 133). David did not want to take what God did not give him. Cooper et al. (2016) explained that David’s years of voluntary submission under highly adverse conditions were a leadership training of sorts so that David would realize “his subjects were not made to minister to his lusts” (p. 105). 

Ultimately, of course, godliness is not about keeping a new set of ethical rules or taking matters into our hands but about learning to hear and obey the Holy Spirit to receive from God.

The Real Challenge

But is it really a test? What if, hypothetically speaking, one unethical act leads to newly gained power to be a godly leader? Isn’t God interested in results? And I know that Joseph’s dream eventually worked out, but dreams don’t come with guarantees… Can you hear the lisp?

Your Thoughts?

I would love to hear from you.

ReferencesCooper, D., Lohrmann, M. J., George, T., & Manetsch, S. M. (2016). 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, 1-2 Chronicles: Old Testament (Vol. V). IVP Academic.
Evans, M. J. (2004). The message of Samuel: Personalities, potential, politics, and power. Inter-Varsity Press.
Green, M. (2001). The message of Matthew: The kingdom of heaven. InterVarsity Press.

Canada Day, July 1, combined with summer holidays for the neighborhood children. Deanna invited several over to celebrate their report cards. Some parents do not understand the value of report cards and encouraging their children because this was never modeled for them by their parents, and they did not go to school much themselves.

This iguana fell into our patio and got trapped. Rather than chase it through our house, I set up a little stepladder. Later, when I checked again, the iguana had climbed to freedom.

Please pray for Lucas. He was born premature and is struggling for his life. He got pneumonia this week. His parents live downstairs in our house and care for it when we travel.

Vanderli’s Mom, Vanderli’s Aunt, Deanna, Vanderli, Tonhetta

Vanderli has often told me his story, but I never thought I would get to meet his mom because she lives about 2,000 km away, but she came up on a bus for a visit. She used to own a cabaret. One day a prostitute came, gave her a baby boy, and left. She never saw Vanderli’s birth mom again. Since Vanderli’s new mom was busy running the cabaret, she sent Vanderli to her mom’s farm in the bush with her other biological children. Since then, the familhas becomeme Christians. There are church planters and pastors in the mix. Vanderli lives across the street from us, and his wife Tonhetta is one of Deanna’s best friends in Marabá.