July, 2007

Maybe There's a Plan

A couple of years after Cynthia and I were married, I had an obligation to fulfill in the military. I joined the Marine Corps, did my boot camp and infantry training, and got orders for my tour of duty to be in San Francisco.

Then I got a letter in the mail from President Dwight Eisenhower. And it was a speed letter for me to change from San Francisco to Okinawa. I did just what you would have done. I looked on the envelope to make sure it went to the right person. And yes, it was addressed to me. My whole frame of reference changed. We wept ourselves to sleep that night. That tour of duty would take me sixteen months or more away from her, early in our marriage. Little did I realize that would be a whole change in my entire career. What I considered to be the most God-awful letter became the most God-ordained statement for me.

As I left, my brother shoved a book in my hand called Through Gates of Splendor, a story of five missionaries who lost their lives, and whose widows went on with their lives, ultimately evangelizing the Auca Indians in Ecuador. On the troop ship, going from San Diego to Japan, and then later down to Okinawa, I got a whole new frame of reference. My mind stopped resisting for the first time since I'd gotten that letter. For the first time I began to think, maybe there's a plan here.

A special relationship was cultivated with a man named Bob Newkirk while I was on the island of Okinawa. One of the first things Bob gave me was the Amplified New Testament. I read that little book of the Scriptures about three times before I left the island. He had marked one verse for me. It was Philippians 3:10: [For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him - that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding [the wonders of His Person] more strongly and more clearly.

That's it! That's why I went! Humanly speaking, I would never have met a Bob Newkirk in Houston or San Francisco. But over there, away from all the crutches, all those things that make us comfortable, all the familiarity, I got a chance to see missions for the first time. And the government paid my way. For the first time I would be in a missionary home. For the first time I would be in another culture surrounded by another language. For the first time in my life I would be the foreigner. And I would find myself again and again having to look up and to learn a whole new way of walking. And my love for Christ really began to bloom.

Copied from Swindoll's Ultimate Book of Illustrations and Quotes - Charles R. Swindoll. Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, TN, 1998. Pages 377-378.