Category: Personal Interest

Faith & History: Thinking Christianly about the American Past… Robert Tracy McKenzie. See bio following… Aptly & timely provided by Tim, a faithful reader and encouragement to me…

As a historian, I spend a great part of my waking hours thinking about the passage of time.  At the heart of thinking historically is the realization that none of us lives in a vacuum.  Humanly speaking, our lives are influenced (not determined, but profoundly influenced) by what has gone before us.  If there is a single truth that inspires the serious study of history, it is the conviction that we gain great insight into the human condition by situating the lives of men and women in the larger flow of human experience over time.  In short, to think historically is to remember that we live in time.

But remembering that we live in time is also essential to thinking Christianly.  We must remind ourselves daily of one of the undeniable truths of Scripture: our lives are short. The Bible underscores few truths as repeatedly—even monotonously—as this one. “Our days on earth are a shadow,” Job’s friend Bildad tells Job (Job 8:9).  “My life is a breath,” Job agrees (Job 7:7).  David likens our lives to a “passing shadow” (Psalm 144:4).  James compares our life’s span to a “puff of smoke” (James 4:14).  Isaiah is reminded of the “flower of the field” that withers and fades (Isaiah 40:7-8).

These aren’t exhortations to “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” They are meant to admonish us—to spur us to wisdom, not fatalism.  The psalmist makes this explicit in the 90th Psalm when he prays that God would “teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12, New King James version).  To “number our days” means to remember that our days are numbered, i.e., finite.  The Good News Translation is easier to follow here.  It reads, “Teach us how short our life is, so that we may become wise.” Part of growing in Christian wisdom, it would seem, involves reminding ourselves that our lives are fleeting.

American culture, unfortunately, does much to obscure that truth. Compared with the rest of the world, most American Christians live in great material comfort, and for long stretches of time we are able to fool ourselves about the fragility of life. The culture as a whole facilitates our self-deception through a conspiracy of silence. We tacitly agree not to discuss death, hiding away the lingering aged and expending our energies in a quest for perpetual youth.

Madison Avenue and Hollywood perpetuates this deceit, glorifying youth and ignoring the aged except for the occasional mirage of a seventy-year-old action hero aided by Botox and stunt doubles. If you need further proof that our culture flees from the truth of Psalm 90:12, just think about Times Square on New Year’s Eve.  Of all the days of the year, New Year’s Eve is the one on which Americans most pointedly acknowledge the passage of time.  We do so with fireworks and champagne and confetti.  Think about that for a moment.

In his wonderful little book Three Philosophies of Life, Christian philosopher Peter Kreeft sums up the message of the Preacher of Ecclesiastes in this way: Everything that we do to fill our days with meaning of our own making boils down to a desperate effort to distract our attention from the emptiness and vanity of life “under the sun.” Our pursuits of pleasure, power, property, importance—they all “come down in the end to a forgetting, a diversion, a cover-up.” Isn’t that what we see in the televised spectacles on New Year’s Eve?

For the Christian, being mindful that we live in time means not running away from the truth that our lives are short, but rather letting it wash over us until we feel the full weight of discontentment that it brings.  According to Kreeft, “Our desire for eternity, our divine discontent with time, is hope’s messenger,” a reminder that we were created for more than this time-bound life, fashioned by our timeless God with an eye to a timeless eternity.  Being mindful that we live in time should heighten our longing for heaven.  In A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Vanauken goes so far as to identify the “timelessness to come” as one of the glories of heaven.

BOTTOM LINE:

So here’s a resolution to consider for 2018. (originally published Dec 29, 2017) In addition to losing weight, organizing our finances, and working for that promotion, let’s remind ourselves regularly that we live in time.  May the psalmist’s prayer be ours: “Teach us how short our life is,” Lord, “so that we may become wise.”

Faith and History is the blog of Robert Tracy McKenzie, professor and chair of the Department of History at Wheaton College.  Before coming to Wheaton in 2010, I served for twenty-two years on the faculty of the University of Washington, where I was honored to receive the university’s distinguished teaching award, was named a member of the U.W. Teaching Academy, and held the Donald A. Logan Chair of American History.  Along with dozens of scholarly articles and book reviews, I have personally authored two of the approximately 70,000 books about the American Civil War (published by Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press).  In keeping with my changing sense of calling, my most recent book, available from Intervarsity Press, is The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us about Loving God and Learning from History.

I wrote The First Thanksgiving for the same reason that am writing this blog: I have a burden for the church and a deep desire to be in conversation with Christians about what it means to think Christianly and historically about the American past.  (For a fuller explanation, check out “Why I am Writing.”)  I hope you will find food for thought here.  Please consider subscribing if you do so, as well as sharing this site with others who are interested in the life of the mind, the love of God, and the exploration of the past. 

NEXT UP: Wendell Martin’s GO NOW book: Dream of a White Shirt…

By Joel Salatin, as published July 18 2025 by by Marlin Miller in Plain Values’ email. To subscribe to the print version, go to plainvalues.com/subscribe.

Foreward by merlin: Few of you know likely know the first of our three agriculture related labs was a soils lab in ’85. I first met Joel from Swope VA at an Acres USA in ’86 shortly after we returned to OH from the other side of Augusta County. My partner & father-in-law, LaVerne Horst, was quite obvious early on in our partnership of his hopes that I would follow in the trail blazing path Joel was already exhibiting in the regenerative agricultural movement, as he is now a popular speaker, writer and a household name in many circles. Forty years ago though I was preoccupied with other spiritual battles consuming three decades such that filling either LaVerne’s, or even my wife’s dreams, were not front & center for me. Therefore you read of being “Retooled & Thriving” as the foundation for this blog given me by my three sons when I was forced to retire instantly after I caused an accident on 9/18/18. God does have His ways of grace & mercy for slow learners! I include this simply because it confirms so well what happens chasing fake meat (or whatever) rainbows. A different twist to Satan’s deceptions. I seriously doubt if many of you have been so exposed prior. Enjoy!

Joel Salatin

Why are you opposed to innovation?” This is the first response to fake meat promoters when I dare to question their quest. One of the neat things about becoming an old geezer is that I can actually remember quite a few things. Over time, you can put together patterns and realize you’ve heard these statements before.

If anything triggers the “Why do you hate progress?” response, it’s daring to question the technological promise du jour. I’m old enough to remember when agricultural experts around the world began to promote feeding dead cows to cows. The protocol promised to produce cheaper beef and give the industry additional revenue for slaughter wastes. What could be wrong with that?

Farmers like me looked around the world and couldn’t find an herbivore that eats carrion. That presented a problem. Cows are herbivores. Did this scientific promise offer solutions? Or a new package of problems? Those of us who held back received the scorn and finger-wagging of scientific orthodoxy. We were backward, barbarians, Neanderthals, Luddites, anti-progress, and stuck in outdated ideologies. Our arguments about nature offering no pattern for this met contempt and dismissal; it didn’t matter. We were told, “We’re clever, and if we can get a cow to eat dead cows, who cares?”

The results took a while. But several decades later, mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) reared its ugly head and this feeding methodology quickly fell into disrepute. To my knowledge, none of the scientists who promoted the effort ever apologized. Instead, they refocused their attention on discovering the cause of this strange new malady. When they found it, they received credentialed promotion for finding the culprit of their misadventure. Instead of suffering retribution, they received accolades for finding out the cause of this new disease. How ironic.

In another case, although I wasn’t around to see it, Justis von Liebig’s 1837 discovery that all life is simply a rearrangement of nitrogen (N), potassium (P), and phosphorous (K), launched the chemical fertilizer industry that still prevails across the planet. But it’s coming to an end with the ascendancy of biology. From a new understanding of the soil food web to the human microbiome, a repudiation of “life is simply chemical” is creeping into the mainstream.

I would like to think that if I were living at that time, I would have dared to question the artificial fertilizer paradigm as fundamentally flawed because it promised life without death. Nothing in the physical world illustrates this better than a compost pile. Comprised of things that lived, it functions with trillions of microbes eating and being eaten. It’s a magnificent object lesson of the spiritual truth that in order for something to live, something else must sacrifice to feed life.

This principal holds true not only for life through Christ’s death, it even holds true for how we experience the fullness of life. True living requires dying to self and serving others. The notion that things can live without death is fundamentally flawed and speaks deeply into the notion that chemical fertilizer can ultimately offer vibrant life.

That brings us to the idea of fake meat in all its forms. Sometimes it’s called artificial meat and sometimes lab meat, but the whole idea is that it’s meat-like material promising provenance as good as the stuff that grows on an animal. The arguments sound compelling.

1. Animals don’t have to die.
2. Help solve global warming.
3. Better nutrition—no animal fats.

While this all sounds noble, it all has as a fatal flaw: it promises life without death. Venture capitalists have poured billions into numerous companies promising to develop fake meat. But on this one aspect alone, the technology, like feeding dead cows to cows, should be dismissed as either impossible or, if achieved, developing crippling problems.

Interestingly, these companies today are floundering. All of them are nearly a decade behind their timetable promises. By now, they were supposed to capture 10 percent of the protein market. They were supposed to be in nearly all restaurants. They were going to take a big bite (pun intended) out of real beef, pork, and chicken. But they haven’t.

Due to ongoing droughts in the U.S., domestic cow numbers are lower than they’ve been since 1950. If these fake meat outfits actually had something to offer, this shortfall and exorbitant cattle prices represent a golden opportunity to launch into the marketplace. Instead, all these companies are either going bankrupt, issuing apologetic press releases, or retreating to explanations about how much more difficult this is than they anticipated.

Indeed, replicating living things isn’t easy. The Achilles heel of the whole idea turns out to be waste. How does a body handle waste? An animal has a mystical and majestic labyrinth of blood vessels, white blood cells for immune function, liver and kidney filters, and even urine and manure pipes. But a vat of manufactured cell culture enjoys no habitat for protection or functional network of distribution.

Gleaming truck-sized stainless-steel bioreactors adorn the brochures and press releases of these fake meat companies, but in actuality, this shiny equipment is still in fantasy world. The few pounds of material produced have come from vessels no larger than a 5-gallon bucket. Most of it has come from 1-gallon jugs. The reason is that every time these manufacturers try to scale up their production from a tiny vessel to a larger bioreactor, it collapses in waste.

So far, the only mechanism to remove waste material is bubbles, which pick up material and send it through filters. As we all know, kidney dialysis in hospitals work, but they are a far cry from the real thing. People on dialysis suffer debilitating complications and must take handfuls of salt pills or medications to stay alive. Dialysis, as miraculous as it is, remains a far cry from functional kidneys.

Toxicity invades these vessels of protein slurry because the concoction contains no natural immune system. White blood cells don’t exist. Blood vessels don’t exist. Trying to maintain sterility to keep foreign microbes from growing is now a completely unexpected limitation on these fake meat production systems. These outfits thought they could control foreign substances, but it turns out microbes are pretty small, and nature doesn’t like sterility.

The sheer cost of maintaining absolute sterility staggers these facilities under expensive protocols. The body does all this at no cost by sending white blood cells snooping around nooks and crannies to find and destroy invaders. In these fake meat pots, as cells grow, they give off waste. Microbes die, remember. That’s the only way cells can grow. Things eat, poop, eat, poop. It’s a never-ending consumption-exhaust system that an animal handles beautifully and effortlessly.

But in these fake meat vats, the only transportation mechanism is blowing bubbles through the medium. It works, kind of, in a gallon jug. But in a 2,000-gallon vat, such a notion is completely ineffective. The whole batch succumbs to its own toxic waste. It can’t excrete. It can’t vomit. It can’t sneeze. It can’t slobber. As living organisms, we take all these functions for granted. We don’t even think about how they work and how important they are in overall functional health.

But a vat of dividing cells, without any of these options, is doomed to implode on its own filth. Protective and cleansing mechanisms don’t exist, and slowly these darlings that dominated venture capitalists a mere decade ago are hitting a wall of biological reality.

While I don’t wish ill to these investors and these sincere-minded, starry-eyed entrepreneurs, I admit great satisfaction in seeing the “fearfully and wonderfully made” aspect of creation show itself supreme yet again. I never tire of applauding God’s design, His handiwork. While being accused of being stodgy and old-fashioned, we who kneel humbly at God’s pattern and dictate find solace in the death-to-life affirmation.

Over the years, when we see the masses flooding toward an idea, we can easily be taken in with pleasant promises. Who wouldn’t rather put on a bag of 10-10-10 instead of putting the time and energy into messy compost building? Who wouldn’t want to cut $100 off the cost of producing a beef? The world system promises comfort, convenience, and cash for all sorts of alleged progress. In the end, however, all so-called progress must submit to a divine plan and God-ordered pattern.

When we see this principle unfolding before our eyes, I’m prompted to cheer “Go, God!” I apologize if this sounds like bringing God down to soccer field fan-club status, but folks, isn’t it fun to watch God’s plan dominate? To watch Biblical patterns win? As sacred as it is to defend doctrine and theology, I relish the opportunity to defend God’s interests in day-to-day physical living. When we have this dramatic of an object lesson of spiritual truth, we should exult in an awesome win. Too often, we don’t win.

BOTTOM LINE:

Fake meat is giving us a direct, real-time visual aid into the great debate, started by Liebig in 1837, as to whether life is fundamentally mechanical/chemical or biological. Fake meat’s trials and tribulations give the faith community a wonderful opportunity to not only defend God’s greatness, but His order. The ultimate order is attaining spiritual life through a divine sacrifice. What a profound confession.

NEXT UP: Who knows what may surface in the next 48 hours before my next deadline?

Peppered with the evening verses from “dailylightdevotional.org plus Chapter 33 Persistent Prayer: 1996-Vietnam Pg 399-401 from GO NOW: From the Innermost Parts of the Heart to the Uttermost Parts of the World

The Concept of Divine Control: Utmost July 16 Reading Today

How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! Matthew 7:11

Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct in this passage for those people who have His Spirit. He urges us to keep our minds filled with the concept of God’s control over everything, which means that a disciple must maintain an attitude of perfect trust and an eagerness to ask and to seek.

Fill your mind with the thought that God is there. And once your mind is truly filled with that thought, when you experience difficulties it will be as easy as breathing for you to remember, “My heavenly Father knows all about this!” This will be no effort at all, but will be a natural thing for you when difficulties and uncertainties arise. Before you formed this concept of divine control so powerfully in your mind, you used to go from person to person seeking help, but now you go to God about it. Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct for those people who have His Spirit, and it works on the following principle: God is my Father, He loves me, and I will never think of anything that He will forget, so why should I worry?

Jesus said there are times when God cannot lift the darkness from you, but you should trust Him. At times God will appear like an unkind friend, but He is not; He will appear like an unnatural father, but He is not; He will appear like an unjust judge, but He is not.

BOTTOM LINE:

Just as Ted Williams on the Wheaties breakfast cereal boxes indoctrinated us during the 50’s-70’s with his athletic speed, strength, and stamina because of eating Wheaties daily, so much the more we must keep the thought that the mind of God is behind all things strong and growing. Not even the smallest detail of life happens unless God’s will is behind it. Therefore, you can rest in perfect confidence in Him. Prayer is not only asking, but is an attitude of the mind which produces the atmosphere in which asking is perfectly natural. “Ask, and it will be given to you…” (Matthew 7:7).

dailylightdevotional.org Evening for July 16. If my mother, Stella Mae Gingerich Erb were alive, today would have been her 100th birthday. She passed in 1972. Didn’t even break 50! She wisely chose & daily demonstrated scripture far surpassing merely the breakfast of champions!

Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. Matt. 26:41

Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving. Col. 4:2

Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith. I Pet. 5:7-9

Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Luke 6:46

Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. James 1:22

Wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward. Exo. 14:15

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Phil. 4:6, 7

While working on my book, The TECH-WISE FAMILY, it dawned on me while writing this book about technology and family life, that I had an absolutely ironclad practice every single day of walking downstairs when I got up in the morning for the first thing I did, was look at my phone. That’s what you do in the morning, right? Look at your phone, and you know, I’d be making tea, but even before the tea was finished, I’d let the glowing rectangle tell me whatever I needed to pay attention to, all the urgencies, all the outrages, all the demands, all the opportunities….

And somehow I had the presence of mind one morning to think this cannot possibly be the best way to start my day because it would just instantly “adrenalate” me, you know? So, I thought, well, what can I do instead? Something that would be kind of a “sufficient counter discipline” to this habit of upon awakening first thing picking up my phone every day?  At this point I thought, you know, what I ought to do is just go outside a few minutes?

So, I decided that to do that every day before I looked at my phone. But my tea comes first, even before going outside. So after making my tea, for that’s one habit I’m simply not gonna give up, which is TEA FIRST. So I take my tea outside and just stand outside the front door for a few moments enjoying my tea, and fully experience whatever the day had for me, before I turn to the glowing rectangle.

And during those first two weeks when I was trying this new routine of going outside but without my phone, every day became a ridiculous spiritual battle! I thought, this is not a complicated thing to do. And yet, every morning, it was like I could almost sense a voice calling to me from my phone, “Don’t you need to check me?” “Don’t you want to drive me and I’d have to resist and say “No! Get thee behind me. I’m going outside first.”

However, two weeks into this going outside with my tea before looking at my phone, I heard the voice, just like the days before, but something absolutely flipped! Instead of feeling “temptation and allure”, all I felt was “revulsion & repulsion!” ( Merlin now: Is it possible this overpowering feeling of “revulsion & repulsion” is the result of being transformed and or empowered, or both? Or, is it what I refer to simply as divine kisses from Father God?) Instantly, I thought “Why would I ever invest in you ( speaking to my phone) during this most beautiful first moment of my day, rather than going outside and being a fully responsive creature in God’s creation?” And you know, ever since I’ve done this, it is now one of the most spiritually transformative things I’ve done with my life; probably in the last 10 years!

Merlin again: And my gut busy-body-merlin-response is, Shouldn’t I add/inject scripture, prayers of adoration, & worshipful music into this moment? BUT then I stop & ask why? Isn’t He & Me enough for this moment? Seriously? Why are we/I so driven? Remember the 1908 hymn by Pollard & Stebbins that many of us we grew up singing titled “Have Thine Own Way Lord”? Lyrics are at the bottom.

Andy again: And, it’s been rather embarrassing for me, quite honestly. Yeah, just by stepping outdoors. Whatever the weather is, wherever I am in the world. Sometimes I walk down flights and flights of stairs, if I’m staying in a hotel, just to spend a moment or even minutes, being who I really am…..

BOTTOM LINE:

… which is really, a very small part of a very large world! Rather, than being what I am on the screen, which is actually, a very large part of a very small world! I need to think that through every morning for a while.  And it’s been a gift, to choose to be who I really am.

And that’s what our disciplines are designed to accomplish. In this case, for us to choose to be who I know I am, and more importantly, who I want to be. 

merlin again: Personally, I’m thinking Andy must be light years ahead of me spiritually, for I’m still not satisfied with who I am, nor am I convinced I even know who I want to be… At least, not yet! Anyone relate? I’m still living under the umbrella of basking in the words of hymn below… Blessings on your journey today.

Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will;
While I am waiting, yielded and still. (Even outdoors perhaps?)

Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Search me and try me, Master, today!
Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now,
As in Thy presence humbly I bow.

Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Wounded and weary, help me, I pray!
Power, all power, surely is Thine!
Touch me and heal me, Savior divine.

Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Hold o’er my being absolute sway!
Fill with Thy Spirit ’till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me.

1992 : Pg. 311-313 Go Now: From the INNERMOST PARTS OF THE HEART to the UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE WORLD by Wendell Martin. The following was his experience!

With only a day’s notice, I left my wife and children to help rush a special load of Bible teaching aids and commentaries to Beijing. As time was short and the situation justifiable, our team of four was flown to the capital, the heart of China’s government and cultural history. The flight was without incident, and we passed through customs with ease. The hardest part was trying to make it look like I was carrying only a few pounds in my backpack and suitcase while in reality I was carrying nearly a hundred pounds. I have a great deal of respect for the forces of gravity!

Waiting for the cover of darkness, we were driven to a quiet section of the city. Leaving the car a few blocks from our destination, we shouldered our heavy loads and walked a few blocks to a narrow alley. Turning into the alley, we called out our warnings to each other in hushed voices while proceeding cautiously over the uneven path. The farther we went the darker it got. We fumbled along the dark, narrow alley that made several turns before opening up to a small courtyard that fronted a dilapidated house. The courtyard and house were conveniently surrounded on all sides by tall, windowless buildings.

          As soon as we arrived, a small, elderly whom everyone called Grandma rushed out of a dimly-lit house, greeting us in nearly flawless English. She then guided us to a secluded room where we dumped our precious load among other piles of Bibles that had been delivered the preceding week.

          As I observed Grandma over the next few hours, I realized I was in the presence a real soldier of the cross. Her story was typical of the hardships the Christians endure in China. In the past, she had been a medical doctor and had acquired wealth and high standing in the community. Then at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, her home was invaded by radicalized youth called the Red Guards and everything was destroyed: the bathtub, sinks, plumbing, stove, and so forth. All she had left was an outdoor faucet in the courtyard, and she was permitted to use the public toilet. The same day these things happened, she was demoted from her position at the hospital and reassigned to cleaning toilets. She did that until she retired. She continues to use the outdoor faucet and public toilet. In the middle of winter, that can be hard on an eighty-one-year-old widow.

          In one of our conversations, I asked Grandma what the most valuable lesson was that she had learned in life. She replied with a little chuckle, “Loosing all my material things is the greatest thing to ever happen to me. The reason is because it opened space for all the good things the Lord wanted to give to me.” The deep joy emulating from her convinced me that what she had received from the Lord was indeed a reality to be treasured above all else.

          The materials we delivered were for a group of seminary students graduating from the government theological seminary. Those students are taught a very liberal theology that denies the virgin birth of Jesus and His physical resurrection from death. However, because of the efforts of this old lady, nearly half of the graduating class had been secretly taught a “more perfect way” and also led into the baptism of the Holy Spirit. These students who were leaving the next day to their assigned churches were desperate to receive good solid teaching aids that weren’t distorted by the government. We had been able to provide them at the last minute.

          Upon seeing the materials we had brought, several of the students wept uncontrollably. In my heart, I wept too, and I continue to weep for the millions of Chinese Christians who have been praying and praying that someone would help them to get a copy of God’s Word.

          At on point in our conversation, Grandma told us a story about a pastor who had recently traveled a great distance to receive some Bibles. He wept when he was given two. Unlike the two students, his were tears of grief. He had hoped to receive at least ten Bibles that could be shared among the ten thousand people meeting in house churches under his supervision!

          By the following night, the graduation was over, and the students began sneaking back into Grandma’s house one or two at a time until within twenty-four hours, the “treasure room” was empty.

          The return to Hong Kong was highlighted by the opportunity of sharing with a group of students studying English. Before it was over, their teacher asked me to pray for her, which I did. She then proceeded to ask Jesus into her heart. After finishing the prayer, she was silent for several minutes. Then she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “After all these years, I finally found peace in my heart!”

          What a way to end the trip! However, the best part of all was when I walked in the front door of our house and saw my wife and children!

NEXT UP: No idea. Yet!

Plus FORTY STORIES OF FAITH

Chapter 04 Story from a Short-Term Bible Courier pg. 302

“Not again,” I sighed under my breath with my heart sinking. I was being pulled over for the third time in a row with a suitcase full of Bibles. I had never before known the border to be this tough, this tight, this merciless.

            The customs official asked, “Do you have any Bibles in your suitcase?”

            “Yes,” I replied as he told me to go stand in a very long line of other people who had been pulled over by the border guards for having something “bad” in their possession.

            I had been through this process before and was becoming quite familiar with it. I knew I would be there for a very long time. Another gentleman from Florida had also been caught. He obediently came over to the counter and stacked his Bibles up for the whole world to see. I did the same.

            The guards took his pile of Bibles and tied them up in the large white confiscation bag and threw it on the scales to be weighed. They took my passport, and thus began the wait. I waited and waited and waited… Finally the guard that initially asked me if I had Bibles came over to me and silently handed back my passport to me along with the other gentleman’s passport and urgently said, “Go! Go NOW!”

            My eyes questioned him, as this was not part of the normal routine. I knew I needed to get a receipt in order to pick up my Bibles from confiscation after paying my storage fee. Staring straight ahead without looking at me, he again said to me under his breath, “GO NOW!”

            The older gentleman grabbed his passport from out of my hand, grabbed his large, white confiscation bag still sitting on the scales, and walked out of Customs and across the border.

            I was still standing there stunned when a younger guard a bit further away looked at me. With a slight smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye, he silently mouthed to me while motioning with his thumb, “It’s OK. Go, now.” I quickly took my Bibles off the counter, packed them back into my suitcase, and simply walked out of the Customs area as the tears fell down my face.

            I believe God’s agents are working the borders to help make sure His Word gets to the hungry people who are craving to know more of who He is.

            BOTTOM LINE:

I was greatly humbled to be reminded that I have five or six personal Bibles sitting on shelves at home in different translations, colors, and sizes that I can pick up and read at any time I choose. I don’t have to worry about being questioned or thrown in jail. I asked the Lord to forgive me for my complacency and thanked Him for a fresh perspective on the value of His Word, the value of my freedom, and, most importantly, the incredible value of knowing Him.

Take a few minutes now to reflect on our heritage that provided us the priceless value of His Word, our freedom to act for & obey Him, and our very own opportunity of knowing Him.

The Stewardship of OPPORTUNITY

By Darryl Derstine, who lives in Holmes County with his wife and seven children. He works at Christian Aid Ministries and CAM Books. He can be reached at bss@camoh.org. This portion of his article was taken from the June 2025 Plain Communities Business Exchange(PCBE) beginning pg. 100.  

I split this article so If you didn’t read Monday’s blog for Part I, you best scroll down and read it first before starting here….

Part II

It was printed on rough, poor quality paper and sold cheaply on the streets. It didn’t matter. It sold, sold, sold. It sold more than 100,000 copies in England of that day, outselling by a healthy margin any other book besides the Bible. The common people loved it.

It would continue to grow. The American colonies had an edition in 1681, only three years after it first appeared in England. It became very famous there and I’ve heard it said that if you went into a log cabin on the American frontier and they were privileged enough to own three books, those books would have been the Bible, Plutarch’s Lives (an ancient history book) and Pilgrim’s Progress.

It was published in Dutch in 1681. Twenty-two years later it was published in German and in Swedish 24 years later in 1727. That was only the beginning. It would go on to be translated into over 200 languages and has never been out of print since first published 347 years ago.

It has been called the first novel written in English. Its effect on other literature has been simply outstanding. Mark Twain, Charles Dicken, Nathaniel Hawthorne, C.S. Lewis, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Sir Walter Scott, and others have drawn inspiration from it.

While we can be amazed today at the reach and power of this old book, we have to remember that he wrote it in prison, leaving behind an impoverished wife and family, including a favorite daughter who was blind from birth. We can be thankful that John Bunyan went to prison. I’m sure his wife and children were not.

But he might never have written Pilgrims Progress if he wasn’t confined. Outside he was busy “hedge preaching.” But forced to sit in a stone dungeon , with nothing to do, he wrote, and the world was never the same. We surely must realize that John & Mary Bunyan could have crumbled into self-pity, discouragement & true uselessness, much like Jeremiah was also likely tempted, but like the Bunyan’s, he too, arose to the occasion, obeyed God facing significant opposition, imprisonment, and personal struggles throughout his ministry of prophesy about the impending destruction of Jerusalem and Babylonian captivity due to Judah’s disobedience and idolatry.

Frequently, God’s chosen don’t want to hear God’s prophecies. They wanted to hear some sweet story about how they’re going to be prosperous. Listen, they put Jeremiah in a pit in manure up to his neck. You think he wanted to go back to those people? God made his forehead just as hard as theirs, so that he would have the boldness, and he was willing because God gave him understanding. See, that’s what many people are missing today. We cannot say no to our Father and expect Him to give us understanding because we’re simply not ready for understanding, if we don’t know how to obey. Think about it. We can change that.

We’re built to obey the Lord and to benefit from that obedience. We’re not built to be one of the herd in the world. We are built for the body of Christ, that’s why we believe in Jesus. We’re put here to be saved and to be a contributor in the body of Christ.

The world is full of actors. They look in the mirror and they do what everybody else does. They start comparing themselves to everybody else. They fix their hair based on somebody else. They put on clothes based on somebody else. Nothing they do is unique; they’re always emulating somebody else.

Yes indeed, we grew up in this world so we’re thoroughly accustomed to its ways. And it’s that connection to the world that is the very thing that must be replaced by the Spirit’s empowerment. The world’s connection system to us is polarity opposite to our Spirit’s Operating System (SOS); totally incompatible!

Did you know Satan has made both fences and distractions to keep us from engaging meaningfully with God’s Word or His people.  That very point has been recorded and prophesied by prior civilizations when situations then did arise that distracted and ensnared people away from worshiping the one true God, which though interesting today, is not well known.

BOTTOM LINE:

So, according to the evidence left behind by people in prior civilizations on cave wall etchings & drawings, etc., or as recorded in scripture in Jeremiah’s day, or as written personally by John Bunyan; all expressed concern that the future generations, even civilizations would know and worship the One True God.

So, who are the truth-bearers in our midst today? Are you? Who have you encouraged today?  (Do notice I said “truth-bearers,” not merely “truth-tellers?”) Think invitational actions such as fruits of the Spirit, etc…..

Part I

The man sat intent, his brow furrowed. On a small table nearby was a Bible and a volume of Acts and Monuments (Foxe’s Book of Martyrs). A leaf of paper lay on the table before him, illuminated by the shaft of light from the single barred window. He was surrounded by thick stones walls. He glanced thoughtfully at the door, thick and cross-plated. It was heavily barred, from the outside. His eyes dropped again to the paper, glowing in the single shaft of light. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then with a firm hand, he dipped his quill into the inkwell and raised it. Lowering the tip to the paper, he wrote:

          As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where there was a den; And I laid me down in that place to sleep: And as I slept I dreamed a dream.

The man paused and narrowed his eyes, looking down at the sentence. Then he nodded. Dipping his pen again, he shifted the paper to keep it in the beam of light and wrote again, with more confidence this time.

          I dreamed, and behold I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a Book in his hand, and a great burden on his back.

He dipped his pen again, writing with haste now.

          I looked, and saw him open the Book, and read therein, and as he read, he wept and trembled: and not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry; saying, what shall I do?

And so, in that prison cell, on that day was born one of the greatest books in the English language. This book was being written by a mender of household goods, a “hedge preacher.” He dubbed the book, The Pilgrim’s progress from this world to that which is to come: delivered under the similitude of a dream where it is discovered the manner of setting out, his dangerous journey and safe arrival at the desired country.

Today we just call it Pilgrim’s Progress. It would go o to become one of the most famous books in the English language. But initially, the author didn’t even know if he should publish it. He asked his friends. Some said, “yes.” Many said, “no,” claiming it treated spiritual truths in too common a manner, which to them, seemed disrespectful. I’m sure to those raised in the church and cathedrals of the church of England, with robbed priests and their solemn, measured, and gilded worship forms, a book written in the common speech of the street worker did seem that way.

Finally, he decided because he couldn’t get a unified answer, he would go ahead with it. He published it 1678. Of course, it was rejected by the high and mighty and the intellectual elites of his day.

To be continued tomorrow…

It was printed on rough, poor quality paper and sold cheaply on the streets. It didn’t matter. It sold, sold, sold. It sold more than 100,000 copies in England of that day, outselling by a healthy margin any other book besides the Bible. The common people loved it.

It would continue to grow. The American colonies had an edition in 1681, only three years after it first appeared in England. It became very famous there and I’ve heard it said that if you went into a log cabin on the American frontier and they were privileged enough to own three books, those books would have been the Bible, Plutarch’s Lives (an ancient history book) and Pilgrim’s Progress.

It was published in Dutch in 1681. Twenty-two years later it was published in German and in Swedish 24 years later in 1727. That was only the beginning. It would go on to be translated into over 200 languages and has never been out of print since first published 347 years ago.

It has been called the first novel written in English. Its effect on other literature has been simply outstanding. Mark Twain, Charles Dicken, Nathaniel Hawthorne, C.S. Lewis, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Sir Walter Scott, and others have drawn inspiration from it.

While we can be amazed today at the reach and power of this old book, we have to remember that he wrote it in prison, leaving behind an impoverished wife and family, including a favorite daughter who was blind from birth.

We can be thankful that John Bunyan went to prison. I’m sure his wife and children were not.

But he might never have written it if he wasn’t confined. Outside he was busy “hedge preaching.” But forced to sit in a stone dungeon , (much like Jeremiah in being placed up to his neck in manure ) with nothing to do, he wrote, and the world was never the same. (end Part I)

Just who is this inspired writer we met in the last post? Checking on the internet, I quickly deducted the Wikipedia versions of Wendy Cunningham as the Lead Economist in World Bank’s Human Capital Project the past 20 years, OR of a Manhattan Construction Company were neither the Wendy I met through Plain Values. So, I searched Plain Values and WC, and we connected. The following 700 words are a five minute read offer worthy further understanding. All for our good & His glory!

“What a joy it’s been walking down memory lane with y’all. But don’t forget, these past two months account for years of my life. It’s easy to share my testimony with a pretty little bow on it, but I have to stress again before we continue that this season was all uphill. Evangelizing is tough business, and I’m wildly stubborn. It’s unlikely we’ll see Kingdom fruit from simple conversations. We must be willing to weather the storm and go the distance. After all, it’s souls we’re talking about. But be encouraged; it’s worth the fight.

I’m so grateful my husband never gave up. I pray you won’t either.

It’s strange to think back to a time when I wasn’t a believer. Now, every part of my life is informed by the One who sits at the center; the One who I once denied existed. And really, that’s what it came down to in the end. Denial. It’s not that I couldn’t believe in the possibility of a Creator. Surely, anyone can entertain the idea of God. It’s that I didn’t want to believe.

Believing changes things.

For some, the Good News is not entirely good. At least not at first. In my case, the existence of a God who required a move from me meant that I would have to swallow my pride—and after years of arguing against a deity, there was a lot to gulp down. It also meant I’d been wrong; my entire life was built on a lie. I’d have to go back and rethink everything I thought I knew for sure. That’s daunting.

Believing in God meant there was a line I’d have to cross—the line of salvation. Although it meant great things for my eternity, it might mean terrible things for those I loved who’d be left on the other side of the divide. How could I make them understand? Would they still accept me? Could I lose them in eternity and in the here and now? And what about those I loved who had already passed away? What did all this mean for them? It was a lot to consider.

Perhaps the hardest part was realizing how much would have to change if God was real. The way I dressed, the things I said, the movies I watched, and the friends I kept were all up for re-evaluation. If God existed, what would be required of me? Surely I’d be accountable. I’d have to look at everything through a new lens, one that seemed very foggy and intimidating.

Yes, believing would most certainly change everything. Denial was, and remained the way to go.

But you know what else changes everything? Two little pink lines on a pregnancy test!

A year after we started dating, Tom did what you’re absolutely not allowed to do if you’re a Christian. He married an atheist. As a parent, I have been very honest with my children in approaching this conversation. Of course, my desire aligns with God’s in that I pray my kids do not end up unequally yoked. But I have told them what I will tell you: Tom’s act of what you could view as “disobedience” was perhaps the single biggest blessing of my life.

He led me to Jesus!

Is any of this connecting with you and your spiritual journey?

Wendy Cunningham is wife to Tom and home school mom to three amazing gifts from God. In addition to that calling, she is an entrepreneur and author. Her book What If You’re Wrong?, blog, and devotionals can be found at gainingmyperspective.com. She is also host of the podcast Gaining My Perspective. Wendy loves Jesus and inspiring people to step into their calling—whatever that might look like in this season. When she’s not working, writing, traveling, or podcasting, she can be found homesteading and chasing kids and cows on her farm in Middle Tennessee.

NEXT UP: I’m still waiting…