Sunday 24 January 2016

A greeting from the Lord!

We have received a lot of greetings since the bomb-attack in Istanbul on the 12th of Jan, and we thank you all for encouraging words. Last night we received an e-mail from a dear colleague. The greeting also included the following sentences:

I will be careful to declare that I have received a word from the Lord to you, but it seems to me that the verses from Gen. 50:15-21 are meant for you. Particularly verse 20. Please take it for what it is, and ask the Lord what this may mean for you.

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
Gen 50:20
This morning I was able to write back:

Thank you for your greeting – and “Yes!” - I confirm that you heard from the Lord. When it finally calmed down in my room on my first day at the hospital in Istanbul, it was already late night, but I was able to pray and think. The first verse I thought of was Genesis 50:20. I experienced that God already had intended to turn the evil into good. He had given me opportunity to testify about God’s love through media, for two ministers of the Turkish government, hospital-personnel and journalists, and I was so grateful both for life and for the possibility to meet terror and hatred with the only effective remedy – love.

With some humour, I thought that it was a little bit sad that the projectile had gone through the knee. If it had still been in the knee and the surgeons were able to remove it, I could have kept it and engraved the reference "Gen 50:20". This thought was of course inspired by Lily, the wife of Samuel Logan Brengle, who kept the brick that was thrown at her husband and almost killed him. Brengle used the 18 months of convalescence to write his first book about holiness. Lily wrote the reference on the brick and they kept it for the rest of their lives.

Today’s ‘manna’:

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 Joh 4:11
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(1) The letterhead is from another greeting. It is from the tour-operator of the guided tour we followed when the bomb went of. They had noticed that I on Turkish TV that I would return since I only had completed half of the tour. The letter is filled with good wishes and a confirmation that they are ready to receive us when we return.

Saturday 23 January 2016

How can I love God?

I believe that the experience of living with and in the gospel and letter of John for almost three years now, has prepared me for the encounter with the blind evil in Istanbul last week. 

A couple of days ago I wrote: “Because I love, I feel that I live. I love God…” …and that is the core of my heart’s desire, but how can I do this in a practical and concrete way when “The love” is not me loving God. John stresses that fact in the following verse:

This is love: not that we loved God,
1 John 4:10a
John confirms what love is with this conclusion: “Love is … that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

Love is to love that which God loves, which is “all men” – and to make sure that they know that that there is an available atonement for sins. I believe that all people who do something evil or even just fail doing good, at the bottom of their hearts know that it is wrong. 


In my teens I read a sentence that has stayed with me: “Dad spanked Ole and said: ‘I’ll teach you to bully those who are smaller than you!’ – and that was just what Ole learned!” - simple, almost banal, but it still contains a lot of truth. 


If I meet evil with evil, I confirm that evil is OK. If I on the other hand meet the evildoer with God’s love, I give a signal about the fact that there is an atoning hope. That is why faith, hope and love will remain. Most people are actually receptive for this message. They long to be embraced by goodness because they need hope, they need something to believe in, they need God who is love.
 

Today’s ‘manna’:
To love God is to love what he loves!
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This is an English translation of my Hvordan kan jeg elske Gud?

Wednesday 20 January 2016

What I live "through" now … - and always

After the first day in a private apartment after a dramatic week that has caught attention all over the world, it is sufficient for me to live. What I can accomplish of physical activities, is very limited. Even to get into trousers, can be compared to a long physical workout, so apart from doing the necessities of life, I shall just rest. Life is broken down to “just” to live – which is 100% OK.

Because I love, I feel that I live. I love God, Magna, my family, people, nature, life, in fact anything that is worthy of love and honour. In some moments I have wondered if it was the adrenalin in my blood that helped me stay calm in the midst of it all, and that I had made a made a strenuous effort to compose myself. But this is not my accomplishment. I experienced a rest in God, a rest in the perfect love in the bizarre chaos caused by evil forces.

Of course there has been tears, of joy over life, and of sorrow over all those who have lost so much, but never one tear of bitterness, anger or frustration on behalf of myself. It all comes down to the boundless grace and unfathomable mystery that I live “through” him and “in” him. That is where my heart and my thoughts are kept – and it takes me to the verses were I am in my personal devotions:

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
1 John 4:8-9
Today’s ‘manna’
To live through him is to live through love.
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