During my first year after joining the staff of an international fellowship committed to evangelizing students in Asia, I was invited as a speaker to a staff training conference for the Indonesian Christian student fellowship. Upon arrival at the Jakarta airport, I was met by Brother I, the General Secretary of the Indonesian movement. Brother I is an old friend; we spent three years together at a seminary in Singapore, sharing a room with our desks side by side. After graduation, we returned to our home countries and were both led into student ministry. Ten years had passed since we were in Singapore together.
Brother I took another speaker from Australia and me to his home downtown and with his wife showed us warm hospitality. After dinner, we were scheduled to talk about the staff conference that was to begin the following day. Brother I began our meeting with prayer.
Up to this point, the scene was familiar to me having experienced the same procedure when I hosted speakers from overseas who had been invited to come to Japan. However, after a short while something happened that I had never experienced before. His prayer didn’t come to an end. And, his prayer was not intercession for the staff conference, but was rather entirely filled with praise and thanksgiving to God. He praised God for his greatness and goodness, and he lifted up numerous works of grace that God had done and gave thanks for them.
Before we realized it, we had joined in his prayer and followed his example, praising and thanking God. While we were thus praying, I became aware that my heart was filled with a quiet trust in God, the Creator of heaven and earth and in the sovereignty of the omnipotent Father God.
I don’t know how many dozen minutes passed, but our prayers gradually turned to the staff conference that would begin the next day. This was the ‘begin with a word of prayer’ before we discussed the conference.
A week later, just before my flight left Jakarta, I was sharing with Brother I some of my impressions of my visit. I told him that the time we spent in prayer was my most profound impression because it was such a contrast to the ‘begin with a word of prayer’ that I had previously experienced at the beginning of other conferences.
When I asked him, ‘Why did you pray that way?’ his response was totally unexpected. ‘So many big problems were bearing down on me, if I did not praise and thank God, I felt as if I would be crushed by them.’
It is true that at that time as well as in the present, Indonesia is facing enormous problems politically, economically and spiritually. Relationships among people are strained. There were various problems building up between churches and among Christian workers. Brother I, himself, showed me that it is in perilous situations where human wisdom and strength seem to be powerless that we can lift the eyes of our hearts up to our God who said, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ (Psalm 46:10)
During the course of my thirty years of ministry as a full time Christian worker, I don’t know how many times I have felt that I could not go on. One time when I was feeling most deeply troubled, God met me in a special way. I was feeling overwhelmed with the problems that were building up and with my own powerlessness, I was physically and emotionally exhausted. Every morning from the moment I woke up, my thoughts were occupied with various problems that invariably led to the thought, ‘All I can do is resign, it is better for everyone if I resign.’
In the midst of those days I was invited to minister at a seminar and on the last day of that seminar, as I was praying with someone, I suddenly I found myself unable to utter a word. It was not so much that the words would not come out as it was that I felt so overwhelmed with the majesty of God and with his intimate presence that words were not needed. I was engulfed in the presence of God, somewhat like a crystal-clear ocean, in a silence surpassing thousands of words. Afterwards, although the circumstances had not changed, an amazing change took place within me and a new strength and hope was born in me.
This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says,
‘In returning to me and in rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength.’Isaiah 30:15
I am continuing to learn what it means to be still in the Lord’s presence and to praise his name.