HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2009 / MAY/JUNE / LIVING BY THE SPIRIT

MAY/JUNE 2009
VOLUME 10, ISSUE 3

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D E P A R T M E N T S

Living by the SPIRIT

 

Words of hope

Joan Yorba-Gray

 

Sometimes in life we need a person to give us a word of encouragement from the Bible that helps us in our journey. When one lives with a life-threatening condition, the main worry is that death is just around the corner. Living with a serious health condition carries the weight of knowing that a serious flu, an infection, a strong germ, a cancer, or an organ failure can carry us to the end of our earthly passage. Everyone knows that they will die one day, but living with HIV/AIDS makes that a more pressing reality.

When someone comes along with words of hope, they are a hook that I can hang my hope on, especially if those words come from the Bible. I have been very blessed to meet our Anglican Archbishop Gregory Venables and his dear wife Sylvia. My husband Galen, my pastor Russell, and I arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after a very long flight in the middle of the night. Sylvia greeted us warmly with a snack of tea and toast before we took our brief two-hour nap in her warm and cozy home before travelling on to Salta, Argentina. Even though it was around 2 or 3 AM, she graciously hosted us as if we had arrived at tea time. What a servant's heart!

After we took our rest, it was Sylvia who helped us get going again early in the morning for our flight, making sure that we didn't oversleep. When I asked her how she had managed to get up so early, she said that she had just stayed up all night. She had occupied herself by reading my book In His Shadow while we were sleeping and expressed that she had really appreciated it. I was overcome with gratitude for her hospitality, care, and interest in our lives and ministry, yet she was only concerned about our comfort and well-being, seemingly mindless of her need for rest while we were under her roof. Archbishop Gregory had the same type of care for us, and I will always consider it a privilege to have met them.

Last year the Venables' visited California, and I briefly saw Sylvia again. As usual, her concern was to minister to others. I told her that I was concerned about my health and the fact that I seemed to be getting weaker. She shared a beautiful promise from the Old Testament which was made to Asher in Deuteronomy 33:25, "The bolts of your gates will be iron and bronze, and your strength will equal your days" [Italics mine].

I ask the Lord for my strength to equal my days. Hebrews 12:1 says, "…and let us run with patience the race that is set before us…" May I be able to complete the race that has been set before me. That is my prayer: that I will have strength to do the will of God, for the tasks that He has set for me to do, and to have the endurance and the patience to keep hoping and striving. This promise from Deuteronomy gives me that hope. God cares about our needs during our journey on this earth. He cares that we are strengthened for the challenges that we face. He empowers us when we don't have the power ourselves. As Paul said, "But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me" (2 Cor. 8:9).

If I have strength that equals my days, it is really God's strength that I have, because He gives it. This promise in Deuteronomy declares that when God loves us, He provides what we need, even when we don't have it in us.

Deuteronomy 33 goes on to say, "There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty. The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms" (v. 26, 27a).

This gives me a picture of the amazing, omnipotent and omnipresent God, who fills the universe and holds us up with his arms. His love for each one of his creatures is unflagging, and his arms never tire of holding us up. He rides on the heavens to help us, His beloved. Who else wants to help us all the time, to hold us up all the time? I know we can't see God, and that is the struggle that we have so often when we ask, "Where is God?" But these transcendental words from the Bible give us a flavor of what God has shown humanity from ancient times. Each of these words of hope, whether read in the text of Moses or shared from memory by Sylvia Venables, paint a beautiful picture from past to present of the love of our God. †

 

 

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Joan Yorba-Gray and her husband Galen translate Proclamation! into Spanish. Galen has a PhD in Spanish and is on the Spanish faculty at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California. Joan used to work as a licensed clinical social worker. The two of them oversee the Hispanic area of He Intends Victory, a ministry for people who are HIV positive. Between them they have five grown children. Joan has lived with HIV/AIDS since 1988 and has faced many health challenges. Recently in the winter of 2008/2009 she suffered some health setbacks. Due to the Lord's goodness and the work of wonderful doctors, Joan has recovered and gives God all the glory.