Fire In My Bones

We’ve faked the power of Pentecost long enough. Let’s set aside the imitations and reclaim the real deal.

Shortly after Elijah was carried to heaven in his fiery chariot, a group of young prophets asked Elisha to go with them to build new living quarters near the Jordan River. While one of the young men was cutting down a tree, the blade of his axe fell in the water and sank into the murky depths of the riverbed (see 2 Kings 6:1-7).

The construction project came to an abrupt stop. This was before the days of flashlights and sonar devices. These guys were in trouble.

The late Oral Roberts used to say, “Expect a miracle.”
That’s good advice as we enter this new season.

When Pentecostal healing evangelist Oral Roberts died a
few weeks ago I was shocked that some Christians pounced on his legacy so
quickly. They didn’t even wait a few days for friends and family members to mourn.
While Billy Graham—a true Christian gentleman—was offering kind remarks about
Roberts, the heresy hunters were denouncing him as a charlatan.

Besides being incredibly rude, these harsh judgments were
unfair. While I am sure Roberts made plenty of mistakes in his six decades of
ministry, I’m grateful that he dared to believe God for the impossible. He
pioneered the use of television to reach millions for Christ in the 1960s. He
built a successful Christian university. And, in spite of the naysayers, he challenged
a doubting church to believe in divine healing.

I despise airplane turbulence. Even though I enjoy high-speed roller coasters, there is something about hurling through stormy skies in…

The last 10 years weren’t just about terrorism and recession. Amid the storm clouds, God was working in profound ways.

We didn’t know what to call it—was it the ’00s?—yet we’ve just passed through quite a decade. We had natural disasters (the 2004 Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina in 2005), financial meltdowns (bank failures and 10 percent unemployment) and global conflict (9/11 and the war on terror). It brought doom and gloom on one hand and technological breakthroughs on the other. What a ride it has been.

How has God been working during this tumultuous season? Here’s my list of seven megatrends that marked these last 10 years:

1. Third-World Christianity kept growing. There are now about 600 million Christians in Africa. Protestant Christianity grew 600 percent in Vietnam in the last decade. In China, where a 50,000-member megachurch was raided in Shanxi province a few weeks ago, there are now an estimated 130 million churchgoers.

The poll results are counted. Charisma readers chimed in on their favorite and least favorite holiday songs.

Long before the advent of iTunes and political correctness, Christmas music was about, well … Christmas. People actually sat around fireplaces or gathered in churches and sang carols that made overt references to the birth of Jesus.

Nowadays, however, some radio stations play holiday music 24 hours a day that rarely mentions the reason for the season. We hear lyrics about snow and winter weather (even though Christmas is hot in most parts of the world), overcoats, shopping, sleighs, Santa Claus, reindeer, toys, holly, elves, bells and chipmunks.

I gave away my second daughter last weekend, and it wasn’t any easier this time around.

I’ve never met George Banks. That would be impossible, since he is the fictional dad played by Steve Martin in the 1991 film Father of the Bride. But I feel I know George because I’ve watched this sappy comedy so many times. I watched it again last week just before my second daughter’s wedding.

I guess the film provides a mild form of therapy. It helps me deal with my loss. Despite what they all say (“You’re not losing a daughter! You’re gaining a son!”) I started to feel an uncomfortable lump in my throat at least 72 hours before the ceremony.

I tell my friends in Latin America that my Spanish is peligroso—dangerous.
Here’s why.

I took three semesters of Spanish in college and spent
hours practicing conversation with a Nicaraguan immigrant a few years ago. But
when I travel in Latin America these days, my mantra is: Mi español es muy
peligroso. My Spanish is very dangerous.

On my first visit to Guatemala, for example, I discovered
its most popular fast-food restaurant, Pollo Campero. It means “country
chicken,” and (with apologies to KFC) it is the moistest, tastiest, most
delectable fried chicken on the planet. You will smell it on flights from
Guatemala to Miami because people like to take boxes of it to relatives.

In this stormy economic season, trust the Lord to transport you to the other side.

I despise airplane turbulence. Even though I enjoy high-speed roller coasters, there is something about hurling through stormy skies in a commercial jetliner at 37,000 feet that turns my knuckles white. This is why I always ask for a window seat. Whenever we hit rough air and the seat belt sign flashes on, I feel safer if I can look outside.

But that didn’t help me last week when I was flying into Canada. I was not aware that rough weather was raging below and that parts of Vancouver were flooding. All I knew was that our journey through Canadian airspace reminded me of Doctor Doom’s Fearfall—a theme park ride I have enjoyed many times with my daughters. (That ride lasts only a few seconds, and it is firmly bolted to the ground. The turbulence over British Columbia lasted half an hour.)

In a tiny village on a mountain in Guatemala, I gained a better understanding of how Jesus paved the way for us to know the Father.

Like so many other poor communities in Guatemala, the village of Saspán is way off the beaten path. To get there you first must travel on a two-lane highway from Chiquimula, then turn onto a one-lane dirt road that winds precariously for two miles up a mountain. The scenery is spectacular, but if you look too long you might drive right off the side of a cliff. It’s best to wait until you arrive at the top to enjoy the view.

I went to Saspán last Monday with my friend Oto, a pastor who was born in this village, and Roque, a Puerto Rican minister who leads a church in Pennsylvania. We came to preach at Iglesia Cristiana Nueva Visión (Christian Church of New Vision), one of two growing evangelical churches in this town of 1,000 families. The church’s pastor is Oto’s sister, Gisela, an energetic young woman who has a particular concern for the children in this isolated community, many of whom lack education and proper nutrition.