Marks of a Spirit-Filled Mother-in-Law

Over time, a family with four sons develops a unique tone, a guy culture with a certain decibel level and a distinct way of doing life. As a mother of some now-married sons, it has been a joy to welcome other women into this circle — women who love my sons well and also have opened their hearts to me.

Of course, the messy flip side of this blessing is the requirement that I acknowledge and appreciate another woman’s way of doing things —important things like parenting my grandchildren, feeding a family, and managing a home.

Just as I have prayed for 25 years for grace to be a good mother, I am now trusting for grace to be a good mother-in-law. Wisdom for this challenge flows in abundance from one of Paul’s lists in the book of Romans. Some translators have labeled Romans 12:9–21 as “Marks of the True Christian.” I can’t think of any better advice for women striving to be good Christian mothers-in-law.

1. Expect that this new family will be different than your own.

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. (Romans 12:16)

When our sons have gotten engaged, my husband has made a point of sitting down with the future daughter-in-law to let her know, in no uncertain terms, that we realize our son is not perfect. With a strong desire to “live in harmony” with every branch of our family tree, we have expressed our love for the brave soul who is marrying into our family and have communicated our intent to support and encourage them as a couple in any way we can. Learning to offer help with no strings attached has been a crash course in humility, and the lesson has been reinforced in recent years as our grown children actually have offered to us their gifts of wisdom or practical help.

In None Like Him, Jen Wilkin warns readers against the tendency to usurp the incommunicable attributes of God — those qualities of deity that are his alone. Nowhere is this more of a temptation for me than in parenting. God will stop at nothing to pour his holiness, justice, and patience into the love I have for my kids, but what I really covet is his sovereignty. When I become “wise in my own sight,” in awe of my own cobbled-together wisdom, I am rescued from this misplaced awe by the truth that God’s wisdom flows from his unlimited authority.

By entrusting my family to God’s sovereign plan for each member, I am enabled to release the death grip on my desire to control and manage things from my limited perspective.

2. Be slow to give unsolicited advice.

Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. . . . Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. (Romans 12:10, 12)

I am honored (and flabbergasted) when one of my daughters-in-law calls, requesting input on anything: preparing a meal, nursing a sick child, or removing a stain from a garment. It’s a great gift, and one I hold loosely, because my sons married smart and capable women who already surpass me in many ways. Therefore, when I observe some small trait or practice that does not meet with my approval, and when I am tempted to offer my sage counsel on the matter, I try to recall all the times I have been consulted and the times when my feelings and opinions have been taken into consideration with grace.

It is not for nothing that the phrase “patient in tribulation” precedes being “constant in prayer.” If you are convinced that your child’s spouse is lacking in some serious way, and you are not already praying for them every day, start now!

3. Remember, your son or daughter now belongs to his or her spouse.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. (Romans 12:18)

The old adage “Good fences make good neighbors” applies in families as well. An invitation is not a summons, and missing a family gathering is not a shun-able offense. Rejecting unrealistic expectations, refusing to manipulate with guilt, and saying no to the insidious tendency to keep score (as if our fellow in-law counterparts are the competition) are all ways of declaring war in this battle for peace. And because each temptation is subtle and inward, they are the part that “depends on me” with the Spirit’s enablement.

To be sure, I have been married longer than my kids and their spouses have been alive, I have parented a number of children, and I could devise all manner of additional rationalizations for playing the mum card, offering gratuitous advice, or harboring resentment. But if I want to live peaceably with my sons and their families, I must respect the God-given boundaries that have been established since the words leave and cleave drifted from the mouth of God into Eden’s clear air.

4. With a sincere heart, thank God for this new son or daughter.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. (Romans 12:9)

In the same spirit as Paul’s command to “let love be genuine,” Amy Carmichael prayed,

Love through me, Love of God;
     Make me like Thy clear air
Through which, unhindered, colors pass
     As though it were not there. (“Love Through Me”)

Kicking myself out of the center of the universe, I am astonished to see God answering this prayer as my sons marry and start new lives. Given half a chance, the love of God will enable me to reject negativity or prideful insistence on having my own way, and to feel genuine gratitude for this new son or daughter.

The handed-down love of God is trustworthy and openhanded. Holding my heart to the high standards of genuine love cuts across all my natural tendencies to control and to protect, and it negates my cherished job description as God’s Official Northeast Representative. However, rising to that challenge with a strength that is not my own puts the power of God on display for the next generation and frees my children to establish the habit of looking first to God, and then to each other, for all that they need.

That sort of genuine love will enable the Spirit-filled mother-in-law to “hold fast to” the good of her son or daughter’s expanded world, the good of them doing things in their own way, and the good that she might even learn a thing or two from them in the process.

How to Love People You Don’t Like

“Nothing makes me more unsure whether I will persevere until the end like spending too long in his presence.” Months had gone by, interactions multiplied, and good intentions no longer were strong enough to sustain my friend.

According to him, this particular gentleman was the type to complain incessantly, listen sparingly, intermingle belligerently, receive presumptuously, smile seldomly, and gossip freely (even when food still lingered half-eaten in his mouth). Like the pre-converted Augustine who took pleasure in senseless offenses, he was a cyclist — not because he enjoyed the exercise — but he peddled leisurely down the middle of the street, prodded along by honking horns, because he took delight in their displeasure. He was the type to stick gum under tables.

My friend tried in vain to enjoy his company. But after a year, he still wondered piously in the words of Jesus, “How long am I to bear with you?” (Mark 9:19). He even began praying, “Lord, allow him to obey your word and live quietly and mind his own affairs” (1 Thessalonians 4:11). He lamented that his love was so small as to only cover handfuls of faults.

My friend didn’t want to admit it, he felt unchristian acknowledging it — and he knew God had placed the man in his life — but he didn’t like him. He preferred a hangnail or wet socks. He wondered how he could obey God’s call to love this man he no longer could stand to be around.

An Unpleasant Command

It is unmistakable that Jesus calls his own to love those we don’t like — within the church and without. The love he taught us is not grounded on natural affinities or common interests. We do not stare at our neighbor, as some squint at the shapeless clouds, trying to make out something lovable in them before we act. All it takes to summon our care towards anyone on the planet is our Master’s command, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).

And vexingly, we do not get to choose who moves next door or who lies bleeding on the side of the road (Luke 10:25–37). God’s expectations for love, indeed, the whole point of commanding it, is that we might extend it to those we wouldn’t love naturally. Jesus even goes so far as to call us to love those we have the most cause to dislike: our enemies (Luke 6:35).

While even unbelievers love those who love them in return — while they invite over the funny, the wealthy, the attractive — God calls his people to love the hard to like, requiring no reciprocation. But, like my friend, we ask the genuine question, How? Jesus and Paul let us in on the secret.

Rehearse Our Hope

Paul imparts the divine recipe that the Colossians had discovered:

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. (Colossians 1:3–5)
The Colossians loved “all the saints” not because “all the saints” were easy to love. Later Paul would call these same Colossians to continue to bear with one another and forgive each other (Colossians 3:13). Paul did not live in the clouds. He knew that you will have to “bear with” some people, and forgive many others.

But notice that they didn’t wait for these others to clean up their act, become worthy of love, or do kind deeds that make loving easy. No, their motivation was untouchable. They loved because of the hope laid up for them in heaven.

Serve the Undeserving

Jesus also taught this way. Expanding our call to love beyond the realms of the faithful, he says,

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:11–12)
The Father will give good gifts to his children. Convinced of this — assured of his eternal provision and unceasing care, “because of the hope laid up for you in heaven” — love others and do them good. The Golden Rule is forged in the fires of trust in our Father’s temporal and eternal provision.

And Jesus practiced what he preached. Notice the indispensable truth motivating our Lord to stoop down to serve those who — within hours — would collectively betray, abandon, and disown him:

During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. (John 13:2–5)
Jesus did not get up and start doing it out of willpower. Their benevolence did not move him. The text says he knew something, he considered something, he held a truth in mind that braced his back to kneel down and wash his disciples’ feet — an act which anticipated his coming cross (John 13:6–11). He knew that all was his. He knew he was his Father’s Beloved. He rehearsed the hope laid up for him in heaven. His hope in the everlasting tomorrow overwhelmed him with resources to love today.

God Moved Towards the Unlikeable

Jesus did not merely preach this way or serve this way. He girded up his loins to die this way.

He did not look at us and choose the cross because we were so attractive. He did not squint to find a strain of loveliness to move towards the cross for us. He left heaven and came to die a shameful, bloody, brutal death, bearing the Almighty weight of punishment for our sin, while we breathed to disregard him. When we were most unlovable, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). While we esteemed him not, he esteemed us. His hands were pierced by our unloveliness, but his love remained unscarred. “Father, forgive them” was his cry.

And Isaiah foretold what came to pass: Amidst his soul-crushing anguish, he would see something to satisfy him and sustain his love until the end (Isaiah 53:11). What did he see?

Love himself looked beyond the whips, the nails, the cross. He heard something other than the taunts, the laughter, the cries of “Crucify him!” He saw more than just betrayal, dereliction, wrath. He saw the eternal bliss of his Father’s smile and the eternal destiny of his people propped against the backside of the cross.

And for the joy, the reward, the prize that lay before him, he took up his cross (Hebrews 12:2), despised its shame, and conquered death for his own. He saw beyond the unlikeable to make them his beloved.

Grabbing Our Towels

Our love also looks past our neighbor to the promises of heaven and, having our hearts warmed there, looks upon them afresh with a resoluteness to care. We do not love past them, around them, above them; we love them — despite their annoyances, oddities, shortcomings, ungratefulness. We repay them with love, not because they have earned it, but because we hadn’t either and yet are inheritors of the world.

Giving kindness, sacrifice, and consideration to those who cannot (or for whatever reason, will not) repay us, does not bankrupt us. Our reward is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading,” kept for us in heaven (1 Peter 1:4). With the pockets of our minds filled with heavenly gold and chests brimming with imperishable treasures, we are wealthy enough to spend time with the irritating, the exasperating, the mostly tiresome and vexing.

Knowing that we are born of God, and going back to him, we can rise, wrap a towel around our waists, and bend low to serve others we might otherwise find impossible to love.

God Knows What You Don’t Have

“God has promised to supply all our needs. What we don’t have now, we don’t need now.”

When Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) says it, I perk up. I nod in agreement. I remember her life, her murdered missionary husband, her devotion to the gospel, her absolute earnestness about Jesus, and the congruity of her words and practice, and I say, “Amen.”

The circumstances of her life were the stuff of legend for me as a growing girl. It was undeniably evident that God was orchestrating all the hardships and massive disappointments she experienced, at the very least, to help all the rest of us. I wanted to be like her, because I wanted to know her God as deeply as she did — the kind of God who made every trial worth it.

But I hadn’t fully reckoned with the means of her unflappable faith in God. I thought, or at least hoped, that the intimacy and trust she had in Jesus could come through a life of ease. I found out that in order to be like her, and to know God in such a way, I would need to learn the glad surrender of discipline. I would have to walk a path through suffering, and I would need to discover the beauty in my own strange ashes.

What Are Our Needs?

I stood in the doorway of the biggest ER room at our state-of-the-art Children’s Hospital. There was barely room for me as thirteen medical staff moved with urgency, bumping into each other, with forceful words coming from the doctor in charge. And in the middle of it all, our 13-month-old son, looking still, pale, and lifeless. I wanted to cry loudly, or yell my son’s name, or make someone tell me how this was going to turn out.

I did none of that. I stood quietly, not moving, clenching my hands, while my heart did not pound, but seemed to dissolve. I thought that if I was quiet and composed, they would allow me to stay near my son. I watched them put an IV directly into his bone to get the meds into his marrow as quickly as possible. And I followed behind the gurney with a dry face as the nurse rhythmically pumped the manual ventilator, breathing for our son, until we arrived in our room in the PICU and he could be hooked up to the machine.

I had learned years before (perhaps not as well as I should have) that God doesn’t owe us children. And that sometimes he takes them away after he’s given them. My naïve twenty-something self was shocked by this reality. Subconsciously believing myself to be immune to miscarriage, I was surprised when it happened. The simple words of Job comforted and frightened me: “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away” (see Job 1:21).

And now, with five living children — the youngest with serious medical problems — I was faced with another plan that didn’t match mine. Which, to be fair, is a daily occurrence. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a day go according to my plan. But the differences between my plan and God’s have, with some notable exceptions, generally been of a small scale. Watching my son’s life hang in the balance was not a small-scale difference between God’s plan and mine.

What It Means to Thrive

That night in the hospital, alone with my unconscious son and the sound of the ventilator making a terrifying sort of silence, God was reworking my understanding of neediness and flourishing. Over the coming years, I would be faced with lots of questions about what I needed and what our family needed in order to thrive as his people.

Did I need my son to be healthy? How healthy was healthy enough? Did our older kids need a childhood untarnished by suffering? Did they need a family with fewer “needs”? Did they need me to homeschool them full-time to develop into decent Christian people? Did I need sleep? How much? Did I need less vomit in my life? How coherent did I need to be in order to be a kind human?

You likely have your own questions. Do you need a healthy marriage? Do you need your child to be saved? Do you need to move to a different city, a different house, a different neighborhood? Do you need to be rid of your chronic pain? Do you need God to give you a “yes” to the request that you’ve been bringing him for the last twenty years? Do you need to be rid of your aloneness? Do you need stability or change?

What exactly does Paul mean when he promises, “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19)?

The Calm After the Storm

My son made it through that traumatic hospital stay. So did I. Although it wouldn’t be the last time we were there.

I felt like declaring victory. We survived. My faith was intact — even strengthened. But one discovery of the last decade of my life has been that the big trials aren’t always the test we think they are. Somehow, we get through those Big Scary Trials. By grace and prayers and the help of God’s people, we hold on to hope in God’s promises and endure. But often, it’s the little trials that follow the big ones that threaten to unravel us.

A couple years after that ominous hospital stay, when I should have been thrilled at my son’s progress and how well things were going, I found myself telling God at two o’clock in the morning, “I can’t. I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t do the things I’m supposed to be doing each day with so little sleep each night. I need you to give me relief. I need you to relent of this nightly disaster.” You see, our son has disrupted sleep because of his neurological problems. It’s improved in fits and starts, but by and large, the five years of his life have been challenging in the sleep department. And it was this small trial that was threatening to undo me.

Beware of Small Trials

I had the idea that in order for me to disciple my children, I needed to be coherent and less desperate. I had the idea that in order for God to use me to point them to him, I needed to shed this raw, at-the-end-of-my-rope status. I was okay with being brought low — I’d been there many times — but just how low did I have to go? I mean, I’d read Christian articles that declared, Sleep is an act of humility. So, why would God deny me that humility? I wanted to trust him with my eyes closed.

But God wouldn’t let me set my heart on lesser needs. We have bigger needs than sleep. We have bigger needs than our health or the health of our kids. We have bigger needs than a spouse or relief from chronic pain. We have bigger needs than coherency. We have bigger needs than that job, or career, or home. We have bigger needs than serving God the way we hoped.

What I really needed was to read more closely in Philippians 4 in order to discover that Paul himself had gone without his basic needs met. He says it like this: “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need” (Philippians 4:12). Paul faced unmet needs, and he had learned how to abound in them.

In Every Circumstance

God’s ideas about our flourishing are different than ours. We think flourishing means eight hours of shut-eye, a good job, being surrounded by people who treat us with respect, being given the opportunity to succeed at something, good medical care, a loving marriage, and happy children. Those are good things, but they are not the things God is most concerned about supplying us in this life for our flourishing.

In God’s economy, we flourish when our need for him is met in him. Dear brothers and sisters, there is no circumstance under heaven that God isn’t using to grow us into oaks of righteousness. There is no need that he won’t fill with himself. The promise is really true: God really will supply all our needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19). There is nothing we truly need that is not found in Christ.

Even more, the circumstances of being denied an earthly need or desire are often his tailored means of accelerating our holiness and happiness in him. When we want, we are given more of Christ. When we suffer, our solidarity with him grows.

As usual, Elisabeth was right, “God has promised to supply all our needs. What we don’t have now, we don’t need now.” And what we do need now, we do have now: God the Father’s loving, sovereign hand working all things for our good (Romans 8:28); Christ the Son as our advocate, Savior, and righteousness (1 John 2:1; Philippians 3:20; 1 Corinthians 1:30); and the Holy Spirit’s intercession, help, and comfort surrounding us day by day (Romans 8:26–27).

So, at the end of our lives, we truly will be able to say, “I never wanted for anything. I never had a ‘no’ from my Father that wasn’t a ‘yes’ to better and deeper things.”

Let the Dead Date the Dead THE MATCHES SATAN LOVES TO MAKE

I am pleasantly surprised to see that you have recovered so quickly from your former negligence, and made up precious time you had lost. Just this afternoon, I was about to report your blunders when your letter happened upon my desk. Brilliant, nephew, just brilliant. I would say that I knew you had it in you, but as you know, we do our best not to lie to one another. Fortunate for you, I have decided to hold my report to see how you manage this recent progress.

You write that your man has lately become friends with a girl who, on the face of it, is “tenderhearted, funny,” and of course, “not bad on the eyes.” His voice gives way in her presence. His palms cry. She makes him “smile until it hurts” and “challenges his intellect” like no female he has ever met. This is good.

You report that he has even come so far as to think — independent of your suggestions — that she really is just about perfect for him (minus that other small matter, of course). He doesn’t admit it, but he finds her exciting, refreshing, authentic. Against his better judgment, surrounded by hundreds of the Enemy’s young women, he has started to like one of ours. Our hunters have bagged many fawns like this before (they far outnumber the men), but you, Globdrop, have lured a buck. My mouth waters.

Flirt into the Dirt

Globdrop, get him to “fall for her” and they shall both fall to us. Unlike their delightful romance movies, his kiss cannot rouse her from her sleep. In real life, kissing corpses causes Prince Charming to become one. The Enemy told them to leave the dead to date the dead. He told them not to be bonded with one of ours. We are less intolerant. Let them hold hands together, fall in love, and stare deeply into each other’s eyes as we slowly lower the coffin.

Now, to avoid making another dreadful mistake, follow my instructions to the letter.

The first thing to do in this matter is to lure him in with her lostness. Few things rouse the evangelistic zeal in the youthful vermin like romantic interest. Do not despise this outright. Here — and only here — allow your man to care about her soul. “Flirt to convert” they call it. It works out brilliantly. He justifies enmeshing his heart to hers and crossing the Enemy’s boundaries because he means to save her. Allow this Noah to jump from his ark to rescue the girl. Most who go overboard never return.

As the relationship ripens and our game gets fat, you will have a new task: Convince him that she is nearly a believer. By not sleeping around, cussing, or getting drunk on the weekends, we can pass her off as practically the Enemy’s. Always just a few more inches to go.

To keep up this lie, you will need to embalm her. Color her cheeks with kindness. Groom her with worldly goodness. Animate her with familial affection. Make her look so close to living that she seems but one church attendance, one Bible study, one more deep, heart-entangling conversation away from finally stumbling into the Enemy’s arms. Make her “so close he can feel it.” We have but to hide the toe-tag.

Their Love Can Overcome

By this time, he will be more ready to listen to reason. Tell him that godliness is important — just not essential.

I know, I know, I border on blasphemy with this point. Tell him godliness is important? Yes, dear nephew, yes. It is a vile thing to tell him. But, remember, we must concede worms to catch fish. If we began with the real truth of the matter, he would never bite. Tell him godliness in a spouse is important. Tell him — all things considered — it is even to be desired. But while you gnaw your tongue while whispering such abominations, never let him conclude (with the Enemy) that it is a nonnegotiable. That is the point.

Hide the countless examples of us ruining their forefathers through spouses who worshiped foreign gods. Hide the plain instruction that he must only “marry in the Lord.” Obscure their General’s reasoning: What does dark have to do with light? Our Father with theirs? The Enemy’s son or daughter with one of ours?

Tell him, should he happen upon it, that such black-and-white thinking is outdated — it is the twenty-first century, after all. No one believes the world is flat and no one should believe that religious difference should determine whom someone loves. They can coexist.

Besides, she isn’t against his faith — she said so herself. She admitted that the Christian religion has some good teachings — see, she is open-minded. She even agreed to go to church on occasion. She isn’t dangerous to his faith. Besides, their love can overcome anything. As you tell him these things, nephew, beware not to give yourself away with laughter.

Final Touches

The older your man gets, the more susceptible he becomes. He is lonely. He has given more best-man speeches than Churchill during wartime. It’s his turn. He has held up his part of the bargain: He has not been sleeping around, partying too hard, or indulging in much pornography. But remind him what it has gotten him: lonely Friday nights. What has the Enemy to say for himself? He is finally discovering what our Father did so long ago: the Enemy over-promises and under-delivers.

He is drawing so near, nephew, I begin to smell him. At this crucial time, you must not let others interfere. Isolation, nephew, isolation. Leave him no one to defend him from himself. Whisper that others just won’t understand. They don’t know her like he does. Oh, and discredit the advice of most of the men in his life who discourage the relationship, because (easy for them to say) they are married.

When alone, even their strongest can fall — Samson and David defeated armies, but not eyelashes. Your trap shall catch this pigeon just as it did those eagles.

She Sailed with Christ to China ESTHER NELSON (1890–1974)

gaining for christ




Esther Nelson is a stranger to you unless you’ve heard me talk about her, or you’re her distant relative, or you’re part of the church that she called home (probably in the older fraction of the congregation).

In 1924, Esther was sent to Sichuan, China, by her beloved home church, First Swedish Baptist of Minneapolis (now Bethlehem Baptist). Her years there spanned some of China’s most tumultuous periods: warlords vied for territory, the Nationalist government held sway for two decades, Mao undertook his Long March, bandits endangered travelers, the Japanese invaded the country, World War II broke out (as did civil war), and the Communists took power. Several times, anti-foreign activities forced Esther’s evacuation to a safer part of the country.

Swedish Seeker

Born in Blekinge Län in southern Sweden in 1890, Esther traveled in 1893 with her mother and five siblings to Minnesota, where her father had moved two years earlier to set up a new home for their family. As a small child, she and the other children were sent to a small Sunday school. Years later, she wrote in her personal testimony,

All I remember was my love for Sunday school and the church and that I was called to go to a foreign country as a missionary. I know not why or how I had this call or assurance. I just thought and said I was never going to marry or settle down, for I was going to Africa.

Nevertheless, even at that early age, Esther knew she was not yet a Christian. She wrote, “I knew I was not saved and that I must first be a Christian myself, or how could I tell others? As far back as I can remember I longed and prayed for salvation.”

Esther searched for Christ through her childhood and the majority of her teenage years, spending untold hours reading her Bible, praying, and crying before God. From the farm where her family had moved when she was 11, she walked the three miles to church to attend every event she could. “I could not understand why I could not find Christ,” she wrote later. She thought perhaps she was too wicked, or had committed some unpardonable sin, or was simply an outcast from God’s kingdom. She often cried herself to sleep.

How Happy and Free

At age 17, Esther’s path took a turn that led to her prayers being answered. Her mother sent her to the city to work as a domestic servant in a private home. She thought, “In Minneapolis, of course I would find him there.” She told the story in her testimony:

How I prayed that I would be led to a church. A certain Thursday afternoon I had a telephone call from Anna Anderson, a neighbor of ours at home. She too had come down to work. She asked me if I would like to go with her to prayer meeting. I almost cried with joy. I went. How I feasted.

Two or three months later, I gave my heart to the Lord in our own church basement. How I love that place. How happy, how free I was. Those years from the time I became conscious of my condition until I surrendered to Christ had seemed like an age.
Her seeking was over, and it was finally time for Esther to prepare herself to answer the call to missions she had felt for so long. Since she had not yet studied beyond high school, she pursued further education at Bethel Academy (now Bethel University) and then received nursing training at Swedish Hospital.

Farewell, Minnesota

One page of Esther’s handwritten story is missing, where she must have explained why she didn’t go to Africa, the continent she had dreamed about as a child. Perhaps when she finished her nursing training she was needed in China. When it was clear China was her destination, it became the home of her heart. In a letter to the congregation of First Swedish Baptist Church, she wrote,

One more night in this dear home country and then farewell.

Finally brethren and sisters — fare thee well. “Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace, and the God of love and peace shall be with you.” II Cor. 13:11

Fare thee well my dear, dear church.
Farewell Minneapolis.
Farewell Minnesota, state of 10,000 lakes.
And farewell USA.

As I leave you waving farewell, I turn and on the other side there is the waving and beckoning of welcome — my chosen people. May God bless you.
As God prepared Esther for China, each step separated her further from her family. She was the only one who became a Baptist, considered a heretical sect by the Swedish Lutheran church of the day. Her siblings completed only four to eight years of school, a common amount of education for many farm families in Sweden and Minnesota. And then each of her siblings married.

For all of the Nelsons except Esther, the epic chapter of their story was their farewell to their Swedish homeland and their journey to America. It’s doubtful that any of them understood Esther’s determination to continue farther around the globe. Certainly her mother didn’t. After becoming a widow, her mother assumed that unmarried Esther would remain with her and care for her.

Esther the Nurse

This intense persistence toward knowing and pursuing God’s will marked her life. It allowed her to make light of situations that others would flee. In 1935, in the midst of Mao’s Long March, quilts on the floor of the overflowing hospital’s hall were used as beds for casualties of nearby skirmishes between Nationalist forces and Mao’s followers. In a letter to her friend Elsie Viren, she wrote,

The Chinese people were leaving by the hundreds. We were asked to hold ourselves in readiness for immediate flight. Somehow, foolish me just could not get myself to pack. We were heartsick. There is nothing harder than to leave and run. It takes courage to do it. As I do not have much of that, I asked to stay. I was finally told I would be allowed to be part of the skeleton. I was happy. I hate to go. I like to stay put. (I do not know what part of the skeleton I was.)
Between 1924 and 1945, Esther worked primarily as a nurse and medical educator in Baptist hospitals in the city of Chengdu and then in Yibin and Ya’an, villages farther south in Sichuan. In a letter to her church, she wrote of the effects of the regional deficiency of naturally occurring iodine. “This is a terrific goiter belt — huge goiters which hang down in great mass and also small ones. Most people have them, even children.”

She also wrote,

Perhaps you are getting tired of hearing about the wounded and sick but this past month I have been nowhere else, not even to church. Outside of wounded soldiers we are now fighting malaria, relapsing fever, typhoid fever, and dysentery.
Without a husband or children, Esther could give herself to caring for the wounded and diseased Chinese that came for help. But she yearned for more than her neighbors’ physical healing. She longed to take Christ beyond the hospital walls.

Esther the Evangelist

In addition to administering medical care, Esther would distribute gospel tracts and booklets to the patients under her care, as well as neighbors she encountered on the way to and from the dispensary. “I have such a lovely time, making friends along these two blocks,” she wrote. “I often sit down and have a little chat with them. The minute I step out, children call me and crowd around. How I love to be out with them.”

In 1945, Esther’s denomination, the Baptist General Conference (formerly the Swedish Baptist Conference) formed its Foreign Mission Board. In her application to the BGC, she wrote,

After working in hospital these years, now I would like to give all my time to evangelistic work. I have also thought of getting into new territory where the Gospel is not known.
At the end of 1947, when Esther was 57, God answered that desire. Her last China chapter was in Huili, near one of China’s minority peoples, the Nosu. Her American coworkers were two young couples with small children and another single woman.

As often as she could, Esther trekked as far as twenty to thirty miles out into the stark, steep mountains to remote communities. She would speak in the outdoor market area until she was hoarse, perhaps using the flannelgraph and collapsible easel given by her church. And as in Huili, she’d go door to door, visiting villagers one by one. She wrote at one point,

I am just back from a week’s trip of 20 miles. Most of the time, I prayed the Lord’s blessing on those Gospels and tracts.

The first half of our return was uphill, some very steep. We had given out only five or six Gospels with some tracts, so I wondered why I should have gone that long hard road and accomplished nothing. It came to me, who knows? — Only the Lord. Perhaps one of those people was the reason for our trip. Back at the inn, we learned that the road we had traveled was robber-infested. But the Lord kept us.
Chinese Memorials

After the 1949 establishment of Communism in China, “liberation” spread across that great land, reaching Huili in 1950. Foreigners were ordered out. The grieving missionaries left behind a small church of about 25, uncertain of what their fate would be.

Esther lived another 24 years back in Minneapolis, never knowing how God was working in China out of the world’s sight. She did not know how God himself was continuing the work he had begun through Western missionaries, saving some fifty million Christians during the ensuing decades of China’s Communist regime.

There is no marker on Esther’s grave in Minneapolis, a reminder that her memorial is not stone, but the hearts of Chinese people touched by her Savior.

Fill Your Wandering Heart with Thankfulness

Do you know what’s stronger than lust? Thankfulness.
Let me illustrate before I explain. When Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce Joseph, why didn’t he succumb to her advances? He explains,
“Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:8–9)Joseph received Potiphar’s remarkable favor on him as a gift from God. Gratitude was occupying so much space in Joseph’s heart that there was not enough room for the ingratitude of sexually sinning with Potiphar’s wife.
Too Full to Indulge
Now look at your own experience. You have not indulged in lust when your heart has felt full of thankfulness to God. Why? Because lust is a form of coveting: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife” (Exodus 20:17). And coveting, in all its forms, is a fruit of ingratitude. It’s a desire for something you want but don’t have, or can’t have; it’s a desire for something God has not provided for you or forbidden to you (James 4:2).
So lust, being a form of ingratitude, is incompatible with gratitude — they cannot cohabit the same space at the same time. It’s one or the other. And thankfulness is the stronger power. Lust might feel powerful, and thankfulness might feel meek. But when thankfulness is truly present, lust is no match for it.
Thanksgiving is not merely a “nice” Christian character trait. It is a sin-conquering force. Gratitude is both a vital indicator of our soul’s health and a powerful defender of our soul’s happiness. Which means we should intentionally cultivate the healthy, happy habit of thanksgiving.
What Thankfulness Says About Us
How thankful we are reveals the health of our souls. When the apostle Paul describes what our being filled with the Spirit looks like, he doesn’t point to ecstatic experiences or miraculous spiritual gifts; he points to thankfulness:
Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:18–20)When Paul describes what our being governed by the peace and word of Christ looks like, he doesn’t point to an absence of conflict or our level of theological sophistication; he points to thankfulness:
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:15–16)When Paul describes what our living in the will of God looks like, he doesn’t point to how well our rolls match our strengths and aspirations; he points to thankfulness:
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)When Paul describes what our freedom from sexual sin, or other kinds of defiling sin, looks like, he doesn’t point to the absence of temptations; he points to thankfulness:
Sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. (Ephesians 5:3–4)If we want to know how healthy our souls are, we should check our levels of gratitude.
How Thankfulness Protects Us
We should monitor our gratitude, not merely for our spiritual health, but also for our spiritual protection. Gratitude is immensely (and subtly) powerful.
Gratitude is what we experience when we perceive that what we have received is an undeserved gift of God’s grace. It is a fruit of humility; it’s inherently unselfish. We don’t feel true gratitude toward ourselves, but only towards someone else who treats us better than we deserve. That’s how Joseph felt being entrusted as Potiphar’s chief steward.
Sins like sexual lust, however, are a fruit of pride; they’re inherently selfish, exploiting others for our own narcissistic purposes. That’s how Potiphar’s wife felt looking on the attractive Hebrew house slave.
Pride always looks more powerful than humility on the outside. But in reality, it’s not. It’s not even close. Humility is stronger than pride like heaven is stronger than hell. Like the cross was stronger than the Roman Empire. Like the Resurrection and the Life was stronger than the grave. In the same way, thankfulness is stronger than lust, and serving is stronger than exploiting.
The more thankfulness is present in us, the less vulnerable we are to sin. That’s why the Bible talks so much about thanksgiving. Thankful people have set their eyes on God (Hebrews 12:2), recognizing to some degree how much grace we are receiving right now (2 Corinthians 9:8), trusting him to cover all our sin and work our painful past for good (Romans 8:28), and looking to him for all we need tomorrow and into eternity (Philippians 4:19). Souls that learn to be content in God “in whatever situation” (Philippians 4:11) are souls that are the least vulnerable to temptation, particularly covetous temptations.
Be Thankful
Therefore, cultivating thankfulness should be one of our core strategies in helping each other fight sin. In our small groups and accountability groups, we should encourage each other to “be thankful” (Colossians 3:15). Not out of guilty obligation, but out of an unashamed desire to be happy! Thankful people are not only the most spiritually healthy and spiritually protected, but very often the happiest.
Cultivating thankfulness is not easy. We all need help, and thank God help is available. But there is no thankfulness hack — no four easy steps to a grateful heart. It’s as hard as habit-building. We begin to train our heart-eyes to look for God’s grace — in all circumstances. This looking must become habitual. And habits are built by doing them every day. We get incrementally better at them as the days gradually accumulate to months, and months to years. They become more and more a part of us over time.
But it is worth the effort. Thankfulness is one of the most powerful affections God has given us the capacity to experience. It is far stronger than lust or any bondage of sinful pride. The more it grows in you, the more spiritual health you will experience, and the less power sin will wield over you.

God Is Bigger Than Your Problems

The promises of God often lose their power in our lives because God himself has become small in our eyes.

We may be able to recite God’s promises by the dozens. But in our hearts, God is no longer the King who conquers armies and cuts a valley in the sea. He is no longer the Shepherd who seeks his sheep and keeps them safe behind his staff. He is no longer the Lord who walks on waves and calls the dead back from the grave. Slowly, subtly, we have forgotten God’s power, God’s wisdom, God’s tenderness.

When the promises of God seem powerless to quiet our fears, soothe our grief, lift our worries, or motivate our obedience, we need to do more than simply hear his promises again. We need to behold the God who gives them.

Promises Buried

In Isaiah 40, the prophet speaks to a group of broken Israelites. The nation that once shone like the stars in the sky had been blackened by exile.

As Israel looked back from Babylon, the promises of God seemed buried. How would God give Israel an everlasting kingdom when they were slaves in a foreign land (2 Samuel 7:13)? How would God make Israel a blessing to the world when a curse had fallen on them (Genesis 12:3)? How would God raise up from Israel a serpent-crushing king when they were under Babylon’s heel (Genesis 3:15)?

We can ask similar questions when we remember God’s promises from the wreckage of our circumstances. We can look ahead to a life of unwanted singleness and ask, “How can God satisfy me?” We can look back at a devastating failure and ask, “How can God forgive me?” We can look up from the crater of some loss and ask, “How can God comfort me?”

In those moments, we need God to do for us what he did for Israel. We need him to come alongside us, remind us of his promises, and then say, “Behold your God” (Isaiah 40:9).

Behold Your God

Who is the God who gives his promises to us? He is the God of might, who created the world by his word. He is the God of wisdom, who makes a way in the wilderness. He is the God of tenderness, who carries his children home. And he is bigger than all of our problems.

GOD OF MIGHT

Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him. (Isaiah 40:10)
Behold the God of might, who created the world by his word.

The God who speaks his promises to us is the same God who said, “Let there be light,” and the darkness fled (Genesis 1:3). When he speaks, stars burn and planets lock into orbit; rivers run and oceans fill earth’s floors; valleys sink and mountains race to the sky. The grass in all the world may wither, and the flower on every hillside fade, but the word of him who made them will stay and stand forever (Isaiah 40:8).

Are your troubles as untamed as the ocean? God holds them in the hollow of his hand (Isaiah 40:12). Are your sorrows as vast as the heavens? God measures them like a carpenter at his workbench (Isaiah 40:12). Are your burdens as heavy as the hills? God picks them up and puts them on his scale (Isaiah 40:12).

Your problems may be massive, but your God is mighty. The sun will fail to shine sooner than his word will fall to the ground — no matter how big our problems.

GOD OF WISDOM

Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel? (Isaiah 40:13)
Behold the God of wisdom, who makes a way in the wilderness.

The Israelites thought their future as a nation had fallen with Jerusalem’s walls, and that not even God could raise them up again. “My way is hidden from the Lord,” they said. “My right is disregarded by my God” (Isaiah 40:27).

But Israel’s exile had not taken God by surprise, nor had it cast them out of his sight. “Have you not known?” Isaiah asks. “Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God. . . . His understanding is unsearchable” (Isaiah 40:28). When Israel was lost in the wilderness of exile, and saw no way of getting back home, God paved a highway right through the desert (Isaiah 40:3).

No trouble is too tangled for God to untie. No path is too twisted for him to straighten. No heart is too shattered for him to gather up and put back together.

Your problems may be bewildering, but your God is wise. He sees you. He knows every detail of your trouble. And he knows how to come alongside you as you wait for him and make you rise up with wings like eagles (Isaiah 40:31).

GOD OF TENDERNESS

He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. (Isaiah 40:11)
Behold the God of tenderness, who carries his children home.

Before God thunders forth his majesty in Isaiah 40, he speaks to Israel with the gentleness of a mother’s hush: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God” (Isaiah 40:1). God is not eager for his people to be tormented and storm-tossed. He wants us to know him as the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3).

If God’s might shows us that he is powerful to fulfill his promises, and if his wisdom convinces us that our circumstances are no exception, then his tenderness assures us that he delights to use all his might and wisdom in love for weak people like us. He is the Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to find his lost and wandering one. And when he finds him, he bends down, gathers him up in his arms, and carries him all the way home (Isaiah 40:11).

Your problems may be agonizing, but your God is tender. Place all your fears and frailty before him, and ask him to quiet you with his love.

Every Valley Shall Be Filled

Seven hundred years after Isaiah told Israel to behold her God, John the Baptist picked up the prophet’s words and preached them in the Judean wilderness: “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low . . . and all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:5–6; Isaiah 40:4–5).

Then John stepped aside as a man walked over those valleys and hills and made his way through that wilderness. He was a man of might, who bound hell’s armies and brought heaven’s kingdom. He was a man of wisdom, who silenced the scribes and spoke the very words of God. He was a man of tenderness, who healed the sick and heralded God’s favor.

And then he lay down beneath the biggest of our problems, and allowed them to beat him, bludgeon him, bury him. But only so he could carry our curse to the grave, sink it deep into the ground, and then rise up in the power of an indestructible life. Every promise from God comes to us now through Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20), the God with scars on his hands.

Your problems may be big, perhaps even bigger than you know. But your God is bigger, and his promises to you are stronger and surer. So, look up from your problems. Listen again to God’s powerful, wise, and tender voice. And then ask God to help you behold him.