God has a pre-appointed time of death for every man. Yet we can see even servants of God in the Bible requesting the Master to advance their time of departure from this world. In reality, these requests were neither the result of a revelation nor their eagerness to reach their heavenly home. It was merely the cry of the wounded self.
These wounded ones normally start off with a plan of how God would work concerning a particular matter. Interestingly, this plan would be aligned to their personal expectation of the outcome. But when they find that God is not working to their plan, ‘the self’ who is the author of the dying plan starts to throw a fit and diffuse into the mind, hopelessness, anger and the desire to die. Self is a close associate of the enemy and will help to fulfill the goals of the enemy. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy…” (John 10:10).
Elijah was a firebrand for the Lord. Yet he cried out “…it is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors” (1Kings19:4b). Jonah was yet another prophet, who experienced the same agony. “Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live” (Jonah 4:3). Both cried after a ‘failure’. What was their failure? Something had happened contrary to what they had expected. Elijah’s reasons are not clear, but we can assume, that he did not expect to be hounded by his opponents after having just performed a miracle. But in the Jonah’s case, it was clear as sunlight, why he wanted to die. We read in the living Bible: “Please kill me, Lord: I’d rather be dead than alive (because nothing that I prophesied to Nineveh has happened)” (Jonah 4:3).
The desire for death, particularly suicide, is sometimes the expression of one’s anger towards either a particular person or the whole of humanity. A believer’s desire to die is primarily an expression of his anger directed towards God. But for most part, this reason remains hidden. The truth is that he blames God for not intervening in his current situation as he knows that God, being omniscient and omnipotent could have done something to prevent his situation.
It is helpful to understand the origin of such anger. The plans and desires of our self lead us to an independent way of thinking, and independent thinking, in turn leads to an independent interpretation of the situation. Independent interpretation leads to independent action, which further lead to anger when the outcome turns out different from what we desire. If we were robots with all the controls in the hands of a master then we would have no complaints whatsoever even if something were to go wrong. The robot, being incapable of independent thinking would do exactly as the master instructs. God however does not control a believer as we would a robot. Instead, He desires for us to be trained to think the way He does. Here we find the meaning of the prayer that our Lord taught “… Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10b).
Every child of God goes through a period in his life when things happen in a way that is totally different from what was expected. It is a common experience for those who are in the mission field. This is the period when the Holy Spirit is brooding upon a nation or a people group. There may not be many manifestations or visible movements of the Holy Spirit.
Many missionaries fear the fact that they have been working for many years among some particular people group with no apparent results. Rarely do they even get the occasion to share the gospel. The second day is just like the first day and day after day he continues to pray and fast but there is no noticeable change. It just seems to be a series of ongoing failures. Even people with whom they had shared the gospel seem to avoid them and move away from them. A particular situation may have arisen when they expected a miracle that would open a way for the gospel. But nothing happened.
Though we may think that nothing is happening, in reality there are great things happening deep inside. This period of hovering or brooding of the Holy Spirit is like a hen brooding over the eggs. The distinctive feature of such an incubation period is that nothing noticeable happens. We may call it a full twenty-eight useless days of merely sitting on the eggs. No excitement. However, deep in the hidden world inside the egg, a life is taking shape and will emerge at the right time. This period in missionary work when God broods over the people may also be called the period of preparing the ground.
Next comes the planting period. The planting period is also not a very exciting time, but it is better than the previous one. The ground preparing period or the brooding period of the Holy Spirit is a difficult time for the missionary, unless he finds all of his joy and excitement in the Lord. We have biographies of missionaries who went to tribal groups at the time of harvesting the souls, but unfortunately we have far fewer stories of missionaries who went and lived among a people group during the period of the hovering of the Holy Spirit. These stories are not outright challenging stories.
J. O. Fraser’s life is an example for the period of hovering of the Holy Spirit. He was only 22 years old when he went to China. The early days of his ministry among the Lisu people were a period of the Spirit’s hovering. The account says that he even went into depression due to the spiritual drought of the land. To start with, the gospel was not received by the Lisu people. He spent nearly thirty years working among those people.
Thankfully, all such mission fields have a later story with a great harvest. Fraser died at the age of 52 in 1938 due to cerebral malaria. He could just witness the start of a large revival. Fraser is best known for the alphabet he created for the Lisu, often referred to as the Fraser alphabet. It was designed for purpose of translating the New Testament into the Lisu language. In 1992, the Chinese government officially recognised the Fraser alphabet as the official script of the Lisu language. But in recent decades, the Lisu church has seen spectacular growth.
Here is another story. In 1921, a missionary couple named David and Svea Flood went with their two-year-old son David, from Sweden to the heart of Africa—to what was then called the Belgian Congo. Ericksons, another missionary couple had also joined them. With much difficulty they reached a village named N’dolera. But the chief would not let them enter his village. They opted to go half a mile up the slope and built their own mud huts. They prayed for a spiritual breakthrough, but there was none.
Their only contact with the villagers was a young boy, who was allowed to sell them chicken’s eggs. He would come twice a week. Svea decided that if this was the only African she would get to talk to, she would try to lead the boy to Jesus. And in fact, after many weeks of loving and witnessing to him, he trusted Christ as his Savior. But there was no further progress.
Meanwhile, malaria continued to strike one member of the little band after another. Svea became pregnant in the middle of this primitive wilderness but the delivery was too exhausting for her malaria-weakened body and she died aged 27 after giving birth to a baby girl. We may think this was the end of the story leaving many unanswered questions and sore emotions in our heart including anger against God. It may seem a tragic end to their failed mission.
But the story goes on. David Flood full of bitterness gave away his child to the Ericksons and went back to Sweden. The Ericksons too soon died of a mysterious illness and the child was adopted by a missionary couple who took her to America. Aggie as she was named by the couple grew up and married a preacher. Once while attending a conference in London she met a Christian leader who was the superintendent of the national church in Congo. Aggie asked him whether he had heard about Svea Flood, her mother. He was struck by amazement as he revealed that he was the boy who brought eggs to Svea many years ago. Later, over 600 people of that village had become Christians including the village chief.
In the Bible we see the ministers of the Lord who travailed during such periods. Noah preached 120 years without any result. Bible calls the result as ‘a few’. “Because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water” (1Peter 3:20). Jeremiah ministered in Jerusalem for forty long years with a sad ending. But we can always see that after this, in all probability after the life time of that missionary, will come the days of harvest.
Missionaries in mission fields during such time are sure to face the toughest challenge at the end of the month. As they sit down to write their monthly mission report they may be tempted to send in the previous month’s report as there is
nothing new to add this month. They spend many sleepless nights, wanting to scream towards heaven and ask “Is there a God? It is better to die! Tell me Lord what is my fault? Am I not praying enough? Do I lack faith? Or am I in the wrong place? I am tired Lord! Enough! I want to die. I cannot be an Adoniram Judson, for I lack such dedication!”
There are ministering spirits among the angels. “Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14). The duty of these angels is to minister to the saints. We see their ministry in different places: “And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening” (Luke 22:43); “Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him” (Matthew 4:11); “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven”(Matthew 18:10). Unfortunately this hovering period is a holiday for all ministering angels as well.
Dear saint, God may not have answered your cry. But He has appointed someone to intercede for you somewhere in the world and we read that Jesus Christ Himself is interceding for you. The time for you to leave this world has not yet come. Surely it will come, until then discard these thoughts of death. God has sent you to the mountains, in the wilderness, among tribes and to lonely places not to sing songs of doom from a tired heart. Rather echo the heavenly song which the angels sang at the birth of the Saviour: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”(Luke 2:14). If there is no opportunity to do that where God has placed you, just be there with the brooding Holy Spirit. “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalms 46:10). When the time comes for you to go home the heavenly hosts will come to you in a chariot to fulfil your utmost dream, to see the wounded hands, to kiss and whisper in His ears “thank you.”