Therefore We Have Hope

Has your light gone out? Has the trial become too much for you? John Henry Jowett describes this as a time when “there is no fire in the grate and the light is gone out.” Dear friend, take courage from the words of Jeremiah, called by many “the Weeping Prophet” because of the tumultuous times he lived in. He says in the midst of his own desolation, “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new ever morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him’” (Lamentations 3:21-24). I see so many things in these few verses. It is the soul that must override the mind. While Jeremiah had the “feeling” that his prayers were being shut out (see Lamentations 3:8), yet his soul knew something different. It was his soul that said “The Lord is my portion, therefore I will hope in him.” Pay more attention to the things of the soul. He knew this: with the Lord, there is always hope. And that leads to this: the Lord still has something He is going to do. There are two unstoppable forces at work in your life though it seems everything is against you. God’s love and mercy will conquer all adversity. Also, always remember that tomorrow is a new day. God’s love and mercy are new every morning and that fact gives you the new day. I truly believe in the theology of “the new day.” I have had times when I felt as though I was in such a deep, dark hole that there was no way out. I thought even the Lord could not find me there. And then God does something to turn the tide. The face of your trial can change in many ways. Perhaps God brings a new comfort within, to calm your heart. Or He may cause the waves to stop. He may bring relief from an unexpected direction. Jowett, in his book, The Silver Lining, says, “If He purposes my perfection, then all my circumstances will be made to conspire to the accomplishment of His will…Sorrow can accomplish what comfort would always fail to do.” Sometimes it takes the tempest to bring out the music. Jowett goes on to say, “Have we not known men whose lives have not given out any entrancing music in the day of a calm prosperity, but who, when the tempest drove against them, have astonished their fellows by the power and strength of their music.” And so, what is this word “hope” all about? I think of it in terms of this: HOPE--Holding On With Patient Expectation. It is not a passive resignation, but a steadfast determination that sees the invisible God with the eyes of the heart. Perhaps that is why Paul prayed for the Ephesians that the eyes of their heart would be “enlightened” (Ephesians 1:18). He said this: “I do not cease to give thanks for you, remember you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the sains, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might…” (Ephesians 1:16-19). I share all these things in light of what happened in London today. We live in tumultuous times. Jesus warned us of these days. He said that lawlessness would increase. And He also said that the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:12). And have we not seen exactly this! But then He issues forth the exhortations to His beloved church. He calls us to endure to the end and to continue to proclaim the gospel throughout the whole world (Matthew 24:13-14). That is why I send this encouragement to all who are discouraged, hopeless, feeling as though your light has gone out. We are living in desperate times. But take courage—Jesus has overcome the world (John 16:33). Nothing can ever separate you from Him. God bless you as you continue to draw near to Him.

Something New!! Quiet Time Ministries Radio Podcast!

In this continuation of my new audioblog, I'm excited to share something I've wanted to do for a long time--Quiet Time Ministries Radio. I'm going to do it online as a "Podcast" which is the new term for online audio webcasts. Ultimately I'll have two Podcasts: QuietTalks With Catherine Martin and Quiet Time Ministries Podcast. For now, you can listen to the audio here at Cath's Blog. In the future you'll be able to download the feeds to your computer and even to your ipod or mp3 player. Is that cool or what! Can you tell I'm excited! This is the realization of something I've dreamed of doing for a long time.

In this first broadcast I share how I began Quiet Time Ministries. Enjoy!

Something New! QuietTalks With Catherine

I am really excited about this new technology of podcasting and audioblogging. If you want some encouragement from my own quiet time, then listen to QuietTalks by clicking on the play button. In the future, you will be able to subscribe to this as a podcast. More on that later. Enjoy!!

In this first QuietTalk, the heart of the message is this thought: God will never forget you. Enjoy!

Romancing The Word

I'm really excited about the new book I've been writing. Actually, it's already written and I'm in the process of editing. This is the most difficult part of writing a book. It's a Holy Spirit-driven process as sometimes complete chapters are out and new ones are in. I remember years ago sitting next to my Old Testament professor in church. I leaned over to him and told him how inspiring it was for me to see one of his books at the bookstore. He smiled and just said, "It was a lot of work." Now I understand. I love the whole process of writing books--from the idea, to the writing, to the actual publishing, to seeing it in the hands of someone else who is using it to draw near to the Lord. Wow--there's just nothing more exciting to me. And now--about Romancing The Word. This book is all about coming face to face with God in the Bible. In the first 30-day Journey, Radical Intimacy, I wrote all about how to have a quiet time using the P.R.A.Y.E.R. Quiet Time Plan. It includes topics such as journaling, devotional reading, prayer and more. Now, in Romancing The Word, a new 30 day Journey, I'm taking us deeper into the Word of God. It includes topics such as the uniqueness of the Bible, the relevance of truth, secrets in the Word, and different ways to dig deeper into the Word of God. I want others to love the Lord and to love His Word. This book should be complete in the next month, piloted this summer, typeset sometime in January, and published and ready for shipping by March 2006.

Henrietta Mears

Yesterday I had the incredible opportunity to spend the day at Forest Home and speak to the Forest Home Women's Auxiliary. What a privilege! As I drove in to the Forest Home area I saw Mears Lake and the Mears cabin. I thought, "Wow, I'm in Henrietta Mears country!!" Even better, I delivered the messages in Henrietta Mears Amphitheatre. Another privilege! I remember when I was in seminary I went to one of their book sales and found an incredible treasure. It was a book entitled "The Story of Livingstone." When I opened the book, what I saw revealed the treasure - the former owner had signed her name in big blue letters - Henrietta C. Mears. She is my hero for many reasons - she loved the Lord Jesus Christ, she influenced others to be sold out to the Lord, she was a trailblazer and wrote her own curriculum, she was flamboyant and fearless in so many ways. She believed God for the Forest Home land and evidently made an offer of $30,000 that was turned down because it was too low. Then, evidently a flood came through and destroyed parts of the property and the offer was then accepted. Now you should see beautiful Forest Home. My friend Bonnie Nelson, who is the Spiritual Guidance Board Chairman, showed me the Mears cabin and the beautiful Lakeview Lodge. There were a number of women there at the Auxiliary Leadership Conference who actually KNEW Henrietta Mears. I had lunch with one woman who was part of her college group, who met in her home, and who knew her very well. She told me a number of stories and said that Billy Graham used to call her a technicolor Christian. What a blessed day I had. One I will never forget. I hope a bit of Henrietta Mears will rub off on all of us and that we will, as she often encouraged, DREAM BIG. Anything less is not worthy of our great God.

Where Have I Been?

Within a few days after my post about Jowett in January, my little Fujitsu P5010D suffered a serious hard drive crash. Every intelligent person has their hard drive backed up, especially if they are writing books, and especially if they have a new book about to be published. Unfortunately, I did not have anything backed up except a recent edition of the new book. When the message "unmountable boot volume" appeared and I could not get into Windows even in Safe Mode, I knew I was in trouble. So I called the most brilliant Fujitsu guys up in San Jose at portableone.com (Ivan and Tim) and they said they would do their best to save everything. The Lord has been teaching me a lot about "TRUST" in the last two years (TRUST is total reliance under stress and trial). This was a huge issue of "TRUST" for me. All my book outlines and ideas for the future were on this hard drive. Also a book on ministry that is more than half written. I prayed that the Lord would give the computer guys brilliance. I reasoned that if I lost it all, then the Lord could give me new ideas and that all was really not lost. I did experience His peace in the midst of it all. At any rate, after several days, they called me with the good news that they were able to fix the hard drive long enough to clone it and install a new hard drive with all the old info on it. The bottom line is that they were able to make it function as if it never happened. Thank you Lord!!! Once I received my little laptop back, I was way behind because of deadlines for my new book, Radical Intimacy. So I shifted into high gear. Once the book was edited, it was time for typesetting. Jodi Adams, the designer for Quiet Time Ministries, had already created the style with the hands of God and man from the Sistine Chapel ceiling painted by Michelangelo. We decided to use Adobe InDesign because it can do so much more than Quark. I thought because I knew PageMaker so well that InDesign would be a piece of cake. Typesetting is a different story. There are things you need to know such as baseline shift, kerning, leading etc. So I called up totaltraining.com and had Steve Holmes' DVDs on InDesign fedexed to me. I studied them for an entire weekend and became an InDesign pro :) (not really, but I learned enough to typeset a book). Thank you Steve Holmes of total training. I spent the next week typesetting Radical Intimacy and then uploaded it to the printer, got the proof, and voila, about a week later, the books arrive, just in time for our 30 Day Journey for the Women's Revival Campaign beginning April 7.

I'm excited about Radical Intimacy. There are individuals and groups from everywhere on this quiet time journey. We have over 200 women at our church doing it and there is an excitement in the air. I pray that the Lord will use this book to help thousands draw near to the Lord in a new and deeper way.

I'm happy to be back to my blog and will share more as we go along. Oh, by the way, I now have everything backed up on this little computer. Blessings to all!

John Henry Jowett

I have discovered a new author - John Henry Jowett. While packing for a recent move I decided to go through all my books to see if there were any I might give away. In the process I came across an obscure little book, The Silver Lining by John Henry Jowett. Hmmm, I thought, this looks interesting. I set it aside and began to drink in Jowett's words in my quiet time. This guy is incredibly deep. I decided to find out who he was. He was born in England on August 25, 1863. He lived for 60 years, was a pastor, wrote numerous books, and was a contemporary of G. Campbell Morgan. If you read anything Jowett has written, you'll never forget his words, and you'll be deeply influenced. He's my new favorite author. As a result, I have been on a hunt to track down as many of his books as I can find. I just read this morning in The Best Of John Henry Jowett edited by Gerald Kennedy, the following: "The God of peace shall be with you. And that is everything. If the King is present at the table, a crust is a feast. If the Lord is on the battlefield, then amid all the surrounding turbulence there is a centre of peace. When the God of peace is in the life there is a chamber of which the sound of warfare never comes. A motorist said to me the other day: 'The most tempestuous storm never gets into my engine.' And so it is when the Lord is with us. The real dynamics of the life are unimpaired. And what matter it if the world bruises my skin or denies me transient comforts, if my heart is sound, and if all that is within me is kept in the smooth activity of perfect peace." Such good words from Jowett. I'll share more in the days to come from some of my other books. I surely can relate to what he has said here and can say unequivocally that one can experience the peace of God even in the midst of the turbulence of life circumstances. Thank you JH Jowett for writing it out in a way that speaks to me today.

Burning The Midnight Oil

What a challenge it is to live in this day and age. At least for me. There are so many resources available that can be applied to ministry. It boggles the mind. I just finished redesigning the Quiet Time Ministries Online website, formatting a Message Board, and updating a shopping cart. I did it in the middle of the night during a time I couldn't sleep. I thank the Lord that He gave me the ability to even do it. That's a miracle in itself IMHO. I laugh when I think about how terrified I was about computers in the beginning. My husband had to teach me how to use WordPerfect, turn the computer on and off, and how to print documents. He taught me the basics. Then, when my Dad showed me the internet many years ago, that's when I really got interested. I realized that the Lord was at work on the internet and I could reach thousands of people by designing a website. So, I walked into a software store in Phoenix and asked the salesperson to show me what to buy. I got Corel WebDesigner (now out of print) and Paint Shop Pro. I taught myself those two computer programs and launched my website. It's funny to me now because I had no concept of what ftp was or html. After I used Corel WebDesigner I realized I needed something much more sophistocated. After a lot of research I bought NetObjects Fusion 3.0 (now it's in version 8). That was a great decision - I love NOF for web design. And I love designing websites. I guess it's the knowledge that it's not for me, but for others. I can literally pass on what God is teaching me to others. Wow - it's incredible. Well, it's really late. Or maybe I should say early - since it's about 2:30 in the morning. I have been burning the midnight oil this night, but now I'll sleep well knowing I've gotten this big job of web design completed. And I'm excited about this new form of expression - the blog - a virtual journal. It's going to be fun to share what I'm learning and also the things that God has me involved in.

Greetings Everyone!

It's amazing how they (the proverbial "they") come up with new names for things we've known about forever. The new word: "blog." What's a blog? It's a weblog. But really it is a new name for a journal. Except this is a journal on the internet. You might think of it as an e-journal. This blog is a way for me to share my thoughts about all kinds of things. My life is absolutely eclectic and a blog is a way for me to share my eccentricities. I am passionate about a few things - first and foremost, the Lord. And then, I love to study the Word of God. Finally, I am crazy about computers and software and web design. Early on I began learning about the computer on my own. I am very interested in unleashing what is available to us with computers and the internet to reach others for the Lord. So, here's the beginning of the blog. I still have to figure out how to edit the template so if it looks kind of wierd for awhile, that's because I haven't quite caught on. Also, it is possible that you'll never even read this because I may not have the ftp settings right. In that case, I have had a good time writing. I will figure it out eventually. Happy blogging!!