Coca-Cola Blak™
This stuff tastes AWFUL! Imagine pouring a cold cup of coffee into a glass half-full of Coke™. now drink it. Yuck! A better description might be taking one of those canisters of Coke™ syrup from a soda fountain and chugging it straight. Wow. This is some sick tasting stuff. Very thick and syruppy and coffee strong. I will be shocked if this drink takes off. But at least now I know (avoid this stuff).
While I'm still deliberating on which devotional to go through, I picked up Rees Howells Intercessor. Norman Grubb writes in the forward:
"I count it as one of the great privileges of my life to have had a hand in preparing this biography of Rees Howells. I first met Mr. Howells in 1928. I was then a missionary on furlough, and as I spent a few days with him at the Bible College of Wales, which was then in its young days, light simply poured into my soul as he took time to tell me some of the Lord's inner dealings with him. It was one of the great experiences of my life. I learned secrets of the Spirit -- as the One come down to do His mighty work through human agents -- which revolutionized my future ministry."
Wow. What high praise to bestow upon a person. This guy must've been a real gem. The way he influenced and impacted people was amazing. I guess the Bible College of Wales had some incredible things go on, as Grubb refers to those days as its "young days," probably before the incredible moving things occured.**
Tom Howells was the only remaining member of the family still living in the old home at the time of writing this book. He was known to have said, "The Spirit is full of jokes." He was described as "beyond measure large-hearted, irrepressible in the joy of the Lord which poured out of him." And also described of him: "who bore on his heart the world's deep suffering and sin till it broke him..."
Those are the kind of people I want to learn from -- people who weep in prayer.
The author closes his introduction with the benediction: "May God meet with many in reading this book, as He has with the author in writing it."
[If you want to, grab a copy of this book (Rees Howells Intercessor, CLC Publications) and "follow along," leaving comments as we go through it...]
The first chapter, "The Early Years," tells of young Rees' boyhood days. His family had converted in the 1859 Revival, and one description of a Black Mountain place he liked to visit was silent except for the bleeting of sheep and the sound of his grandmother reading the Bible to his invalid Uncle Dick. I thought of what life was like back then in England and how the imprint of believers' lives and revivals** and the work of the Spirit has left upon that nation. I think of artists like Led Zeppelin and others, whose artwork bears that imprint in places. Many young men in Britain choose a life of sin and pleasure, but many of them know the choice they are making and the Gospel to which they might be resisting. It makes me wonder:
Perhaps God tarries the return of His Son for this very reason -- watching and being delighted in the reproduction of His kingdom through families like the Howells. It's almost a magical thing how love for Jesus can be reproduced in others. Wow. Amidst all the suffering in the world, perhaps the joy that God is seeing in His people is a motivating factor in perpetuating the earth's time away from its destruction. I don't know. It's just a thought, but I know it must make God happy to see His people living for and loving Him, and how that effects the people around these God-lovers. That's sweet.
** - these are things worth checking out...