Lynn Green

Category: Current Events

  • Ramadan and a Pyramid of rocks in the Desert

    Ramadan and a Pyramid of rocks in the Desert

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    Ramadan is well underway with all its intensity and contradictions. Muslims who take their faith seriously will fast from before dawn to after sundown.  Their fast also means not drinking any liquids.  Not eating during the day is one thing, but not drinking when desert lands are scorching hot—now that is really sacrificial!  (The timing of Ramadan is calculated by the lunar month, so that means that it moves forward a few weeks each calendar year.  In recent years it has fallen at the hottest time of the year, but now it is moving towards cooler months.)  On the other hand, the Ramadan fast signals the time of the year when more food is purchased and consumed in Muslim lands than any other time of the year.  So, although fasting is a sacrifice, the hours of the night are often marked by gorging on rich foods. 

    Lest Christians become judgmental, we can remember that we have turned Christmas into a season of feasting and drinking.  It seems to be a characteristic of human nature that religious sacrifice is usually paired with over-indulgence.

    SUPERNATURAL CONVERSIONS 

    For the past 25 years or so, Ramadan has also been marked by millions of Christians praying for Muslims to come to know who Jesus really is.  Though they revere Him as a great prophet, it usually needs a spiritual encounter with Him for Muslims to know Him as the Son of God.  Researchers have confirmed that the Ramadan prayer commitment has coincided with an unprecedented number of Muslims turning to Christ.  The majority of those seem to turn to faith in Jesus because of a dream or a vision or some other supernatural event in their lives. 

    A BUS RIDE THAT CHANGED HISTORY

     It started with a very slow bus ride across the Sinai Desert.  I was a member of a group of about 15 Christian mission leaders who were meeting in Egypt.  We were from all around the world and we generally moved our regular meetings from one continent to another.  We had planned to meet in Cairo with Egyptian Christian leaders and then to travel to the Red Sea for our last few days together. 

    The bus that arrived to take us across the Sinai turned out to be small and under-powered, so all our luggage had to go on the roof rack.  On that particular day, a very strong wind from the east was blowing across the desert, so we ended up fighting an unrelenting headwind all day.  (At one point the wind was so strong that it broke the restraints and a few suitcases, including mine, were scattered across the desert.  I found myself sprinting across the desert to retrieve underwear, socks and various bits as the wind attempted to blow them back to Cairo.  Among the bits was my treasured and irreplaceable travel alarm/filter coffee maker.  It took quite a while for me to forgive the driver who failed to adequately secure my luggage!)  Since the bus was small and seriously underpowered, progress was frustratingly slow and we decided to work through some of the agenda items for the business part of our time together.  It must be said that, like so many meetings of Christians, we always planned worship and prayer into our times together, but the business agenda seemed to expand and take up the vast majority of our available time.

    This time it was different.  No one could be heard in the noisy little bus unless they had the microphone that was usually used by the guide.  Because of that, most of the usual jokes and other interruptions were excluded.  It seemed almost miraculous that we had dealt with all our business by the time we reached our destination.  What a surprise!  We were left with the best part of three days with no agenda.

    So we worshipped together and asked the Lord what He wanted us to do.  It was so clear to the group that God had worked in our circumstances to give us time to pray for the Middle East. 

    GOD SPEAKS WHEN WE LISTEN

    There were about 15 of us and we were together in unity and prayer for Jews, Arabs and other Muslims.  The Spirit dealt with us about our attitudes—our tendency to take sides in the disputes of the Middle East.  We made a commitment to be “two-eyed”—seeing both sides of the conflicts, especially the deadly hatred between Jews and Arabs.  In principle, we all knew that God loves people without regard to race or gender or ethnicity or nationality, but in practice we often strayed from that divine plumb line.

    A COVENANT ON THE THIRD DAY

    For many of us in that group, the Muslim world was both overwhelmingly large and discouragingly unresponsive to the Gospel.  But God called us to be willing to give our lives, as He directed us, to reach Muslims and Jews.  To mark that challenge from the Holy Spirit, we went a few miles inland into the Sinai and then began to gather large rocks.  We made a pile of rocks like a pyramid and then stood around it in a circle and solemnly declared that we, and our families, were available to God to reach those who seemed to be so far away from knowing the true Jesus.

    OUR LIVES WERE NEVER THE SAME

     We had no idea how the Lord might respond to our commitment, but we knew He was calling us to it.  Much came from our agreement with God.  For me, it confirmed that I was to go ahead with the Reconciliation Walk in the late 1990s.  That was an astounding, life-changing, perspective-shaping event over three years, from late 1995 to mid-1999.

    All of us knew that we were to pray for Muslims and my dear friend, Floyd McClung took a lead in a project to pray during the Ramadan fast each year.  With his staff and his global network of friends, he produced the first 30-Days Prayer booklet for the following year.  Since then, the initiative has grown far beyond our expectations, but more importantly, the seemingly impenetrable barrier keeping Muslims from knowing who Jesus really is began to crumble.

    UNPRECEDENTED PEOPLE MOVEMENTS

    Dr David Garrison’s extensive research demonstrates that, prior to about 1992, there were virtually no large movements of Muslim-background people into faith in Jesus, but since then there have been scores of such people movements.  (He used a parameter of more than 1000 people from any particular group.)  AND, the momentum is growing each year.  Prayer really does change things!

    BUT WHAT ABOUT THE JEWS?

    During those three days in 1992, we prayed extensively about both Jews and Arabs and Muslims in general.  The Lord clearly spoke to us to make our commitments to be two-eyed and to be available to reach Muslims and to get the 30 Days prayer movement going.  It was clearly His initiative and His time. 

    Since then I have been asked from time to time: “Why don’t we have a similar annual season of prayer for Jews?”  My usual reply is, “Great idea!  If you have that on your heart, you should do it.”  Floyd had a clear Word from God to encourage prayer during Ramadan.  There is no way it could have become what it has, except that it was God’s initiative in God’s time. 

    More prayer is also needed for Jews.  Who is God speaking to about that?  How does he want it done?  All I know is that His heart for the Jews is one of unrelenting love. 

    STAYING TWO-EYED

    Recently, we have been in another season of conflict between Palestinians and Israelis and most of the press reports are very critical of Israel, while a few news outlets are more pro-Israel.  The conflict, the photos, the reports all provoke us to take sides—to become one-eyed.   I will always remember the depth of God’s dealing with us in the Sinai and I recommit myself to pray and to hold fiercely to vision from both eyes!

    It is not too late to order 30 Days of Prayer booklets.  Information is available at:
    www.30daysprayer.com

     Lynn Green.

  • Jerusalem and Gaza

    Jerusalem and Gaza

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    As the national anthem of the United States of America is sung at the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, the death toll on the border between Gaza and Israel mounts.  I have been watching the ceremony and reports on the border deaths juxtaposed on two different screens.  Commentators generally give away their political leanings in the first one or two sentences of their report and those watching the embassy ceremony convey their approval via thousands of “likes” and “loves” on Facebook.

    As I take it all in, my heart is torn.  I have walked the streets of Israel and Palestinian territories, have been invited into homes for tea, met with mayors and local dignitaries and have been hosted by the Chief Rabbi and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem on the same day.  After all that, I cannot take sides and am convinced that God does not take sides.  As He said to Samuel:

    “I look on the heart…”  People are neither condemned nor redeemed on the basis of their race, nationality, gender nor any other group identity.  

    He knows each of us so intimately that he says the very hairs on our heads are numbered.

    I can assure you, as I am sure you would expect, that there are wonderful, kind people on both sides of the border and their most fervent hope is that there would be peace for their children.  There are others, on both sides of the border, who are fervent in their desire to wipe “the other” from the face of the earth.  Tragically, the latter has grown faster than the former in recent years.

    Is there any way forward?  Well, I have a wish.  It is not yet a hope and certainly not a confident faith, but it is a clear wish and that is a good place to start.

    I wish that systematic fear and racial hatred would be eradicated from Israeli life, especially from the military training, which all Israelis have to undertake.  Friends who have been in the military tell me that every young person is taught to hate and fear and feel superior to Palestinians.  I can understand how that could seem to be expedient for military service, but it is so destructive in the long term.

    I wish that Palestinians could learn that they have massive resources and that they can live for positive, achievable purposes rather than for vengeance and for retaking the land.  People, especially young people, are our greatest asset and the Palestinians have lots of them!  From the late 1940s until today, Singapore and South Korea represent what can happen to a nation that is poor in other natural resources, but rich in people.  Both were poverty stricken at the beginning of the 1950s, but both set their sights on making the most of their people and are numbered in the top thirty most prosperous nations in the world.

    The Palestinians are highly gifted people, with an unusually high percentage of very intelligent citizens.  They could accomplish so much if they turned their focus from victimhood towards creating a better future for their children—EVEN IF THE POLITICAL SITUATION DOES NOT IMPROVE.

    This is hard for the Palestinians because they have embraced Muslim leaders who use their religious texts for fanning the flames of hatred.  The current Grand Mufti of Jerusalem has quoted a saying attributed to the Prophet Mohammed:

    “The Hour will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jews will hide behind stones or trees.  Then the stones or trees will call:  O Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”  This kind of thinking is a manifestation of a very deep evil.

    In light of all this, can my wish begin to be a real hope?  Can it become a confident faith?  With God all things are possible!  Later this week, millions of Christians will begin 30 Days of Prayer to coincide with the Muslim fast of Ramadan.  (I will write more about that soon.)  When we listen to God and then pray as He leads us, it changes history.

    This volatile, dangerous, long-standing conflict can change!  Let us listen, pray and obey and then see what God can do.

    Lynn Green.

  • Crossing the Threshold of change. How does it work now? – Part 3

    Crossing the Threshold of change. How does it work now? – Part 3

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    In this final video of a three part series Lynn Green joins our founders to continue the discussion on leadership in YWAM. We encourage all YWAM staff to watch and please share with your locations.

  • What’s really Happening in North Korea

    What’s really Happening in North Korea

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    Have you been watching the reaction to the unexpected events in North and South Korea?  Journalists and politicians have been arguing back and forth about who or what led to the unprecedented meeting between north and south.  None of them expected that Kim Jong Un would cross the border into South Korea, especially in light of the fact that, just a few weeks earlier, much of the world was expecting him to trigger another war and most alarmingly, to use nuclear weapons in anger for the first time in more than 70 years.

    But the steady progress towards official peace and even reunification continues at an entirely unexpected pace.  I notice that just a few days ago the North Korean regime changed their official time zone to match the South.  Until now, they had used even the clocks to demonstrate that they were completely separate and sworn enemies.

    When the great thaw came so suddenly, some figured it was due to the “diplomacy” of Donald Trump—that for the first time in decades, an American President might actually strike a devastating first blow to North Korea.  Others were quick to say (along the expected political lines of division) that Trump had nothing to do with it, but that it was due to economic hardship.  Others speculated that it was because China finally agreed to impose some sanctions and that threatened the viability of Kim’s regime.  Still others pointed to satellite evidence that the tunnels being used to develop nuclear capacity had mysteriously collapsed, destroying much of what they had gained.

    I suspect that some of all of the factors just listed might have contributed to the great thaw, but that none of them were causative.

    An Israeli friend of mine says, “The destiny of nations is not to be found in the visible majority, but in the redeemed minority—even though it might be very small.”  In other words, a few people obeying the Holy Spirit can make all the difference.  The Apostle Paul writes in his letter to the believers in Ephesus that, “God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made Him head over all things for the benefit of the Church.”  (Ephesians 1:22).

    We don’t often see the truth of this scripture worked out, so we might well ask if it is really true, and if it is, how can we see it work?  Experience over recent years leads me to believe that we can see this authority in action when two conditions are met:  first that we seriously depend on the Holy Spirit, listening and sacrificially obeying; second, that we allow him to work deeply within us until we, the people of God, come to the depth of unity that Jesus describes to his disciples in John 17:21 – “I pray that they may all be one, just as You and I are one…” And that means oneness across all the usual dangerous human divides.

    In recent years I have experienced this extraordinary unity on several occasions, with Germans, French and English; with Jews and Arabs, with Chinese, Japanese and Koreans, with French and English Canadians and many other often toxic divisions.  It is an “end times move” to unite the Bride of Christ and is, as far as I know, unprecedented in history.

    Now, in the past few months on two occasions believers from many nations have convened believers from South and North Korea.  In the first one, some of the expected tensions and even anger boiled to the surface.  But God is in this—not only was it the right thing to do; it was in God’s time.  Timing is important!  The Holy Spirit melted hurt and hardened people and they embraced one another.  (None of us should underestimate the size of the cultural and economic gulf that has grown between these two nations during the past 70 years.)

    When that first meeting was over, the Holy Spirit spoke to those who convened and said, “The work has not been completed yet; gather again!”  They obeyed sacrificially and gathered again, only weeks after the first one.  Once again the Holy Spirit moved very deeply, resulting in a depth of family love that none had ever experienced before.  At the conclusion of that event, there was a sense that God had done what He wanted.

    And, that very week, the political chasm began to be bridged.  I can’t prove that the meeting of the “redeemed minority” was the primary cause of the beginning of the peace process, but that is what I believe—and no one can say that it had no effect.

    After all what does the Word of God say?

     

    “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.  Therefore put on every piece of God’s armor…”

    I believe it!

    Lynn Green.