A view from Signal Hill
Frank Laubach trudged up Signal Hill again, despair shrouding his heart. After patient waiting and great effort he’d reached an impasse, with no path forward toward success.
Frank had spent seven years earning college and seminary degrees, married Effa Seely in 1912, and together they’d sought to follow God’s plan and become missionaries.
In 1915 the couple traveled to the Philippines, eager to work with the Muslim Moro people on Mindanao.
Mindanao is the large island to the south among the Philippines.
But just a few weeks after their arrival, the U.S. Army post commander stationed there required them to leave, insisting the area was too dangerous for Christians.
First they moved to north Mindanao, and ministered among the people there. In 1922, Frank and Effa moved their growing family to Manila where Frank became dean of Union College and established churches.
Surely he could take satisfaction in these accomplishments. But his heart’s desire was still set on working among the Moros.
Nearly eight years later, the trouble in southern Mindanao finally subsided. Frank left his family in Manila and returned, only to be rejected wherever he went. No one would listen to Frank, and after a month he had to admit defeat.
Moro people of Mindanao
One evening atop Signal Hill, Frank poured out his heart to God again and asked, “Why have my efforts failed?”
And this time God answered, identifying the problem. Frank saw the Moro people only as potential converts to Christianity, not as people to love.
“You feel superior to them because you are white,” God said. “If you can forget you are an American and think only how I love them, they will respond.”
The truth compelled Frank to pray, “Drive me out of myself, Lord. Come and take possession of me and think your thoughts in my mind.”
God then revealed his course of action for Frank. “If you want the Moros to be fair to your faith, be fair to theirs. Study the Koran with them.”*
The next day Frank told the Moro priests he wanted to study the Koran. Eagerly they talked with him, and Frank began to build relationships with these men, sharing the good news about the great prophet they already knew: Jesus.
Most of the Moro people couldn’t read. Frank knew that literacy would be important for teaching about Christ, so he worked to provide a dictionary of their language, Maranaw, and established a school. The Moros expressed enthusiastic gratitude.
Frank procured a printing press and devised an adult literacy program that proved highly successful. But as the Great Depression reached the Philippines, the program seemed destined to collapse. How would they pay for materials?
Frank’s solution: “Each One Teach One.” Everyone who learned to read was urged to teach someone else, using the materials they had. And as Frank taught, he shared about Christ.
Over the ensuing years, Frank wrote books about his teaching methods which were adopted around the world. An estimated sixty million people have learned to read, thanks to Frank’s techniques.
But more important are the thousands of people he brought into a rich experience with God——through his other writings.
For Frank, that night on Signal Hill was the beginning of growing intimacy with God, revealed in his subsequent journal entries, articles, and books.
One habit in particular transformed his life. Like Brother Lawrence three centuries before, Frank sought to live moment by moment in relationship with God.
Frank’s Letters by a Modern Mystic trace the beginning of this journey toward intimacy.
“I resolved that I would succeed better this year with my experiment of filling every minute full of the thought of God than I succeeded last year” (1-3-1930).
“This year I have started out trying to live all my waking moments in conscious listening to the inner voice, asking without ceasing, ’What, Father, do you desire said? What, Father, do you desire done this minute’” (1-20-1930)?
“It is exactly that ‘moment by moment,’ every waking moment, surrender, responsiveness, obedience, sensitiveness, pliability, ’lost in His love,’ that I now have the mind-bent to explore with all my might” (1-26-1930).
So began his life-long practice of constant, blessed connection with his heavenly Father, which he eagerly desired for others.
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/803882
“Why do I harp on this inner experience? Because I feel convinced that for me and for you who read there lie ahead undiscovered continents of spiritual living compared with which we are infants in arms” (Frank Laubach, 1884-1970).
And what will result from such a pursuit? No doubt we’ll experience a level of shalom in the presence of God that for now we can only imagine.
Let’s explore! Next week we’ll consider Frank’s suggestions that will take us to those “continents of spiritual living!”
*https://www.ananda.org/blog/laubach-christian-literacy-god/
Additional Sources:
https://www.jcsvillage.org/blog/2017/3/23/frank-laubachs-great-experiment
https://renovare.org/articles/living-each-moment-with-a-sense-of-gods-presence-frank-laubach
Image credits: http://www.flickr.com; http://www.picryl.com; http://www.flickr.com; http://www.azquotes.com.
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From the Inside Out 