Utumishi Blog

From Job 2:11-25:6:

• Job is sitting in gehenna/hell, unrecognisable (Isa. 52:14), a man of sorrows, acquainted with every kind of grief (Isa. 53:3).
• Job’s ‘comforters’ throw at him verses like “I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.”
• Job’s great hope is beyond death, beyond the destruction of his flesh, in resurrection life and seeing his Redeemer face to face (Job 19:25-27).
• Fidel movingly concluded with a powerful personal testimony – things may not be better in this life but in the end there is a new body and seeing Christ – that is our hope.

Later in the day it was a privilege to have with us a missionary family serving among largely unreached people in the north of Kenya. They shared:

1. Mission is God focussed; mission is God’s heart from Genesis to Revelation; mission is to gather people from all ‘ethne’ (meaning all people groups); “Mission exists because worship doesn’t.” (Piper, Let the Nations be Glad).
2. The great Abrahamic blessing is fulfilled in the NT in terms of justification in Christ (Gal. 3) and turning us from our wickedness to God (Acts 3).
3. There are real challenges in their mission context – insecurity, language, transport (waiting all day for a bus that never turns up then finally travelling with a small baby in the back of a lorry), communication (no reception), heat (up to 40 degrees C), lack of good drinking water, having to sacrifice ambitions (the Kenyan dream) and the misunderstanding of family and friends – but all these can be overcome in God’s grace.
4. Most striking of all, the brother shared about tensions with family as a firstborn with nine siblings, educated and expected (and wanting) to help. He talked about Mt. 10:37-39 and how he had at the same time done his best to keep communication channels open and then about how it was actually the best thing for his family for him to go because they had started to look at him as a god-provider and they needed to break from that and seek the real God. He was a clear that there was no promise that they would not go hungry some days or sometimes suffer for his decision to go but it was for their spiritual good and he had already seen some fruit in a brother now interested in becoming a missionary himself and other siblings growing in their relationships with the Lord. Amazing testimony.

Also today:

• Augustine in 30 minutes
• Practical Medley
• Sacraments (2nd years)