I think it's no coincidence that in His very first publicly recorded statement about what it means to follow Him, Jesus Christ totally and irrevocably eliminated human ability, human intelligence, human accomplishment, human beauty, human talents, human righteousness, human effort, or human will as meaningful criteria for true spirituality. The first sentence of His Sermon on the Mount makes this unmistakably clear: "How blessed are those who are destitute in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them!" (Matthew 5:4, ISV) With respect to enumerating the characteristics of true discipleship, it would seem that the only human element that Christ truly values is spiritual bankruptcy, which for the purpose of this Foreword I define as that certain, mandatory, and abject condition of total poverty of spirit and soul that marks the beginning of true Christian maturity.
And I confess publicly that with regard to true Christian maturity I am a spiritual invalid. More truthfully, I am a spiritual coward. I fear real Christian maturity. I cannot keep my hand to the plow. I fear wisdom. And I fear the truly godly. If I have run and grown weary in the company of the immature, how will I fare with the truly strong?
As I write these words, I'm a member of a Laodicean church community (the southern California evangelical community) in a Laodicean church age (the last years of the twentieth century). Like the Word Faith heretics of the 90s (AD 1990s, that is), I proclaim loudly that "I am rich, I am increased with goods, and I have need of nothing." But inwardly, like my Laodicean namesakes of the 90s (AD 90s, that is), I do not realize that I am wretched and poor and miserable and blind and naked. May God have mercy on my soul, for like the prophet Isaiah, I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.
And so it came about, as God so often works things in the lives of His people, that I found myself being invited to review a pre-publication draft of Nancy Missler's work Faith in the Night Seasons. It would seem Chuck and Nancy Missler had been pleased with other evaluations that I had done for previous books. So Nancy sent me the draft. And coincident to that sending there began a personal tutorial of the principles set forth in Faith in the Night Seasons. The tutor: God Himself. And I am the reluctant, rebellious, weary, and disobedient student. The wretched, poor, miserable, blind, and naked disciple.
I was not always this wayward. I was introduced to Christ in high school through the campus ministry of Youth for Christ. I went on to college and then graduated from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, one of the finest Christian seminaries in the world. I began working with non-profit corporations that were doing the Lord's work as a consultant for a highly respected Christian philanthropist.
And then, about eight years after leaving seminary, I began working on a telecommunications satellite project. My involvement in that project eventually turned out to become a remarkable example of how God provides for His people. In March 1996 I sold my stock in the satellite project to a major American aerospace company, turning over all of the proceeds to a charitable gifting structure. The charitable gifting structure then endowed the Learn Foundation so that it could begin translation of the Holy Bible: International Standard Version.
Then, just before Nancy Missler asked me to read the draft of Faith in the Night Seasons, all hell broke loose:
1. About the time I was selling the stock interests for which I served as trustee to that big aerospace firm, that firm used its influence to cancel my satellite company's construction contract with another vendor and assign the contract to itself. The other vendor sued my former company in binding arbitration before a Christian arbitration organization. I was called as a witness. As a result of my testimony to "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God," the original vendor won its case. Nearly $17 million in damages was awarded against my former company. Another $35 million judgment may come about soon.
2. Not happy with the outcome of the arbitration, the big aerospace firm then decided to sue me--in my opinion they're doing this because I told the truth. I learned about their lawsuit the very day Nancy Missler's note arrived asking me to review the draft of Faith in the Night Seasons.
3. Meanwhile, the more than $70,000 per month due and payable to the charitable gifting structure which was funding the ISV translation project was diverted into a holding account and withheld from the Learn Foundation. The Learn Foundation's properties went into foreclosure. Work on the ISV ground to a halt.
4. And so as I write this Foreword, more than three years of hard work on the ISV project, along with nearly ten years of other work on the satellite project, seem poised on the edge of destruction.
And the opening quotation from Isaiah 50:10 cuts like a knife: "Who among you fears the Lord, obeys the voice of his servant, walks in darkness, and has no light?"
For those who try to love, serve, and obey God, yet walk through night seasons where there is only darkness, Nancy Missler's edifying discussion of Faith in the Night Seasons will be a welcome word of encouragement. Citing practical and personal experience, along with the words of many Scriptural, historical and well-known believers who have lived through the dark nights of the soul and spirit, Nancy Missler's gentle encouragements will prove to be of enormous benefit to anyone who wonders what's going on in their Christian life when troubles displace peace, and when light gives way to darkness.
Faith in the Night Seasons forcefully argues that God faithfully works to His glory and our greater good through the dark nights of the soul and spirit, teaching us to walk by faith when God seems to be the farthest from us.
I find my background in theology and Biblical languages to be inadequate for undertaking a review of Faith in the Night Seasons. The only reliable test of its usefulness to the growing Christian is to carry it with you through the experience of God-directed darkness itself. To those who find themselves in that trying night season, reading Faith in the Night Seasons is its own reward. This work is no academic treatise. It's not a theoretical handbook laid out with the precision of a systematic theology. But if you need a guide map rather than a theological treatise, much will be gained by reading--and re-reading--Faith in the Night Seasons.
- William P. Welty, M.Div.
- Executive Director
- The Learn Foundation
- Translators of the Holy Bible: International Standard Version®
- Spring, 1999
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