George and Lexie Binoka are the founders of Kenya Baptist Ministries which exists to reach Kenya with the gospel, plant churches, train pastors and lay leadership for the ministry, and instill in others a burden for reaching the world with the gospel.
April 2019 Update
Acclimating to The Darkness of This World
No one enjoys the discomfort of difficulty. With it, discomfort brings the feeling of being distant from God. Feeling oppressed and alone, dark seasons are discouraging believers everywhere. The psalmist reflects these feelings in the following hymn. We were encouraged by the words of Psalm 13:
How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever?
how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?
how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and hear me, O Lord my God:
lighten mine eyes,
lest I sleep the sleep of death
lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him;
and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved.
But I have trusted in thy mercy;
my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.
I will sing unto the Lord,
because he hath dealt bountifully with me.
The psalmist feels forgotten by God during this season of difficulty. Have you ever been forgotten by someone? It is terrible. You feel abandoned and unimportant. Standing on the proverbial curb, feeling abandoned by God, times seems to stop.
The life of the psalmist begins to move in slow motion. Time drags in the first four lines. The psalmist asks God “how long” four times, reflecting this slowing of time. He longs for the season to be over quickly as he prayerfully chants with childlike immaturity, Abba (Daddy), Abba, Abba, make it stop!
Forgotten, rejected, depressed, and defeated, the psalmist craves the warmth of light and the hope of God’s provision. He feels as if he will die if something does not change soon. His enemies have been longing for his demise, and look on with delight as he suffers. He demands light. He is tired of the darkness.
Why does God allow His children to experience the dark seasons that naturally occur in a sin-cursed world? It seems that God is acclimating us to the proverbial night. We are squeamish in the night though, preferring to live in perpetual light. However, God knows better. God is trying to teach His children that they are as equally secure in darkness as they are in light.
What the Father wants is the trust of His children. Trust
is the lesson. Eight years into my faith journey, having seen His hand time and
time again, He was hoping that I would not squirm in the darkness like I did
when I was a newborn in my faith.
The first four stanzas of this psalm are exactly how we felt in
January. We watched our health and financial security suffer. We had
to rearrange our travel schedule because our truck was in the shop for nearly a
month. Experiencing pain in her kidneys, Lexie’s doctor ran expensive
tests only to tell us that she would need to run the same order of tests every
six months. You cannot live half way across the world and see your
American doctor every six months.
It was a nightmare, a dark season. I began to beg God for light. I began to
feel embittered because of the darkness. I wondered where God
was. How long would He let the forces of evil have their way?
I was rebuked by the ending of Psalm 13:
But I have trusted in thy mercy;
my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.
I will sing unto the Lord,
because You have dealt bountifully with me.
The darkness caused me to forget the God who provided a truck that just appeared one day, or so it seemed. Or a fifth wheel that continues to be a memorial of God’s provision. We forget that we started this journey (as in began day one of deputation) with 35% of our needed support.
But those types of provisions are nothing compared to the salvation God has provided through His Son. Read the story of Calvary sometime today. Do you doubt that God will ever withhold anything you need after seeing the Son sacrificed on your behalf?
Think about all of your sin. Can you even calculate it? If you have placed your trust in the resurrected Christ and His finished work on the cross, it is gone. How good is God? Can we even begin to surmise the goodness of God? Immaturely, we panic in dark, difficult times. Where did the light go, God?! Why can’t you leave the light on? And I imagine Him saying: “trust Me. I have never failed you.” Don’t doubt in the darkness what God said in the light, (something Pastor Mike Sproul, a dear and godly mentor, once told me). God is worthy of our trust. He is always good, only good. We must only trust Him.
In Christ,
Status Update
- Churches Visited: 39
- Churches Upcoming: 24
- Miles Traveled: 11,479 mi
- Coffee Cups Consumed: 225
- Current Support Level: 65% ( +5% from Jan. Update)
Prayer Requests
- Survey Trip to Kenya for 6 weeks starting April 17.
- Pray that Lexie would be able to find a good urologist in Kenya.
- School bill for the semester ($2000).
- To be fully supported by May of 2020.
- For God to give our Kenya IBM Team wisdom as we build the Safari House and for God to provide the final $5000 needed to finish the building.
Please make all checks payable to International Baptist Missions and designated to George and Lexie Binoka.
