David:     Karen, what’s the little couplet about the coronavirus you’ve been quoting throughout that house?

Karen:     I think quite collecting all sorts of couplets. Let me think. It’s, “Wash your hands, say your prayers. Jesus and germs are everywhere.”

David:     Where in the world did you pick that up?

Karen:     Well, I’m thinking little signs on the side of the road. We have a circle driveway and so I have a place to hang little notice signs on either side of those, you know, the driveway. I was trying to think of something catchy. Like “Buck up, don’t be afraid. The greatest fear you have to fear is fear itself.” You know, all this other stuff. So, this one came up. I found it. I don’t know where I found it, but it was kind of cute.

Intro:      Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David:     Let me see if I get it right. Wash your hands. What’s the next part?

Karen:     Say your prayers.

David:     Say your prayers.

Karen:     Jesus and germs are everywhere.

David:     …are everywhere.

Karen:     That’s true. The theological message, I think I couldn’t quite draw it out to my satisfaction. So, I did put that one up.

David:     People drive through the circular truck and are scratching their heads. I’m going to blame it on you.

Karen:     There was another cute one that I didn’t use. It was “Wash your hands like you have been chopping jalapeno peppers and then had to scratch your eye.” I didn’t put that one up either.

David:     No, that doesn’t have the theological, say your prayers part of it.

Karen:     Make a part of a theology.

David:     So, this is the last of eight special programs we’re putting together from a series I did over 25 years ago when I was going through a terrible time. Now, I’m not going through a horrendous time like that. But Karen, I know people who have gotten the word about a family member where there’s the brain tumor, the doctors weren’t able to get the whole tumor and the prognosis is not good.

Karen:     Well, we’re in the midst of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. So, there are a lot of people I think who are very anxious. Because we have this bedrock of faith, I think that eliminates a lot of the anxiety, but we’re also not having the stressors. I mean, if we had a son in a hospital situation right now

David:     …like I’m thinking of someone I spoke with whose mate is confronting the virus every day and there’s a great fear that this…

Karen:     …in a work situation.

David:     Yes, person will pick it up.

Karen:     Yeah.

David:     You know, so those are very difficult things.

Karen:     There’s plenty of cause for anxiety and for fear.

David:     Another person whose business, small business…

Karen:     …friends of ours…

David:     …able to start it up again.

Karen:     Local cleaners.

David:     Yeah.

Karen:     Exactly.

David:     Yeah, another individual talked with us for prayer because having to lay off numbers of workers, people he’s known for years, just tearing him up.

Karen:     And so, our listeners, perhaps it would be helpful for them as they’re listening to the podcast to just take a moment and say, “What are the anxieties I’m personally working with? What are the things I’m fearing for as far as I can’t see, can’t project it, this is going to go very well in the future”? Because that personalizes the things that you were talking about and reading from the book that you wrote what, 25, 30 years ago? We’re finding it extraordinarily appropriate. The message in it for the things that we’re going through today.

David:     This is a message that kind of wrapped up the whole series and it will wrap up this series. We won’t do more programs probably on the coronavirus, but these are the eight that I’m believing have been helpful and the Lord is using in people’s lives.

There is a surprise ending to the film, The Madness of King George, a historic study nominated for four Academy Awards. This screenplay includes a look at the treatment physicians afforded a strange mental illness that the English monarch suffered. The events take place about a decade after America won her independence.

In one emotional scene, the upset and odd-acting king is, of all places, on the roof of Windsor Castle. The wind is blowing and a full moon shines on an array of chimneys that appear to be a group of observers to this bizarre incident. A concerned and anxious Queen Charlotte, played by Helen Merrin, asks, “Do you think that you’re mad”? King George, and he’s played by Nigel Hawthorne, responds, only making partial sense, “I don’t know. I don’t know. Madness isn’t such a terror. Madness is not half-blind. Madness can stand. They skip. They dance. And I talk. I talk and talk and talk. I hear the words, so I have to speak them. I have to empty my head of the words. Something has happened. Something is not right. Oh, Charlotte”! And then the two embraces, leaping in each other’s arms.

The field of medicine in the late 1780s was certainly not what it is today. And watching as various treatments are tried on the king, viewers have to wonder how he actually survived. But he does, and in time George miraculously assumes his royal duties once again.

However, his recovery has hardly been due to the skill of his doctors. At the end of the film, a helpful message appears on the screen just before the credits, and it reads, “The color of the king’s urine suggests he was suffering from porphyria, a physical illness that affects the nervous system. The disease is periodic, unpredictable, and hereditary.” So, this was the sickness that comes and goes. It was just a matter of time before the king’s symptoms disappeared, as though his system had healed itself.

Another film is taking us by surprise, though not because we don’t know how the age-old story ends. Instead, it’s the fact that more than 700 million people around the world have seen this historic classic. That’s a huge number to watch one movie, 700 million.

A new book by Paul Eshelman, the director of this worldwide film project, tells what happened when the feature was shown over Iraqi national television, at the Soviet Concert Hall in Stalin’s birthplace, to resistant Nigerian Muslims in Africa, near the killing fields of Cambodia, and in shining path guerrilla territory inside Peru. I have interviewed Paul on both radio and television, and many of the stories he shares fall into the near-miracle category.

This biographical movie has been watched by huge crowds, numbering in the tens of thousands. It’s also been shown to remote Asian villages where a sheet served as a screen. But here’s what’s remarkable. A man’s life, which to us is almost too well-known, quickly brings tears to audience when the main character is put to death. Then before long, there is an explosion of applause when he comes alive again. It’s like the viewers knew this is an account that just has to be true. Something inside each one affirms, here’s the person I’ve been looking for all my life.

This self-authenticating of the Holy Spirit is what makes so many people want to give their lives to this man, whose life is chronicled in The Touch of Jesus. I don’t believe it’s too much to say that the Jesus film project has become one of the most remarkable evangelistic tools in recent history.

Dr. Bill Bright first thought of producing a film that would closely follow the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life. Since being made, it’s been shown in 216 countries and translated into more than 320 languages. The Lord is obviously putting his blessing on this outreach in a way that boggles the mind.

Much of the world’s population still lives in storytelling cultures, and this movie tells the most powerful story of all. How amazing to think that Christ’s role in history, which we know so much about, is foreign to so many. But people who aren’t acquainted with what happened when Jesus came to earth find that through this film they are immediately captured by the marvelous love of God’s Son, and the surprise ending almost overwhelms them.

Christ says in John 16:20-22, “You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come, but when her baby is born, she forgets the anguish because of the joy that a child is born into the world. So, with you. Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.”

Here is history’s most amazing turnabout. The worst of defeats becomes the greatest of victories. The angels at the empty tomb summed it up well when they asked the dedicated women who came to anoint Christ’s body, “Why do you look the living among the dead”?

This ending is not historic irony that by some quirk resolves itself as in the madness of King George. Here is a divine narrative put together before the creation of the world. God is the one responsible for how things turn out, and what he did needs to be told to all. When the magnitude of the incarnation is grasped, it has a profound effect on lives, and that of course is exactly what our Lord intended. I am choosing to live my life with the firm conviction that one of God’s outstanding characteristics is that he is full of resurrection-type surprises.

One of his specialties is taking an impossible circumstances and coming up with new possibilities. When things look so bad that we are tempted to give up like the early disciples did after the crucifixion, we need to put our hope in the Lord’s ability to create amazing turnabouts. He still orchestrates them in ways that rival the accounts we read about in Scripture.

So, here is another specific answer to the question of what to do when you don’t know what to do. Bad times become good times when you place your hope in the God of surprising outcomes.

Can I say that again? Bad times become good times when you place your hope in the God of surprising outcomes.

I am believing that this recent tough chapter in my life will soon take a wonderful turn. It is not like God to waste major experiences without putting his special twist on how things end.

Throughout this series, I have repeatedly mentioned India. What a perplexing maze that country went through before their independence was finally declared. That history is carefully told in the film Gandhi, in which the director Richard Attenborough chronicles the life of the deceased Indian leader. Ben Kingsley plays the role of the man Indians call the Great Soul. I admire Gandhi’s tenacity, his death fasts, and his great concern for his people. How sad that an assassin’s bullet cut him down in January of 1948 before he could see the realization of his life’s work.

In the 1950s, India began to close its doors to western missionaries. These servants of the Lord were unfairly seen as part of the past period of colonialization. To Western Christian leaders, it seemed like a mortal blow to the future of the Church in India. How would the people of that vast subcontinent ever know the message of one far greater and more loving than Gandhi? It’s true that Christians could still get passports into India as physicians, educators, and so on. But tentmaker missionaries could not participate in the type of aggressive evangelism and church planning that would be required.

Although the cause of Christ in India seemed to have come to a standstill, nothing could have been further from the truth. In a most amazing fashion, the Lord began to call out national workers. Dark-skinned men and women began leading the Church just as Gandhi had in the earlier political setting. Before long, a disciplined band of men and women with hot hearts for evangelism and church planning were doing a work few Western missionaries could have imagined.

What happened was actually an advantage to the kingdom worldwide. A native missionary could live on as little as $30 a month. If in certain settings that was doubled or tripled, it was nothing compared to the cost of Western missionaries. Besides, Christian workers from places like the United States couldn’t get into India even if the extra money was raised.

These new national workers mixed easily with the people they were burdened to reach. They were dedicated, more than adequately educated, and excited about serving Christ. And before long, they began to see phenomenal growth mark the Church. Goals were established that were far and above anything Western missionaries would have dreamed. Today, when I talk to native missionaries in India, they say almost universally that it is spiritual harvest time in their land. Harvest time. Who would have thought it? Praise the Lord.

The largest number of unreached people groups in the world still live in India, but the door is wide open for native missionaries to do evangelism and church planning in these settings. And I believe the job will get done because the best and most qualified workers are being challenged to take the hardest assignments, which is probably the way it always should have been.

All of this is like divine irony to me. Again, it’s God taking what many saw as bad news and making that the springboard for the surprisingly good news He had in mind all along. I believe something truly wonderful will unfold for Christians in all lands where people place their hope in Him as a God of surprising outcomes.

Are you in the middle of a maze? I am too, remember? I’ve attempted to be open about my life as I shared my advice about what to do when you don’t know what to do. But I have to admit that while putting together these messages, I was awakened in the middle of the night with a panic attack. Sitting up in bed all I could think was, “We’re not going to make it. This whole thing is going to come crashing down around my head.” The surprise is that there won’t be a surprise. When my wife asked if I was all right, I felt a little like King George responding to Charlotte. “I don’t know. Something has happened. Something is not right. Oh, Karen.”

I went downstairs and prayed that my faith was weak. In my mind, the difficulties I faced loomed bigger than what I was able to ask of God. And finally, I went up to bed where Karen’s embrace seemed more real to me at the time than the Lord’s did.

When life becomes a maze, did you expect a sermon series by an expert? Here’s what to do, number one, number two, so on. Well, I’ve tried to be specific in my suggestions because it’s what I felt would be most helpful, but I’m not just researching a subject. This is a compilation of thoughts from friends who might have a suggestion or two to contribute.

Here’s what I’m saying as lessons learned by a man who understands something of what you’re experiencing. I, too, am still in the middle of the maze and sometimes I panic about ever making my way out. But then I’m not in the maze by myself. The advice I give has been picked up while walking with another who faced a lot more than any of us will ever begin to know. My traveling companion in this maze is Jesus.

For me, this year has been one of Christ’s repeating, “David, you lost your way, but you didn’t lose me. Take heart. I’ll make a path for you through this confusion. Concentrate on my help and not on your problems. Embrace one of my promises. Choose to believe it or not. There are lots of them. The supply won’t run out. They’re found all through the word. Keep your support relationships with other believers strong. That’s why I provided my church for you. Write down the joys that refresh your spirit. My father will never leave you without daily evidences of his loving care. Get rid of all the clutter you can from your life. You’ll find it a lot easier to keep your eyes on me. You’re never going to negotiate a maze without making some mistakes. So, remember there are times to lean heavily on God’s grace and forgiveness. Discover how I identify with your struggles. Then let me be the one to talk you through what needs to be done. Do you recall what one of your Lord’s specialties is, David? Good. Then place your hope in me as the God of surprising outcomes.”

Well, that’s my current experience. Now, friend, maybe it’s been a bad year for you like it’s been for me. And I’m sorry about that. But just because you’re lost doesn’t mean you’ve lost Christ. If you stay close to him, he will help you master your maze. I’m confident there’s a lot you already know about Jesus, but do this, will you? Picture yourself observing a crowd of people watching the movie “The Touch of Jesus.” Maybe it’s in Kathmandu, Nepal. Paul Eichman writes about this with Daniel, the native director of the Jesus Film Ministry for that Himalayan country at the roof of the world. Daniel’s commitment to Christ had resulted in his spending two months in jail. Reading from Paul’s book, these prisons were terrible hell holes, with dirt floors and a bucket at the end of the cell for sanitation. As the government troops heard of people being baptized, they picked them up in groups and threw them into prison. The Christian brothers and sisters brought food and blankets to help them survive this year there. They counted a privilege to suffer for their Lord. “We ask all Christians to tie their time”, Daniel explained. “That means we ask them to give 36 days a year to go to other areas to share Christ and show that Jesus’ film.”

Now, in your imagination, you’re at one of those Nepalese showings, okay? It’s not like watching a film at a church in our land. To show The Touch of Jesus in Nepal involves a certain amount of risk on someone’s part. Though the movie is not in your language, you know the story well enough to follow what’s happening. But even more than that, you notice the response of the viewers to what they see. You sense their delight in Jesus’ words and in his miracles and in his love for people.

Well, into the evening, the crowd grows quiet as the scenes begin that lead to the crucifixion. You detect tears and hear sobs. Then you catch their wonderment as the truth of the resurrection begins to impact them. And the applause begins again. The power of this story, the greatest of all people who ever lived, encompasses you afresh. And as you sit in silence attempting to process what’s taking place, thinking in your mind that the Jesus of this film comes and sits next to you. And he says what I said earlier. “So, my friend, I hear it’s been a bad time. I’m sorry about that. But in this setting, I thought you might see me through fresh eyes and hear me through new ears.” And then he continues. “These people don’t know me as well as you do, but already they believe in me. Can you trust me to make a path for you through this confusion? I really want you to be an ‘I believe’ person. Find a promise in scripture you would like to see God keep. Decide whether you believe it or not. Then dare to embrace it and make it your own. Don’t pull away from others. Work at support relationships that will strengthen you. This is important. You need me, but you need other Christians also. Don’t miss the joys my Father goes out of his way to grace your life with. He wants to refresh your spirit. Clutter is not a friend when you’re in a situation that’s already confusing. Get rid of as much of it as you can.

My father shows special consideration to those in the midst of a hard time. Learn to draw on His grace and forgiveness. I know firsthand what you’re going through. Believe me, I can identify with your struggles, and I’d be happy to talk you through a solution I know will work. Never give up hope. Surprising outcomes as one of My Father’s specialties. He demonstrated this in my case and I’m confident He will in yours as well. Tell Him what you would like to have happen. Go over your request to see if it’s in line with His best interest as well as yours. Then say, ‘Father, you should also feel free to come up with even a better solution for I understand you’re good at that’.”

Christ, what a marvelous person to teach you what to do when you don’t know what to do. I picture Him as an incredibly confident individual because He knew who His Father was. I want to live that way as well. I know that many tragedies can take place in our world, but if I am God’s man walking in obedience to what I believe He wants me to do, I should be confident that the ultimate outcome of my life will be good.

I believe what you and I experience can be like the experiences of the characters in Scripture who serve as examples for us. Joseph, Esther, David, Mary, Moses, Ruth. Not all their days were filled with sunshine. They knew extreme difficulties, but the Lord exalted them just like He did His Son.

Why would He want us to know about these men and women if their lessons of faith can’t be proved in our life as well? I’m convinced that the Christian experience was not meant to be lived in a perpetual maze. To desire to get out of confusing situations is a sign of health. You should want a tough time to reverse itself and become a good time. Sometimes that happens spontaneously, as in the case of King George and his doctors, but don’t count on it. If I were you, I would put my confidence in the way of the other King. I’d follow His prescriptions, assuming that down through the centuries His practice has more than proven itself. I would take to heart what He has to say, the touch of Jesus. That’s what I recommend.

Karen:     It’s good I have some Scripture that I came across this morning just to back up what you’ve been saying. This is from Psalm 46. “God is our refuge and strength and ever present help and trouble. Therefore, we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea. Though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging, God is our refuge and strength and ever-present help and trouble.” Good words, aren’t they?

David:     Yeah, they’re wonderful words. Very much so. Life fortunately is not bad all the time. While these things have been flawed.

Karen:     Well, people in the midst of a bad time wonder if it’s like you, as said and read in your writing, or wonder if its ever going to end. You know I’m concerned I’ve been tracking the suicide rates in our country and they’re up very high. I don’t have the statistics right in front of me. So, I think this is an isolating time for people, people who are lonely, people maybe who are in distress. So, we need to focus our prayers on those who would like to end it all because they can’t see an ending to it and acerbates problems that they have already. The little joys that happen in the day. Can I share one incident? Do we have time?

David:      Yeah, go ahead. That’s fine.

Karen:     Well, for the last few summers a migrant worker appeared at our door. He was actually working up the road from Mexico. He’s from Mexico and his name was Cerillo. So, I hired him to do some work in the yard. We have a large yard and every summer he’s shown up. I never get a phone call ahead of time that he’s coming or when he’s coming. He’s usually around March. Well, he just didn’t show up this year. So, they meant that we needed to do all the yard work by ourselves. The problem with having someone you can use who’s really good. He was like having three men. He was always on time and he did the work of three men as you think you can do more in your yard than you can do on your own.

David:     Well, especially when you get older.

Karen:     Especially when you get older. So, you’ve been helping me with stuff out there. You’ve been just great, but I didn’t want you having to take time to mow the lawn. So, I just was looking. I hardly even praying, but looking for maybe a high schooler or, you know, we have a next-door neighbor app that you can kind of keep up with your neighbors and there was just nothing that came up. And I was just starting to say, well, “I need to advertise that I need someone to cut my lawn, our lawn for the summer.” Went down the road and there was a man at the neighbor’s next door. And I got halfway down the street as I was hurrying on to make my one errand that I’ve run in the last three weeks. And I thought, oh, “That’s an answer to my prayer.” Came back, parked in the driveway, walked over, smiled. Big smile. I’m saying, “I’m ok. You don’t need to be afraid of here.”

David:     I’m going to get you whether God’s working this out or not.

Karen:     And said, “Do you think you could take your mower and just do our yard and next door and this one where I am, do our yard.” And he said, “Yes, ma’am, I can do that for you.” And I said, “Well, how much will it cost at $30?” He was an older gentleman. And I said, “Do you think you could do it all summer? Every time you come into our neighbor’s yard, could you come and then just do ours?” And he said, “Absolutely can.” So, I went down the road and I thought, “Oh, what an answer to prayer.”

David:     I would have affirmed it as well.

Karen:     What an answer to prayer. And, you know, it was exactly at the time when the yard needed to be mowed for the first time that spring. So, I have these evidences that God’s caring is love and that he’s standing beside us just that happens all the time. And if we’re on the lookout for it and remember to trust in him, the God of unexpected surprises.

David:     Yes, wonderful illustration.

Karen:     He just does this stuff all the time.

David:     Feeling better about it all the time, too. It’s good to hear what happened.

Karen:     So that’s my little push here for the day. Jesus is everywhere.

David:     What was that thing we started with again? Wash your hands. Say your prayers. Germs and Jesus are everywhere. Not profound.

David:     It actually fit.

Karen:     It fit.

David:     Yeah, it’s good ending. I also want to say just before we stop, for these eight special podcasts, I have put together five scriptures each time. So, these are five new scriptures on this last topic. And each of the scriptures have five questions. The reason I did that is because I think sometimes people want to go to the scripture, want to follow up on what’s been said, but they don’t know where to go.

Karen:     It’s a meditation guide on this topic. So, it’d be very helpful to people.

David:     Anyway, those are available. There’s no cost. If people find them helpful, I would be pleased. I had fun kind of putting them together. OK? Dean, information on how to get those. OK?

Outgo:     You may obtain a copy of the handout mentioned in this podcast by pointing your web browser to the following link: grow.beforewego.show. That’s all-lowercase letters. G R O W grow.beforewego.show S H O W. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address hosts@beforewego.show.

You’ve been listening to the Before We Go Podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast please remember to rate, review and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is copyright 2020 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Wheaton, Illinois 60187.