The Fire Within Mama Maggie
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The unexpected highlight of the latest Willow Creek Leadership Summit was Mama Maggie Gobran, the diminutive Coptic Christian who works in the slums of Cairo, Egypt, with destitute children, both Christian and Muslim, who "are hungry every hour."
While she heads an organization, Stephen's Children, it was clear that the power of her leadership was a more mystical kind than normally spotlighted at leadership summits.
In her remarks, Mama Maggie said, "The hardest task of a leader is to get to know the Almighty and to keep your heart pure." One way to do that, she said, is through silence. There "you discover a taste of eternity." Her means:
"Silence your body to listen to words.
"Silence your tongue to listen to thoughts.
"Silence your thoughts to listen to your heart beating.
"Silence your heart to listen to your spirit.
"Silence your spirit to listen to His Spirit."
The leaders at the summit were fascinated by the power of her gentle spirit. Afterward, Marshall Shelley and Drew Dyck asked her a few questions.
How do you feel when people call you "the Mother Teresa of Cairo"?
Every time I hear it I feel that she's coming to me saying, "I'm blessing you." And I want her to keep on blessing me and the children until the day we stand before Jesus. I'm not worthy to untie her sandal. But I know she's with me. We have the same lover.
My nephew, a physician, gave me a Christmas gift, a framed photo of Mother Teresa, and she is in front of me every day. She comes to me in dreams. Also in hard times.
What do you do in times of discouragement, when it seems the needs outweigh the resources?
When you are heading anything, it's a very lonely place. Sometimes it's not easy. When we started this ministry one leader told me one thing—never give up. I keep that thought in front of me all the time.
When we are young, we think we are going to conquer the world, but when we become more mature, we think, Oh, we're so small compared to the whole world. And then you discover the most difficult thing is going inside your own spirit. The enemy comes inside to a leader and says, "Give up. Nobody loves you. Nobody appreciates you. Nobody cares." So I must take the time to go inside and see the way Jesus sees. By inside I mean not just taking an hour for quiet time but a day for quiet time.
St. John of the Cross described a "dark night of the soul," a time of bleakness and abandonment. Has that happened to you?
This is the fire that Jesus wants everyone to go through. In the fire you are either burned or become pure. His love is fire. It consumes or purifies.
Isaiah 33 says: "Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? … He who walks righteously and speaks what is right."
The fire of love will burn our sins and it will take us to dimensions we never thought of. Like Paul in 2 Corinthians 12 when he was taken places and he didn't know if he was even flesh or not, taken to "the third heaven." Like Moses on the mountain. They were taken to the Almighty, seeing things they never imagined. They could not express it even.
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Marshall Shelley is editor of Leadership Journal and an editorial vice-president of Christianity Today.
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Displaying 1–5 of 7 comments
Raja
I think that some of you are viewing Mother Maggie akin to how an adolescent might view their parents. Mother Maggie is a member of a faith tradition that goes all the way back to the apostles and not the reformation. When you play the "telephone game" it is the ones at the beginning of the circle that have less distortion of the original method. Evangelicals often look from the end of the circle and point a judgmental finger that those at the beginning have a distorted message.
Truth68
Scripture forbids speaking to and visitations from the "dead". Also, we do nothing in our own power and cannot MAKE ourselves pure, only the work of the Holy Spirit can do that. Only our trust and faith in Jesus Christ is what brings salvation, not our works. Works are the outpouring of our love for Christ through the Holy Spirit. Third, if one thinks that they can hear from God and then make claims, hope they have heard the right voice- Satan can appear as an angel of light.
Jane Hinrichs
This woman is our sister in Christ. She loves Jesus. Focusing on her dreams is silly -- do her dreams bring her closer to Jesus? She is doing the work of Christ. Why is everyone so darn worried about what she mentioned about Mother Teresa? She isn't channeling the dead. She is not in charge of her dreams. There is no sin here.
Nancy King
Jesus was visited by Moses and Elijah in Matthew 17. One point is, they aren't actually dead, but very much alive! I think where it starts coming into witchcraft is when one starts calling those who have passed on to come to them. We should never call on those who have passed on to come to us, but if one appears, we can test the spirits as we are directed to do in 1 John 4:1-4, by asking it if Jesus Christ came in the flesh. These are just my thoughts...you test them out :o)
DPH
Hmmm . . . . it seems that the Scriptures' sense is that by their fruit you will know them. It would seem that the works that Jesus did are being done by this lady as well. What do you think? I am inclined to be less cynical when I know that my own relationship with Jesus is based on where I am in my ongoing working out of my salvation with fear and trembling. This also is a Coptic sister with a very different view of the world and God's activity from our own North American tendencies.
