Higher Orders
Theme for the Week: Agreeing with God
Stephen L. Shanklin
Friday, July 27, 2001
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verse: Everyone who has left houses or.
fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much (Matthew 19:29).
Bonus Reading: Matthew 19:16-30
Chiune Sugihara, as a boy, dreamed of becoming Japan's ambassador to Russia. By the 1930s, as ambassador to Lithuania, he was a step away from fulfilling his dream.
One morning a huge throng gathered outside his home. Sugihara learned they were Jews who'd fled there from Poland, seeking Sugi-hara's help for Japanese visas that would permit them to escape the German Gestapo.
Three times Sugihara wired Tokyo for permission to provide the visas; three times he was rejected. Sugihara, a committed Christian, had to choose between his dream and the lives of the crowd. Sugihara chose to disobey orders. For the next 28 days he wrote visas by hand, barely sleeping or eating. Recalled to Berlin, he departed still writing visas and shoving them through the train window into the hands of refugees running alongside. Ultimately his work saved 6,000 lives. Back in Japan, Sugihara's remaining days were spent selling light bulbs. When his story was finally told, his son was asked, "How did your father feel about his choice?"
"My father's life was fulfilled. When God needed him to do the right thing, he was available to do it."
Stephen L. Shanklin in The Book of Prayers Respond:
Can God count on my unflinching obedience? Thought to Apply:
To go against conscience or Scripture is neither right nor safe.
Martin Luther (German Protestant reformer, 16th century)
Adapted from: The Book of Prayers (Broadman & Holman, 1998)
For your convenience, The Book of Prayers is available in the ChristianityToday.com bookstore.
Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today, Inc./Men of Integrity magazine.
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O Lord ... give us such a mighty love to Thee as may sweeten all our obedience.
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