Sojourning with Jesus: From Texas to Boston and Back

Jill’s Journal

Jill Thrift

A year after Jesus captured my heart and began to redeem my life, my Presbyterian pastor talked with me about considering going to an interdenominational evangelical seminary. I had gone through every Bible study the church had to offer, and wanting more, had taken two courses at a local Catholic seminary. I was grieved to discover there that some Christians, even seminary professors, consider the Old Testament and parts of the New to be myth rather than history. The Holy Spirit in me knew that was utterly false. Already having three graduate degrees from secular institutions, my view of the world was thoroughly brainwashed and I knew I needed to renew my mind with the Word of God.

At the time I was working as a Child Develop mentalist on the Pediatric faculty at the University of Texas Health Science Center. I was looked upon as an expert, but I soon realized that everything I had been taught about human nature and child development was based on assumptions that opposed God’s Word. How could I possibly move forward in this or in any vocation without being transformed by the truth myself? I wanted with all of my being to please God, to live the life that He had planned for me, to learn how to live in relationship with Him, and to teach my young son how to do the same.

I was ravenous for the Word of God, to know God, not as I imagined Him to be, but as He is. Jesus had encountered me and made Himself up close and real. I was enthralled by Him and longed to really know this gracious God who had shown Himself to me in the midst of a failed marriage. He was my daily portion for many decisions living as a single again, but now with the responsibility of a young boy who had just turned five. It was both a time of despair, living through the consequences of divorce, and a time of absolute joy and hope for a future.

Many seminaries have strayed from a reverence of the authority and inerrancy of the Word of God. My pastor recommended three that he thought would be trustworthy. For two years I prayed and asked God to help me surrender to His plans. I did not want the stress of more change and needed prayer to get into a neutral position which would allow me to hear God. I visited two of the three seminaries during summer of 1987.

While at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, in prayer one afternoon about whether or not to go to seminary, the Lord spoke to me,

Listen, O daughter, give attention and incline your ear:
Forget your people and your father’s house;
Then the King will desire your beauty.
Because He is your Lord, bow down to Him.
Psalm 145:10-11

I understood these words as a call to leave my family in San Antonio and go to seminary. I thought of Abraham being called to leave the Ur of the Chaldees and follow the Lord to a land God would show Him:

By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.”
Hebrews 11:8-9, ASV

I looked up the meaning of “sojourn:” a temporary stay, a brief period of residence. I did not know how long this sojourn was to be, or still even which direction to head.

When I visited Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Massachusetts, I cried through my interviews with each of two professors with whom my pastor had suggested I meet. Both men were of such inspiring character. When the Holy Spirit is working in me sometimes I cry. I have come to understand this as the Spirit groaning within me, interceding with a deep burden when I do not have the words. While at Gordon-Conwell, I could see my son and me living there among other families right on campus. I felt a strange sense during this visit of coming home, as if I had been there before though I had not. Although it would be an enormous loss to leave my parents, brother and sister, and their families, especially on the heels of the loss of a husband, there was a compelling sense of promise in yielding to what God had woven into my heart. Would I trust my new Husband to care for us in a strange land where we knew no one?

I returned from the trip knowing what I was to do, and excited and in awe that Jesus had made it all so clear. My pastor and his wife were thrilled, and my home Bible study friends were very positive and confirming. However, neither my family nor my son’s father were happy at all. My mother told me that I was being selfish and not thinking of what was best for my son who needed his extended family more than ever. Was I being selfish? She said she hoped I would not decide to become a pastor and expected me to return by the first cold winter. My father said that I would come to my senses and admonished me not to do anything radical, like becoming a missionary.

My ex-husband filed an injunction against our leaving, even though he had no legal basis for a favorable judgment. He called my mother and told her I had gone off the deep end and was becoming religious as a reaction to the divorce. He told our son that I was taking him away because I didn’t want them to be together. This contradicted the facts that as often as not my ex-husband had not shown up at the times he had reserved to be with our son when he had opportunity.

My father was kind enough to come over a few times to help me pack, but my mother would not speak to me. My parents were broken-hearted that their grandson was leaving and my mother seemed to view my decision as a rejection of my need for her. They saw it through natural eyes and were not able to see it as a call from God. I understood this and did not blame them, but I sorrowed and felt very alone. It was a stressful departure that could only have been made with the joy of Jesus calling me to follow Him. During a farewell dinner hosted by my sister, my son escaped outside to scavenge little tiny frogs from around her house. Frog and lizard collecting were his favorite activities and I supposed he had to have one last fling, not knowing if there were frogs where we were going.

Another member of my church had been accepted at the same seminary and offered to caravan with me so that I would not be travelling the 2000 miles alone. He tried to be very patient, but drove long hours without stopping. He seemed not to be able to remember that small children need more frequent stops, and there were no cell phones in those days. I just followed behind him trying not to lose sight of the bicycle he had mounted on the roof of his car. My son was a good sport about it during the day, playing car games and listening to audiotapes, but at night he cried himself to sleep vowing to return to Texas as soon as he earned enough money to buy the plane ticket.

The second day of our trip we began to notice a putrid smell from the air conditioning vents of my station wagon. I couldn’t figure out what it could possibly be. It smelled like some type of dead life form. My son finally acknowledged that he had kept the little frogs from Texas in his pockets to carry with him in case Massachusetts did not have frogs. There were dozens of them, and many had slowly made their way out of his pockets for air and crawled up into inaccessible parts of the AC. We travelled with this smell of dead frogs for three of our four days.

It seemed to take forever to get to Massachusetts, but I was so elated when we entered the campus that we stopped and got out by the lily pond to take it all in and say a prayer of thanks. My son immediately found a little yellow wildflower and gave it to me in celebration (see the photo above). I was so encouraged to see his joy, though I knew he was still hurting. It was such a tender and loving gesture to rejoice with me even though he did not want to be there. A few minutes later he spotted the pond and ran to drop his fists in every hole that might be hiding a frog. He was not disappointed to pull out the biggest bullfrog he had ever seen. He held it up in glee like a trophy. He knew from this first landing at our new home that God would provide for him too.

“The LORD watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless.”
Psalm 146:9, ESV

Jesus was true to Himself over the 18 years of sojourn in Massachusetts. He never left us through these years during which we were spiritually formed and prepared for our destinies in Christ. My son committed his life to Jesus and was baptized. He blossomed in His love for the Lord and for the Word. He went through the rites of passage of manhood without an earthly dad, which precipitated a serious crisis that was finally miraculously resolved in spiritual revival. A few months before graduating from high school, he visited a Christian college in Michigan and returned saying, “This is God’s choice.” He chose this college over some excellent secular universities that had already accepted him the previous fall.

In 2001 the Lord told me I would be relocating. After much prayer and a few years of painful mistakes, I sought the Lord for greater clarity about the move. Not knowing where I was to move, I felt I was to paint the house and get it ready for sale. In the fall of 2004, before I told anyone that I might be selling, a man came to my front door and expressed the desire to buy the house. When he learned that I had no definite plans, he gave me his card to contact him when I was ready to sell. Nine months later, in the spring of 2005 the Lord gave me clear instructions to return to Texas: “Return to the land of your ancestors and to your kindred, and I will be with you” (Genesis 31:3). Within the same week, I was able to sell our home in Massachusetts to the man who had come to my door the previous year and purchase a condo in San Antonio near my elderly parents’ home.

Again, I was deeply grateful for the clarity of Jesus’ direction. I needed that sure word to make a challenging move back during a period of poor physical health and weakness. The timing was good because my son had recently found his first post-college job. He was moving into an apartment in Boston at the very same time that I was packing to return to Texas. Though my son will always have a heart for Texas, he considers the Boston area his home. He has friends from grade school through college who still live in the area and is grateful for the work opportunities in that part of the country that are uniquely suited to his interests. Yet I hope he sees now that we are sojourners, and that we belong to the Lord, to live where He plants us.

When I obeyed God for my own life, He took care of my son also. He is a family God. His will for the parents is always also the best for the children. This truth was tested many times in many ways, but looking back over these past 25 years; it’s evident that God has the end in mind from the beginning. The wisest route is to obey His voice and follow Him wherever He says to go.

We are strangers and sojourners on earth, but citizens of a permanent place of dwelling. I cherish this current time closer to my family and becoming restored in health. Already I see that this season back home has many good purposes and I am in awe of God’s ways. I believe I would be happy living in San Antonio for the rest of my life, but I want to become so united with Jesus that I am always willing and not fearful to trust in His leadership.

Jill Thrift

What is Grace?

Sandy Landry, Author/Teacher

What is grace? Grace is God’s kind of forgiveness for our sins, because He is really the only person who gets to say how the system of justice works for a believer. He is the only one with the perfect right to be offended because He can see our hearts, our motives. He lets His right go to punish us and He refuses to take our sin personally. Why? Because He is training children and He is the ultimate Father. Is God a pushover? He laid out right and wrong for us, now didn’t He? He has as many hopes and dreams for us as any good Father ever could, and He watches us as we repeatedly do less than our best, fail, sin, outright mess it up for many reasons because we are LEARNING. So why in the world would we get grace when we mess up? Wouldn’t it make more sense to get sent to our room and go without our dinner until we get it right? Isn’t He dedicated to our getting it right? Doesn’t He care?

I think the key is what getting it right means? Is getting it right about law or love? What is Grace able to do that punishment doesn’t do? If I get it wrong as I am wont to do, and I go to the Law giver, the perfect one, the one who knows me best, and I tell Him that I am sorry, He gives me grace. He forgives me. I can take it instantly and walk away absolved , or I can refuse to take it and do penance or beat up on myself as long as I want, believing He is so disappointed with me that He is pacing the Golden Streets wringing His hands in utter despair and exasperation. But if I think long enough, I know He is not wringing His hands because He is perfect peace, and He is not exasperated, because He knew my imperfection was out there and He even knew I was headed for a fall. I bring him the broken law, and He covers it with love. That is grace.

So what does grace teach me? It teaches me the ONE thing that He wants me to know more than any other thing. HE LOVES ME UNCONDITIONALLY. His love is more powerful than anything. It covers a multitude of sins. It casts out fear. It scoops me up and cradles me every time I choose to receive it. There is no other way for me to know that. If He punished me, I would then believe that I had to perfect myself to earn his favor. I would go back out, trying to get it right. I would strive and work and sweat and try and cringe and fail. But instead, He gives me grace.

He must say something like, “Bless her heart, I know she’s trying. She thought she’d take a shortcut, and now she has a set back. I’ll give her more love because that’s what she needs. More of my love will make her more secure and she won’t need a short cut next time because she can rest in my love. My love will make her more stable and more able. That is precisely what she needs: more of my love. I AM LOVE and I have lots to spare and I don’t want to hurt her or discourage her, so here honey, take more of my love. Every time you see a weakness, and you come and show me a hole you have found that makes you hurt or weak, I’ll pour love in there until your heart is filled with my love. And stop fretting about your weaknesses. We will overcome them together. I will give you grace and you will overcome. You just keep coming to my throne asking for grace, the stronger you will get and the more able you will be to jump the hurdles in your life. I like to call it overcoming, conquering with grace. It is my plan. It was why my Son came and died for you, so you could have a transfusion of grace anytime you needed it. I am so sorry for you, sweetie, when you think you are under the law, trying hard to keep it together, obey, get it all right to please me. Stop wearing yourself out. Enter my rest. My grace is sufficient for you. Remember? And one other thing, when you don’t take my grace, my unconditional love, you will judge everyone around you because you think I am judging you. When you know I am not judging you, then you will also be able to love other people even when you see their weaknesses, because you will want to give them grace. Grace receivers are grace givers. Law abiders judge others.

The next time you get a speeding ticket, if such a thing were possible, would your driving skills be more improved by a ticket or by grace? I don’t know about you, but grace makes me feel way happier and I feel myself wanting to obey traffic rules for a totally different set of reasons. I love the state patrolman who offered me grace, and I love the other drivers as I pull back out on the highway. I am ready to drive more carefully, extending grace up and down the highway, grateful for grace.

We are told to go boldly to the throne of grace. Boldly. Can you imagine? How can we approach God boldly when we are wrong and He is right and ask to be exonerated? Jesus paid for this great privilege. It is THE PLAN. Because grace is what makes us able to live this life of love and there isn’t one other way to do it. If we have figured out another way, we aren’t playing by God’s rules. We come for grace. Period the end. Grace makes us strong. Grace abounds. There is plenty of it.

Grace changes us. Grace loves others. And there we have it, in a nutshell. Today, let’s celebrate grace. A plan way too good to be true, and yet it is!

Sandy Landry,
Teacher/Author

Success Begins with Prayer

After a few days re-arranging our calendar, we made contact with Reverend Gary Holcombe and accepted his offer to come to Hawaii for three weeks and three days. Before our departure I had been contacted by my friend Glenn Landry, and he told me about a prison in Argentina where 3,000 prisoners would be forming a 24 hour prayer chain for us while we were ministering on the island of Oahu. I felt very special having that many people praying for us.

As the four of us stood at the curb with a ton of luggage a two door car pulled up. I was wondering how were going to get all our luggage and us in the car, but Reverend Holcombe showed all the faith in the world that it was not a problem, for he had brought some rope. Looking like a pack of Hawaii hillbillies, we headed for our new temporary home.

Each day for the next three weeks we ministered either in a church building, someone’s garage or on television. It did not take very long before we had hundreds of people hungering for a His Word. Reverend Holcombe had asked if I would minister live on his television program called Prayerline Hawaii, and prophesy to people who called in for prayer. It was then that we and the owners of the television station realized that delivering God’s prophetic word was a strong evangelistic gift. Out of curiosity the owners of the station contacted the telephone company to find out how many calls the station had received during the twenty minutes I prophesied to the callers. When they heard the count was 73 calls they were very excited; then the agent for the telephone company said, “Hold on there is more. Another 256 calls were unable to get through because the phone lines were jammed.” The owners opened the doors for me to return to Hawaii another 25 times and have our own television program that expanded into other states: Louisiana, Wisconsin, Colorado, Oklahoma, Indiana, Ohio and Hawaii. Dr. Lester Sumrall was the founder of LeSea Broadcasting, and a few years later he and his crew flew down from South Bend, Indiana to visit with me.

When it was time for Dr. Sumrall leave I drove him back to his private jet. As we sat in the car next to his plane I asked him if it were true that Smith Wigglesworth had laid his hands upon him and imparted the gift of faith into him and prophesied. He confirmed this to be true, and I asked if he would do the same for me, which he did. Then Dr. Sumrall asked me to seek God for him about an urgent matter in which he needed an answer from God…….

(To be continued next week)

I accredit the success of this ministry to the supernatural networking of God’s people and the prayers of the Saints of God. Gary Holcombe was my friend and we had many experiences ministering in Hawaii, Thailand and Television.

Kent Simpson, Prophetic Pastor

Comments and Testimonies

For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.       Rev. 19:10b

Prophecy is the testimony that Jesus is not dead but Alive and Speaking to you and I.

Kent Simpson
Prophetic Pastor

 

I like the quote that you have started posting on your newsletter: “A true Prophet of God will not tell you what to do, he will only tell you what to expect.”

That is such a good answer to the objection that I hear from misinformed people. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard otherwise spiritual people make the statement concerning prophetic words, “That a prophetic word will only confirm what you already are feeling the Lord leading you in. But never be directional.”

While I would agree with them that sometimes a word will contain in it a word of confirmation, as they say, but I also would argue that a prophetic word can and should give glimpses into their future of some of things that God has made available to them. Otherwise, why would it even be called a “prophetic” word?

It is wrong of them, I believe, to assume that a prophet is trying to control them somehow when he or she is delivering a prophetic word that points to the future.

Having been on the receiving end of prophetic words myself that opened a window into my destiny, I can attest to the blessedness that such a word can bring. Kent, you were one of the first of many mouthpieces that God did use for many such words in my life early on in my pursuit of the prophetic and spiritual gifts. And I can honestly say that not once in all of those many times did I ever feel anything but thankful, edified, and blessed; with a greater assurance of my place in God; with more clarity and certainty about those circumstances that were present in my life at the time.

(Now as I write this, I am painfully aware that there have been some instances where misuse or abuse of the gift of prophecy has happened in certain places at some points in time by a few would-be prophets. But that is the exception rather than the rule. But we should not throw out the baby with the wash.)

In my opinion, if a prophetic word does not, at least sometimes, have an element of a futuristic destiny awaiting the one or many who are receiving that word, then it should not be considered to be prophetic at all. That it does have futuristic ramifications is inherent in the very meaning of the word “prophetic.” What is prophetic about a word that is limited only to that which is already known, I ask? It would seem to me, that a word that is not prophetic in any way should rather be considered merely, at best, just perhaps “good advice,” or “opinion,” and at worst, a waste of time.

Thank God, though, that a true prophetic word is “proph-it-able” for all. (I Cor. 14)

Anyway, what started out to be merely a commendation to you, my brother, on the use of the aforementioned slogan has turned out to be a somewhat lengthy ranting of my heart. I love the gift of prophecy and the prophetic word, and all those who exercise it in the scriptural way.

I love you brother. Keep up the good work.

Dale West


 

Thank you for sharing this story.

You are such a blessing to so many. I love that you are all about sharing Father’s heart with His people. Yes, one word from God can change your life in ways you never imagined. Thank you for ministering those razor sharp words of encouragement in so many of those “end of my rope” situations.

May God bless you this day & always.

Liz Hickman



In HIS Service,
Kent Simpson, Prophetic Pastor

Prophetic Ministries Tabernacle
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