Lesson one. My grace is sufficient for you!

I have not, like the apostle, been caught up to the Third Heaven. Nothing that spectacular to boast about, and so not in need of that sort of humility. But I am caught up in a ministry where heaven and earth surely touch. Saints of God not far from here are tortured and killed and immediately are in the arms of Jesus. It is a holy place.

Hence, I presume, my own need for physical reminders of my own weakness, my own inability to do the work of God in my own strength. The work of strengthening others. The work of reporting their stories to my own people. I have discovered just how ridiculously weak I am this summer in Seoul, yet God has found ways to bless others through me and through my wife.

Consider the baekjeong. That's the Korean word for one who is lowest of class in Korean society. Is there a weaker one among us, in the flesh? But will not God's glory be brightly manifested in such a one when the power of God works through him to bring many sons to Gods Kingdom?

Oh, rejoice in that which God heals, yes! Deliverance, yes! But Paul could also rejoice, maybe more so, in the infirmities, the sicknesses, the beatings, which God never took away until the day he was received into glory. And the fact that in spite of it all, God's work prospered in his hands.

Pray! Yes. Believe! Yes. But rejoice in God's answer, not just your expectation of what it should be.

Lesson two. The Lone Ranger profits no one.

God brought me through some fairly deep waters as this old totally American body of so many years tried to adjust to a new culture. I found a helplessness that caused me to reach out, not only to God, but to many members of His Body. My wife became so much more dear to me.In the city, I found true believers who helped pray me through some of the more difficult times, and offer me the Word of encouragement. I found preaching from Body-members on the internet. One timely message compared Thomas's desire to touch the Body of Jesus to our own need to do the same in our day. I sent out SOS's to believing friends who were praying in all quarters. One-on-one with God alone needs to be, but it cannot be the exclusive method of accessing the things of the Spirit. The Body of Christ is huge in the world, and has resources for our every need.

Lesson three. Ways to overcome insomnia and anxiety.

I haven't mastered this yet, but I surely found some things that worked. Perhaps someone reading can use some of this...

• Be sure you are in the will of God. Peace is not promised those who are running from His plan.
• Praise. Acknowledging to God that He is more important than the thing that is keeping you awake.
• Thanksgiving. Counting blessings, slowly and carefully.
• Loving the person nearest to you. Everyone has a problem. Get interested in that problem and your own diminishes or disappears.
• Believing God has saved you. The enemy threatens to kill you. You can cool-ly look him in the face and say, "So?" when your account is settled in Heaven.
• Hope. Looking forward to Heaven or even something happy coming here.
• Reading Bible verses. Or reading anything of a good character.

I had to use all of these and sometimes a combination of several for a couple of weeks. My body and the enemy fought so hard some nights that I simply had to acknowledge the next morning that His grace indeed was sufficient. That somehow God would heal and deliver. And He did. Daily my condition improves. He really will never leave us or forsake us, even when all our fears are imaginary.