Conclusion : Through It
All
As I write this concluding chapter, I realize I was privileged to be the first person to hear the stories of these men and women in just the way they have been presented here. Their lives, and through them the power of God's Word and Holy Spirit, have been a blessing to me. I have been strengthened by just listening to these women and men of God.
Even as I was writing the various chapters, I found myself trying out some of the resources and techniques they suggested. I have deepened my resolve to let God's Word speak to me. I am seeking a more consistent prayer life. I am tasting anew the sustaining help and succor that comes from give-and-take relationships in a small corps of believers who are dedicated to each other — and to the Lord.
If you are like me, however, you didn't fully identify
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with all the personalities in The Overcomers, but I hope you did find help from many. I suspect that if I had been able to assemble into the same room all fourteen persons interviewed, they wouldn't have seen eye to eye on all of the programs and methods for spiritual victories that were suggested. But, they would have spoken of the one Lord whom they had all seen through the eyes of faith. One of the beautiful things in reviewing how God gave special resources to these men and women in The Overcomers is the rich diversity they represent — yet in a unity forged of one Spirit.
If you thought, when you began reading, that they were all cut out of the same material with a cookie cutter, you found out differently as you read chapter to chapter. Not only are their life stories utterly different, they also relate to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in thoroughly discrete ways.
Perhaps one man, woman, or couple will seem to you to be the most nearly ideal, a model for you to follow. Return to that chapter and reread it.
Perhaps Maria Von Trapp's method of deciding God's will — eliminating everything else and then doing the hardest thing which remains — speaks to you. Or — poles away — Joanne Cash Yate's writing out her request for a motor home, down to the last detail of interior color, placing the note on the Bible, and then thanking God for already providing it.
Don't let these apparent opposites distress you. If anything, the way different individuals respond to the molding, loving direction of God's will should confirm the validity of the Holy Spirit's leading.
Advice on specific courses of action may differ from Christian to Christian, but there is agreement on where to go to obtain that guidance. And the common thread through it all is that Jesus Christ is to be trusted, obeyed, and loved.
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If I were to single out the most important spiritual lesson to be learned from these overcomers, it is the consistency of God — not the uniformity of God's servants. For God requires a right heart far more than He expects a right method.
In King David's famous Fifty-first Psalm (KJV), he contemplates giving God ritual sacrifice. But he concludes that that is not what God requires:
"For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering" (v. 16).
Rather, David rightly concludes, God is most concerned about his attitude: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (v. 17).
The leaders who speak in The Overcomers are all submitting to the Lord, not looking for a universal blueprint from which all Christian lives are to be built, down to the last cross brace and door jamb.
All this is not to say there wasn't certain very basic agreement about what to do to get the victory when troubles mount, or how to cope with the vicissitudes when life gets "so daily." Turning to the Bible can bring the wisdom of God down to earth, they all said. Various forms of prayer and the counsel of wise, honest Christian friends were resources spoken of by almost all those interviewed. Some kind of worship experience in a body of believers, whether it is Catholic mass, Quaker silence, or altar-rail Pentecostal prayer, appeared to be "musts." A committed company in a smaller, more intimate fellowship also ranked high. Surprising — and pleasing — to me was the large percentage of overcomers who spoke of the help and inspiration they had received from great literature and the devotional classics, as well as contemporary works of Christian inspiration. Overcomers do read, and what they read helps!
Of course I am tempted to tack on my own ending to
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this chapter, outlining where I turn for spiritual help in time of need, which is often. But I will resist that temptation head on, realizing that it would be both presumptuous and futile for me to improve upon what has already been said by those with more experience and authority. And, I have concluded, there is no neat formula that will work, plink-a-plink-a-plink, as Elisabeth Elliot would say.
But I do like Elton Trueblood's sensing God's presence in the midst, which fits in so nicely with E. V. Hill's glad news that he's never had to call an emergency session because he received directions from God in the very hour of his crises.
May His grace be sufficient for you and yours to overcome — through it all.
