A question that we are often asked by our students is, “What can we actually trust God for in this life?” There are many Biblical promises which have been misunderstood and misappropriated personally or absolutely with all kinds of disappointing or even disastrous consequences. It was once even suggested to Jesus that he throw himself off the top of the temple because God had promised that angels’ hands will “bear you up”. OK, then, so what promises do apply to us for sure in this life? Anything?
The promises having to do with the next life are vast and relatively clear; that as we trust in Christ, death becomes not a brick wall against which we are smashed, but a door into the presence of God and a better world. That hope is not an escapism reducing this world to insignificance, but a source of light cast back into this world, intensifying its significance since all that happens here impacts the next life for eternity.
But, back to our question, what is promised to us for sure before the time of our death? What is meant by all the promises that God would guide, heal, protect, help, or answer our prayers? It seems clear that these kinds of promises were never intended to be absolute, universal or forever in their application. What I am saying is only obvious. The people to whom they were first made are not still alive, they all died. Many of the apostles of Jesus, through whose words these kinds of promises were made, died very uncomfortable deaths under torture, but without accusing God for not keeping his promises to them. There are also promises that followers of Christ will suffer because of their faith. There are no promises that believers will be immune to car accidents, chronic or terminal diseases or plane crashes. This world order is affected by the Fall, it is broken and bent, and it is appointed that people should “die once and after that the judgment”. Promises to us in this life are within this fallen world-order and do not remove us from it as if by some theological elevator.
When we look at the more directly relational promises of God, such as that he will be with us, that he will not forsake or abandon us, that he will bear his fruit through us, then we are looking at the promises that are applicable to all believers in this life in the more universal sense. “For the Lord will not forsake his people.” Those who hear his word and do it are like good soil which bears much fruit, yielding one hundred fold, sixty fold or thirty fold. If we live as branches in Christ as the vine, we will bear fruit.
God will bear fruit through us but it may not look like the ideas of comfort, health, prosperity or success so valued in our culture. It will look more like the growth of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. For example, people who are bedridden with a chronic disease might bear fruit to God in their lives as well as those who are healed from a disease and are grateful for it. The people of God can bear fruit for him even if they die at a young age or in some tragic accident. We are told that people who lived in holes in the ground and who dressed in animal skins were those “of whom the world was not worthy” because of their faith. We can be sure that God will not change, that he will be with us and bear fruit through us in this life and on into the next. How we will bear fruit, and for how long, is not guaranteed.
God also really does guide us, heal us, protect us, help us and answer our prayers in the here and now. But he does not promise to do these things as we conceive of them or as universal or absolute guarantees for all time. For example, he does not guarantee to answer our every prayer immediately or just as we intended it to be answered. Making a request in prayer is asking something of a Person, who’s far greater wisdom, may or may not lead him to respond in the way we desire. God does guide us, but not in such a way that we never sin or make mistakes. God does protect us, but not always from everything that we find painful or threatening. After all he has protected us all enough to get us through 2003. As our pastor recently said, “He did not promise to get you through 2003 – but he did”. It was not guaranteed, but it was given. God has been protecting you for years, from long before 2003. Think of the close calls you have had through fire, water and storm. Think of the close calls just while driving in cars. None of us have the faintest clue about the close calls we have had with bacteria and viruses. And it is not as if we are protected by God only in times that we recognize as close calls or dangers.
We can and should continue to pray to God for his guidance, healing and protection. We have no way of knowing how God will answer those prayers in this broken world. But we do know that we can count on his faithfulness, constancy, forgiveness and presence with us while he bears fruit in us and through us here. We have seen it before.

This is all very real to us here in Southborough. We are in the sort of crisis that we have been in a number of times in L’Abri’s history. Our workers here from Australia, Mark and Terri Ryan, have had their visa extension refused by the INS, which has also refused our first appeal. We have hired a lawyer, contacted local politicians and done everything else that we can imagine. Their objection is not substantive, but is about a technicality of the lateness of our application for the extension -- a lateness directly related to misinformation on their own website (this is too complicated for me to explain). The office that we are dealing with receives over 10,000 pieces of mail each day, and they are obviously overworked.
We are stuck, but we can pray. We have no guarantees from God that we will receive the visas, even though it would be extremely difficult for this branch to function at all without the Ryans. He calls us to pray and calls us to trust him – whatever.
Our autumn term went well, with probably the youngest group of students that we have ever had here. Thank God for his work here among them during the term. Thank God for two good helpers, Buffy and Elissa. Thank him also for the real encouragement that we have had because of seeing ways that God has been at work in the lives of students after they leave. The Holy Spirit is really real, not a Christian cliché.

As you receive this, we will be in the middle of teaching an intensive two-week course held here at L’Abri on “Cultural Apologetics” for a mixture of Westminster Seminary students and others interested. Please pray for that to be a worthwhile time, and also for our winter term which begins on January 28, with its tutorials, meals, discussions, lectures, work and just being together.
Thank God for the good trip the Morrells had visiting Sue’s family in Australia and pray for Luke and Nate as they start up school again after having missed some school before Christmas.
Pray with us for the Ryans’ visas. Pray also for their peace of mind as the uncertainty of their future hangs over their heads.
Mardi and I had a good break time. Mardi worked on the very relevant issue of courtship and marriage and I got almost to the end of this book on cynicism.
Pray for God to continue to support us financially.
Please pray for: Intervarsity staff for graduate students coming here for the day of January 31. Mardi and Mark go to the L’Abri conference in Rochester Minnesota the first weekend in February. I will be speaking at a Veritas Forum at Harvard on February 20 and Trinity Forum on April 2-3.
We can look back at nearly 50 years that God has been guiding, protecting, providing for and using L’Abri. Those years were not promised but were given. We don’t need to know how much longer God will continue this. We do know that he will not forsake us, but will be with us and bear his fruit through us. Have a great new year.

Dick Keyes