Something Good Is Going To Happen To You Order Printed Copy
- Author: Oral Roberts
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About the Book
"SOMETHING GOOD IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU" by Oral Roberts is a motivational book that encourages readers to have faith, believe in themselves, and expect positive outcomes in their lives. Through personal anecdotes and biblical teachings, Roberts emphasizes the power of positive thinking and the importance of having a positive outlook on life in order to attract blessings and achieve success.
Gladys Aylward
Gladys Aylward was born in London in 1904 (or a few years earlier). She worked for several years as a parlormaid, and then attended a revival meeting at which the preacher spoke of dedicating one's life to the service of God. Gladys responded to the message, and soon after became convinced that she was called to preach the Gospel in China. At the age of 26, she became a probationer at the China Inland Mission Center in London, but was failed to pass the examinations. She worked at other jobs and saved her money. Then she heard of a 73-year-old missionary, Mrs. Jeannie Lawson, who was looking for a younger woman to carry on her work. Gladys wrote to Mrs. Lawson and was accepted if she could get to China. She did not have enough money for the ship fare, but did have enough for the train fare, and so in October of 1930 she set out from London with her passport, her Bible, her tickets, and two pounds ninepence, to travel to China by the Trans-Siberian Railway, despite the fact that China and the Soviet Union were engaged in an undeclared war. She arrived in Vladivostok and sailed from there to Japan and from Japan to Tientsin, and thence by train, then bus, then mule, to the inland city of Yangchen, in the mountainous province of Shansi, a little south of Peking (Beijing). Most of the residents had seen no Europeans other than Mrs. Lawson and now Miss Aylward. They distrusted them as foreigners, and were not disposed to listen to them.
Yangchen was an overnight stop for mule caravans that carried coal, raw cotton, pots, and iron goods on six-week or three-month journeys. It occurred to the two women that their most effective way of preaching would be to set up an inn. The building in which they lived had once been an inn, and with a bit of repair work could be used as one again. They laid in a supply of food for mules and men, and when next a caravan came past, Gladys dashed out, grabbed the rein of the lead mule, and turned it into their courtyard. It went willingly, knowing by experience that turning into a courtyard meant food and water and rest for the night. The other mules followed, and the muleteers had no choice. They were given good food and warm beds at the standard price, and their mules were well cared for, and there was free entertainment in the evening--the inkeepers told stories about a man named Jesus. After the first few weeks, Gladys did not need to kidnap customers -- they turned in at the inn by preference. Some became Christians, and many of them (both Christians and non-Christians) remembered the stories, and retold them more or less accurately to other muleteers at other stops along the caravan trails. Gladys practiced her Chinese for hours each day, and was becoming fluent and comfortable with it. Then Mrs. Lawson suffered a severe fall, and died a few days later. Gladys Aylward was left to run the mission alone, with the aid of one Chinese Christian, Yang, the cook.
A few weeks after the death of Mrs. Lawson, Miss Aylward met the Mandarin of Yangchen. He arrived in a sedan chair, with an impressive escort, and told her that the government had decreed an end to the practice of footbinding. (Note: Among the upper and middle classes, it had for centuries been the custom that a woman's foot should be wrapped tightly in bandages from infancy, to prevent it from growing. Thus grown women had extremely tiny feet, on which they could walk only with slow, tottering steps, which were thought to be extremely graceful.) The government needed a foot-inspector, a woman (so that she could invade the women's quarters without scandal), with her own feet unbound (so that she could travel), who would patrol the district enforcing the decree. It was soon clear to them both that Gladys was the only possible candidate for the job, and she accepted, realizing that it would give her undreamed-of opportunities to spread the Gospel.
During her second year in Yangchen, Gladys was summoned by the Mandarin. A riot had broken out in the men's prison. She arrived and found that the convicts were rampaging in the prison courtyard, and several of them had been killed. The soldiers were afraid to intervene. The warden of the prison said to Gladys, "Go into the yard and stop the rioting." She said, "How can I do that?" The warden said, "You have been preaching that those who trust in Christ have nothing to fear." She walked into the courtyard and shouted: "Quiet! I cannot hear when everyone is shouting at once. Choose one or two spokesmen, and let me talk with them." The men quieted down and chose a spokesman. Gladys talked with him, and then came out and told the warden: "You have these men cooped up in crowded conditions with absolutely nothing to do. No wonder they are so edgy that a small dispute sets off a riot. You must give them work. Also, I am told that you do not supply food for them, so that they have only what their relatives send them. No wonder they fight over food. We will set up looms so that they can weave cloth and earn enough money to buy their own food." This was done. There was no money for sweeping reforms, but a few friends of the warden donated old looms, and a grindstone so that the men could work grinding grain. The people began to call Gladys Aylward "Ai-weh-deh," which means "Virtuous One." It was her name from then on.
Soon after, she saw a woman begging by the road, accompanied by a child covered with sores and obviously suffering severe malnutrition. She satisfied herself that the woman was not the child's mother, but had kidnapped the child and was using it as an aid to her begging. She bought the child for ninepence--a girl about five years old. A year later, "Ninepence" came in with an abandoned boy in tow, saying, "I will eat less, so that he can have something." Thus Ai-weh-deh acquired a second orphan, "Less." And so her family began to grow.... She was a regular and welcome visitor at the palace of the Mandarin, who found her religion ridiculous, but her conversation stimulating. In 1936, she officially became a Chinese citizen. She lived frugally and dressed like the people around her (as did the missionaries who arrived a few years after in in the neighboring town of Tsechow, David and Jean Davis and their young son Murray, of Wales), and this was a major factor in making her preaching effective.
Then the war came. In the spring of 1938, Japanese planes bombed the city of Yangcheng, killing many and causing the survivors to flee into the mountains. Five days later, the Japanese Army occupied Yangcheng, then left, then came again, then left. The Mandarin gathered the survivors and told them to retreat into the mountains for the duration. He also announced that he was impressed by the life of Ai-weh-deh and wished to make her faith his own. There remained the question of the convicts at the jail. The traditional policy favored beheading them all lest they escape. The Mandarin asked Ai-weh-deh for advice, and a plan was made for relatives and friends of the convicts to post a bond guaranteeing their good behavior. Every man was eventually released on bond. As the war continued Gladys often found herself behind Japanese lines, and often passed on information, when she had it, to the armies of China, her adopted country. She met and became friends with "General Ley," a Roman Catholic priest from Europe who had teken up arms when the Japanese invaded, and now headed a guerilla force. Finally he sent her a message. The Japanese are coming in full force. We are retreating. Come with us." Angry, she scrawled a Chinese note, Chi Tao Tu Pu Twai, "Christians never retreat!" He sent back a copy of a Japanese handbill offering $100 each for the capture, dead or alive, of (1) the Mandarin, (2) a prominent merchant, and (3) Ai-weh-deh. She determined to flee to the government orphanage at Sian, bringing with her the children she had accumulated, about 100 in number. (An additional 100 had gone ahead earlier with a colleague.) With the children in tow, she walked for twelve days. Some nights they found shelter with friendly hosts. Some nights they spent unprotected on the mountainsides. On the twelfth day, they arrived at the Yellow River, with no way to cross it. All boat traffic had stopped, and all civilian boats had been seized to keep them out of the hands of the Japanese. The children wanted to know, "Why don't we cross?" She said, "There are no boats." They said, "God can do anything. Ask Him to get us across." They all knelt and prayed. Then they sang. A Chinese officer with a patrol heard the singing and rode up. He heard their story and said, "I think I can get you a boat." They crossed, and after a few more difficulties Ai-weh-deh delivered her charges into competent hands at Sian, and then promptly collapsed with typhus fever and sank into delirium for several days.
As her health gradually improved, she started a Christian church in Sian, and worked elsewhere, including a settlement for lepers in Szechuan, near the borders of Tibet. Her health was permanently impaired by injuries received during the war, and in 1947 she returned to England for a badly needed operation. She remained in England, preaching there.
In 1957, Alan Burgess wrote a book about her, The Small Woman. It was condensed in The Reader's Digest, and made into a movie called The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, starring Ingrid Bergman. When Newsweek magazine reviewed the movie, and summarized the plot, a reader, supposing the story to be fiction, wrote in to say, "In order for a movie to be good, the story should be believable!" Miss Gladys Aylward, the Small Woman, Ai-weh-deh, died 3 January 1970.
A Great Marriage-Wrecking Lie
I met my aunt Margaret for the first time when I was ten. She was in a wheelchair in the middle of the front room, drooling uncontrollably, unaware of my presence, incontinent, and unable to take care of herself. And yet my uncle Gale cared for her, and he did so tenderly. They were high school sweethearts, but now she was dying of brain cancer after only fifteen years together. My uncle didn’t abandon her. He didn’t get a mistress. No, he had publicly vowed, “in sickness and in health, till death do us part” — and he was faithful to his word. A few years later, she died. This is a biblical picture of marriage: joy through servanthood, faithfulness, and self-denial. But times have changed. Our societal expectations for marriage have gone through a radical transformation, and those changes have affected many in the church. Changing Expectations One commentator describes the transformation this way: “The old attitude was that one must work for the marriage. The new attitude is that the marriage had better work for me” (Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West, 267). My uncle worked for his marriage. He was willing to forgo short-term pleasure for the sake of his wife, his children, and the glory of God. He believed that keeping his marriage vows would enhance his joy in this life and in the world to come. But those who expect marriage to “work for me” often assume that “God just wants me to be happy” in the thin and predictable ways. Their focus is on me and my immediate needs. They will most likely bail when any significant, protracted marital trouble comes. Here is how University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox sums up our new marital expectations: Prior to the late 1960s, Americans were more likely to look at marriage and family through the prisms of duty, obligation, and sacrifice. . . . But the psychological revolution’s focus on individual fulfillment and personal growth changed all that. Increasingly, marriage was seen as a vehicle for a self-oriented ethic of romance, intimacy, and fulfillment. In this new psychological approach to married life, one’s primary obligation was not to one’s family but to oneself; hence, marital success was defined not by successfully meeting obligations to one’s spouse and children but by a strong sense of subjective happiness in marriage — usually to be found in and through an intense, emotional relationship with one’s spouse. The 1970s marked the period when, for many Americans, a more institutional model of marriage gave way to the “soul-mate model” of marriage. Professor Wilcox’s “soul-mate model” is a fruit of expressive individualism. The assumptions behind this model are a moral solvent, dissolving the covenant bond of marriage. At its center is a potent, marriage-wrecking lie: God just wants me to be happy — and that is “happiness” as I choose to define it. Couples have used this lie to justify abortion, divorce, adultery, abandonment, and all kinds of selfishness. “God wants couples to pursue a greater long-term marital happiness through Christlike self-denial.” The problem with this lie is that it twists an important truth. God does want us to be happy, but he defines the terms, and immediate happiness is not God’s primary goal. God wants couples to pursue a greater long-term marital happiness through Christlike self-denial. God expects us to deny self — to defer immediate marital gratification — in order to experience greater long-term happiness. There are times in marriage when such self-denial takes great faith. Beneath the Lie This lie is a deeply rooted cultural assumption, and assumptions can be difficult to address because they are often subconscious. They seep into us through television, movies, literature, media, music, and our educational system. For instance, one way they rise to the surface and become visible is through consumer advertising. Ad agencies get paid to identify the assumptions that motivate us. Here are some examples — each, if internalized a certain way, could be devastating to a marriage: Outback Steakhouse invites us to eat at their restaurants because there are “No rules. Just right.” McDonalds tells us to buy French fries because “You deserve a break today.” Reebok urges us to buy their running shoes “Because you’re worth it.” And Nike, throwing all restraint to the wind, urges us to “Just do it!” The assumptions expressed by the mind of Christ, however, are strikingly different. Do we “deserve a break today”? Are we really “worth it”? And above all, should we give into sinful passion and “just do it”? No, we live by a deeper logic that counters the selfishness and presumption of the world around us: the logic of the cross. We deserved eternal death, but Christ humbled himself and died so that we might experience the full and abundant life. “Jesus found joy through self-denial, and so will husbands and wives.” The deepest marital happiness comes through self-denial, humility, unselfishness, patience, kindness, and the crucifixion of our me mentality. Ultimately, the wise Christian couple pursuing a happy, God-glorifying union will model their marriage on Christ and him crucified. Jesus found joy through self-denial (Hebrews 12:2), and so will husbands and wives. Deny Yourself for Her Again and again, Scripture gives us glimpses into the mind of Christ. After predicting his death and resurrection, Jesus turns to his disciples and says, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16:24–25) “Take up a cross? Are you kidding?” The cross was an instrument of torture, death, suffering, and shame. But Jesus urges us to save our lives by doing just that — taking up our cross. We save our marriages through denying ourselves — making our spouse’s happiness as important as our own. We apply the principle of the cross. We do this with the conviction that happiness deferred in patient obedience to God is much greater than happiness immediately gratified. Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:26–28) Happy, fruitful marriages do not think mainly in terms of rights. They think from the mind of Christ. Jesus died to his rights to give us ours before God. Husbands and wives who follow him do the same. Do nothing from selfishness or vain conceit, but in humility consider others more significant [or important] than yourself. (Philippians 2:3) The closest “other” in your life is your spouse — the person that sleeps with you, eats with you, worships with you, and raises your children with you. Applying this principle gets really practical. The Lie’s Fruit As the lie proliferates in North America and beyond, the fruits are painfully obvious. Self-denial is an indispensable part of the glue that makes the marital covenant work. Without a willingness to deny self, people are less willing to marry, or they don’t stay married. In 1970, about 70 percent of Americans over age 18 were married. Today, for the first time in U.S. history, that number is 50 percent and falling. “Marriage isn’t changing,” notes sociologist Mark Regnerus. “It’s receding. In an era of increasing options, technology, gender equality, ‘cheap’ sex, and secularization, fewer people — including fewer practicing Christians — actually want what marriage is. That’s the bottom line.” Collapsing marriage also means collapsing fertility. We are not producing enough children to replace ourselves. Were it not for immigration, the population in North America would be shrinking. Thankfully, fertility rates in the evangelical church are better than the national average. Rejecting the Lie What can we do to reject the lie? We can start with the assumption that we don’t deserve to be happy. As we have already noted, the cross shows each of us what we deserve — death, and that is the bottom line. Therefore, no matter how bad our marital circumstances, we are always getting better than we deserve. Those who believe this can continually thank God for his kindness, in spite of their marital problems. We can also reject the lie by believing that holy people are happy people, and marriage is one of God’s primary tools to produce personal holiness. “To be holy as he is holy,” notes Bruce Milne, “is the prescription for true and endless happiness. To be holy is to be happy . . . there is no joy like that of holiness” (The Message of Heaven and Hell, 52). I have found it helpful to think of marriage as a spiritual gymnasium in which I strengthen personal holiness. Marriage toughens the muscle of forgiveness. It strengthens the willingness to love an enemy. It enhances the ability to humble myself and receive criticism. Marriage also teaches the crucial words, “I’m sorry. Would you please forgive me?” In the marital gym, I also strengthen the crucial muscle of perseverance. Most marriages face a moment when the couple would like to call it quits but, if they persevere, almost always later admit that would have been a mistake. Focus on the Family once did a study of couples who persevered through the desire to divorce, only to find that five years later, most of those who persevered now described themselves as happy in their marriage. Persevering when the going gets tough requires self-denial, but it often solves many lesser problems. Two Slaves Become One Ambrose Bierce, a nineteenth-century short-story writer, not known for being a Christian, nevertheless summed up marriage with these insightful words: “Marriage is a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, one person.” My insightful wife sums up the mind of Christ in marriage this way: “Every fruitful, happy marriage begins with two funerals.” This is how the mind of Christ thinks. It thinks like my uncle Gale. Reject the lie that immediate happiness is the goal. Yes, God does want us to be happy, but the deepest, most lasting happiness comes only to those who deny themselves and take up their cross daily. They serve unselfishly, consider their spouse more significant than themselves, persevere through marital troubles, practice forgiveness, and grow in humility. These are the marriages that maximize long-term happiness, and in such a way that God gets the glory. Article by William Farley
