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About the Book
"Beyond Tuesday Morning" by Karen Kingsbury follows the story of two survivors of the 9/11 attacks, attempting to rebuild their lives while facing challenges of grief, guilt, and forgiveness. As they navigate through their pain, they find hope and healing in unexpected places, rediscovering the power of love and faith to overcome tragedy.
David Livingstone
"[I am] serving Christ when shooting a buffalo for my men or taking an observation, [even if some] will consider it not sufficiently or even at all missionary."
With four theatrical words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"—words journalist Henry Morton Stanley rehearsed in advance—David Livingstone became immortal. Stanley stayed with Livingstone for five months and then went off to England to write his bestseller, How I Found Livingstone. Livingstone, in the meantime, got lost again—in a swamp literally up to his neck. Within a year and a half, he died in a mud hut, kneeling beside his cot in prayer.
Berlin Congress spurs African independent churches
The whole civilized world wept. They gave him a 21-gun salute and a hero's funeral among the saints in Westminster Abbey. "Brought by faithful hands over land and sea," his tombstone reads, "David Livingstone: missionary, traveler, philanthropist. For 30 years his life was spent in an unwearied effort to evangelize the native races, to explore the undiscovered secrets, and to abolish the slave trade." He was Mother Teresa, Neil Armstrong, and Abraham Lincoln rolled into one.
Highway man
At age 25, after a childhood spent working 14 hours a day in a cotton mill, followed by learning in class and on his own, Livingstone was captivated by an appeal for medical missionaries to China. As he trained, however, the door to China was slammed shut by the Opium War. Within six months, he met Robert Moffat, a veteran missionary of southern Africa, who enchanted him with tales of his remote station, glowing in the morning sun with "the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary had been before."
For ten years, Livingstone tried to be a conventional missionary in southern Africa. He opened a string of stations in "the regions beyond," where he settled down to station life, teaching school and superintending the garden. After four years of bachelor life, he married his "boss's" daughter, Mary Moffat.
From the beginning, Livingstone showed signs of restlessness. After his only convert decided to return to polygamy, Livingstone felt more called than ever to explore. During his first term in South Africa, Livingstone made some of the most prodigious—and most dangerous—explorations of the nineteenth century. His object was to open a "Missionary Road"—"God's Highway," he also called it—1,500 miles north into the interior to bring "Christianity and civilization" to unreached peoples.
Explorer for Christ
On these early journeys, Livingstone's interpersonal quirks were already apparent. He had the singular inability to get along with other Westerners. He fought with missionaries, fellow explorers, assistants, and (later) his brother Charles. He held grudges for years. He had the temperament of a book-reading loner, emotionally inarticulate except when he exploded with Scottish rage. He held little patience for the attitudes of missionaries with "miserably contracted minds" who had absorbed "the colonial mentality" regarding the natives. When Livingstone spoke out against racial intolerance, white Afrikaners tried to drive him out, burning his station and stealing his animals.
He also had problems with the London Missionary Society, who felt that his explorations were distracting him from his missionary work. Throughout his life, however, Livingstone always thought of himself as primarily a missionary, "not a dumpy sort of person with a Bible under his arms, [but someone] serving Christ when shooting a buffalo for my men or taking an observation, [even if some] will consider it not sufficiently or even at all missionary."
Though alienated from the whites, the natives loved his common touch, his rough paternalism, and his curiosity. They also thought he might protect them or supply them with guns. More than most Europeans, Livingstone talked to them with respect, Scottish laird to African chief. Some explorers took as many as 150 porters when they traveled; Livingstone traveled with 30 or fewer.
On an epic, three-year trip from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean (reputedly the first by a European) Livingstone was introduced to the 1,700-mile-long Zambezi. The river was also home to Victoria Falls, Livingstone's most awe-inspiring discovery. The scene was "so lovely," he later wrote, that it "must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight."
Despite its beauty, the Zambezi was a river of human misery. It linked the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, the main suppliers of slaves for Brazil, who in turn sold to Cuba and the United States. Though Livingstone was partially driven by a desire to create a British colony, his primary ambition was to expose the slave trade and cut it off at the source. The strongest weapon in this task, he believed, was Christian commercial civilization. He hoped to replace the "inefficient" slave economy with a capitalist economy: buying and selling goods instead of people.
The ill-fated Zambezi expedition
After a brief heroic return to England, Livingstone returned to Africa, this time to navigate 1,000 miles up the Zambezi in a brass-and-mahogany steamboat to establish a mission near Victoria Falls. The boat was state-of-the-art technology but proved too frail for the expedition. It leaked horribly after repeatedly running aground on sandbars.
Livingstone pushed his men beyond human endurance. When they reached a 30-foot waterfall, he waved his hand, as if to wish it away, and said, "That's not supposed to be there." His wife, who had just given birth to her sixth child, died in 1862 beside the river, only one of several lives claimed on the voyage. Two years later, the British government, which had no interest in "forcing steamers up cataracts," recalled Livingstone and his mission party.
A year later, he was on his way back to Africa again, this time leading an expedition sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society and wealthy friends. "I would not consent to go simply as a geographer," he emphasized, but as biographer Tim Jeal wrote, "It would be hard to judge whether the search for the Nile's source or his desire to expose the slave trade was his dominant motive." The source of the Nile was the great geographical puzzle of the day. But more important to Livingstone was the possibility of proving that the Bible was true by tracing the African roots of Judaism and Christianity.
For two years he simply disappeared, without a letter or scrap of information. He reported later that he had been so ill he could not even lift a pen, but he was able to read the Bible straight through four times. Livingstone's disappearance fascinated the public as much as Amelia Earhart's a few generations later.
When American journalist Henry Stanley found Livingstone, the news exploded in England and America. Papers carried special editions devoted to the famous meeting. In August 1872, in precarious health, Livingstone shook Stanley's hand and set out on his final journey.
When Livingstone had arrived in Africa in 1841, it was as exotic as outer space, called the "Dark Continent" and the "White Man's Graveyard." although the Portuguese, Dutch, and English were pushing into the interior, African maps had blank unexplored areas—no roads, no countries, no landmarks. Livingstone helped redraw the maps, exploring what are now a dozen countries, including South Africa, Rwanda, Angola, and the Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). And he made the West aware of the continuing evil of African slavery, which led to its being eventually outlawed.
When Our Waiting Will Be Over
My favorite songs are ones that make my heart burn with longing. They’re songs that have unusual power to, as C.S. Lewis put it, rip open my “inconsolable secret” — the secret “which pierces with such sweetness,” yet is so hard to capture in words, since “it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience” (The Weight of Glory, 29–30). Which is why among my favorites is a song written by Bob and Jordan Kauflin, “When We See Your Face.” The song taps into subterranean longings and triggers profound emotions in me. I am not one to cry easily, but I rarely can listen to it without tears. So, I usually listen to it alone, sparing others the awkwardness of a weeping middle-aged man. Lest it appear suspicious to anyone, let me say up front that I was not asked to promote this song. I asked permission to write about it, receiving no benefit beyond what the song itself delivers — which is a benefit more precious than gold. For my soul very much needs this song’s reminder, especially as another year passes and I am another year older, still fighting against the relentless darkness, still waiting, still desiring something that has never actually appeared in my experience. Not yet. It remains a desire for a promised appearing — an appearing I’m growing to increasingly love (2 Timothy 4:8). I share this song because I assume you also need its precious reminder. And perhaps it will tap into your piercing, sweet, inconsolable secret too. Though the Dark Is Overwhelming Though the dark is overwhelming And the brightest lights grow dim Though the Word of God Is trampled on by foolish men Though the wicked never stumble And abound in every place We will all be humbled when we see Your face It doesn’t take reaching our middle or elder years to know just how dark the world can be. But I can attest now to a cumulative effect it has upon the soul the longer one lives here. And I do not claim to have suffered greatly — yet. Prolonged exposure to confounding darkness is a wearisome experience (Psalm 73:16). It is not merely the physical effects of aging that tempt many of us to retreat from action as we enter the older demographic columns. It’s also the spiritual and psychological effects of prolonged dealing with evil that infects and harms our families, friendships, churches, vocations, societies, and nations. We probably thought ourselves more a match for it in the optimistic bloom of youth, but experience put us in our place. The evil is beyond our strength and our comprehension. Hope can take a beating in the relentless battle against darkness. Until we remember. Until we remember that one day all oppressive darkness will be banished from the experience of the saints (Revelation 22:5), and that even now, even as the darkness rages (Revelation 12:12), it is passing away as the true light shines (1 John 2:8). We remember that we were never supposed to know and understand the evil we face (Genesis 3:7) — of course it’s a wearisome task! Only the Omniscient and Omnipotent can comprehend it and not grow weary (Isaiah 40:28). We remember that he promised us, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). We remember that our great task, the one way we truly conquer darkness, is to trust him (Proverbs 3:5–6) and obey him (John 14:15). And the great day that will end all night — the day of the joyful humbling of the redeemed righteous and the horrible humbling of the condemned wicked (Philippians 2:10–11) — will be inaugurated when we see the face of Jesus (1 Corinthians 13:12). All Our Sins Will Be Behind Us And the demons we’ve been fighting Those without and those within Will be underneath our feet To never rise again All our sins will be behind us Through the blood of Christ erased And we’ll taste Your kindness when we see Your face I’m so sick of Satan and his wretched wraiths that I don’t even want to give them the attention of a mention — except to say that one day (hear this, you horrid hoard!), the almighty foot of the Son of Man will come down once for all upon the heads of the great dragon and all his infernal snakes, and we will wrestle them no more (Ephesians 6:12; Revelation 20:10). But we also remember something far, far sweeter — and growing sweeter every year we grow older and come more to terms with just how intractable and entwined our demon-like indwelling sin is in the very members of our bodies (Romans 7:23). We remember that our sin will someday be behind us. Oh, we know that Jesus has paid our ransom in full (1 Timothy 2:6) and that by God’s grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8) we have been clothed in Christ’s righteousness (Philippians 3:9), so that God even now sees us justified, as if we had never sinned and always obeyed (Romans 3:26). It is, for now, an almost incomprehensibly glorious thing. But one day, our blood-bought innocence, our holy purity, will cease to be primarily a forensic reality we embrace by faith. On that day we will fully experience what it’s like to be righteous in every atom of our resurrected bodies and every dimension of our eternal, immaterial souls. We will have no more sin. No more tainted motives, no more illicit desires, no more damned selfish ambition. We will know in every part of our being what it’s like to fully obey the Great Commandment as if it’s the most natural thing in the world — for it will be! And we will worship the Lamb who was slain for us with unclouded minds and hearts bursting with joy. We will taste this unfathomably gracious kindness of Jesus when we see his face. All the Waiting Will Be Over All the waiting will be over Every sorrow will be healed All the dreams it seemed Could never be will all be real And You’ll gather us together In Your arms of endless grace As Your Bride forever when we see Your face The waiting will be over. I can’t write that sentence with dry eyes. Most of our Christian experience in this dark valley is hopeful waiting for what we so long to see (Romans 8:25). And much of that waiting is accompanied by hopeful groaning (Romans 8:20): groaning in illness, groaning in grief, groaning in disappointment and perplexity over the terrible, violent brokenness of the world and the inscrutable purposes of our only wise God (Romans 16:27), whose ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8). And we hopefully groan, like a bride, with longing for the consummate intimacy of knowing the Lover of our souls, even as we have been fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12). But one day — our Groom has promised it will be “soon” (Revelation 22:20) — the waiting will be over. And he will come, our Hero, of which all legendary heroes are but copies and shadows, and he will save us to the uttermost (Isaiah 35:4; Hebrews 7:25). And all that is dark and diseased and damaged and destroyed will pass away like a bad dream and become the shadows of the great yesterday (Psalm 90:4–5), serving only to heighten our savoring of the bright, eternal today (Revelation 22:5). And of all the light in which we delight, the fairest will be his face. We’ll Be Yours Forevermore We will see, we will know Like we’ve never known before We’ll be found, we’ll be home We’ll be Yours forevermore Having once been lost, we will fully know just how found we are (Luke 19:10). Having once known our Savior in such a small part, we will fully know him — as much as the finite can fully know the Infinite (1 Corinthians 13:12). We will be fully his and fully home — forever. Home. That is our inconsolable secret, isn’t it? That piercing sweetness, that desire for what has never actually appeared in our experience, yet somehow we know it is where we truly belong. I think that’s what this song taps into: our homesickness for a place we’ve not been, and a sense of alienation in the very places we were born. We don’t belong here, where it’s dark, depraved, and demonic, and where our sweetest experience is the blessed hope we taste in the future promises we trust. We long for home. For home is where we will meet the One we have loved, though we have not seen him (1 Peter 1:8). Home is where we will see his face. Article by Jon Bloom
