Newsletter
Tim Scott
Deep

Walk into any forest after a great storm and you will find the same thing on the ground: not the smallest trees, but often some of the tallest. The ones that reached highest and grew fastest, the ones that looked the most impressive against the sky — these are frequently the ones lying on their side with their roots torn out of the earth, because they spent all their strength climbing and never sent anything down. The storm does not measure the height of a tree. It measures the depth.

Scripture's picture of the blessed man is never one who grows fast. It is one who grows down. "His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither." — Psalm 1:2-3. Planted. Rooted. Fed by an unseen stream. And Jeremiah paints the same tree with the storm already in view: "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord... for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh... neither shall cease from yielding fruit." — Jeremiah 17:7-8. The drought comes. The heat comes. And the deep-rooted tree does not even notice, because its life is not drawn from the weather. It is drawn from the water it reached long before the sky went dry.

This is God's design for every believer. "Rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the faith." — Colossians 2:7. "That ye, being rooted and grounded in love." — Ephesians 3:17. The Word is always the same. Before God builds anything up, He sends something down.

Deep
Newsletter
Tim Scott
Rise

“He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; He seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor.” — 1 Samuel 2:8. Hannah prayed that after years of barrenness and public humiliation. It is not poetry. It is testimony. The God of the Bible is not a God who merely comforts people in the dust. He is a God who reaches into the dust and lifts. The world has one word for a man who has been through devastation: finished. Scripture has a different word: down. Down is not finished. Down is a position, not an identity. “For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.” — Proverbs 24:16. Read that carefully. The mark of the righteous is not that they never fall. The mark of the righteous is that they get up — seven times, and again after that. The difference between the righteous and the wicked in that verse is not the falling. It is the rising. And the prophet Micah, sitting in the wreckage of a nation under judgment, threw a defiance at his enemy that every believer should learn by heart: “Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.” — Micah 7:8. Not I have risen. Not I feel like rising. I will rise — declared from the floor, in the dark, with nothing in hand but the character of God.

Rise
Newsletter
Tim Scott
Ashes

There is a particular quality to the air in a place that has been through fire. Not the romantic fire of a hearth or a campsite — but the kind that consumes entire cities, that levels what generations built, that leaves a landscape so altered it is almost unrecognizable to the people who once called it home. Vietnam knows that kind of fire. Walking through this country today — through the streets of cities that were once reduced to rubble, past a countryside that absorbed some of the heaviest bombardment in the history of modern warfare — you are walking through what came after. You are walking through the after-ashes.

And what you find is not what the logic of destruction would predict. You find life. You find rebuilding. You find a nation that absorbed one of the most devastating conflicts of the twentieth century — a war that consumed Americans and Vietnamese alike, that shattered families on both sides of the Pacific, that left an entire generation carrying wounds that no government program and no passage of time has ever fully healed — and kept going. The question that this place forces on every honest observer is not simply historical. It is profoundly personal. How does anything — a nation, a soul, a life — rise from ashes? What makes the difference between the ruins that stay ruins and the ruins that become something new?

Ashes
Newsletter
Tim Scott
Flow

There is a posture that God invites every believer into — and most of us spend our entire lives fighting it. Not because we are wicked or faithless, but because the world has trained us, from our very first breath, to grip things tightly. To scheme, to strive, to press, to worry, to manufacture outcomes through sheer force and anxiety. The world calls this wisdom. And it has produced in the hearts of God’s people a deep, chronic, soul-wearying strain that was never part of His original design for us.

Jesus said it plainly, without qualification, to people living in conditions far more precarious than most of us will ever face: “Do not worry about your life.” — Matthew 6:25.

Flow
Newsletter
Tim Scott
Outsider

There is a thread that runs through all of Scripture — a pattern so consistent that once you see it, you cannot unsee it. It is not the pattern the world expects. It is not the pattern even the religious establishment of any given era expected. It is this: God does not choose the way man chooses. He does not select the powerful, the credentialed, the connected, or the ones whose résumé impresses the room. He reaches past the inner circle, past the halls of influence, past the people who have built their identity on being in — and He finds the one standing at the edges. The outsider. And He changes the world through them.

Outsider

Q&A Part 3 with Travel the Road

Q&A Part 3 with Travel the Road

How does one get involved in missions once they feel the call?

Sometimes people feel the call, and they know intimately in their hearts that God is leading them to missions. The trouble is, sometimes, they’ll get that calling crushed and never see it happen. It usually comes from fear. That’s where you really need to build up your faith in the Lord. If God is calling you to do it, you need to take action. Just like a high school student with the calling to be a doctor. When graduating, they take a decisive step to go to medical school. They take active and practical steps to accomplish their calling

Q&A Part 2 with Travel the Road

Q&A Part 2 with Travel the Road

Of the places you have NOT been, where are you most looking forward to going to?

I would say that there are certain countries in West Africa, especially places like Nigeria and Ghana, that we haven’t even had an opportunity to go to yet, and we’re really looking forward to getting over there. West Africa is definitely a new territory for us, and we want to be able to pioneer it sometime in the future.

Q&A Part 1 with Travel the Road

Q&A Part 1 with Travel the Road

Tim Scott answers questions from Facebook

1. Did you guys have any degrees or special training before you went out on the mission field, or did you just study the Bible daily with prayer and head out?

I had a four-year degree in Biblical studies, and William, as most people know, wasn’t a believer at the time. Most of the training, however, came when we were overseas. Before you go out into the field it’s very important to be rooted in the Word of God. You need to know who and what you are in Christ Jesus, but you’re going to grow more as you begin to minister on the field, because you’re going to be among the people and experience different cultures and places. A lot of the knowledge that came was through experience and allowing the Word of God to be implanted on the inside of us as we were traveling from country to country

How Can We Change the Missions Culture?

How Can We Change the Missions Culture?

How can opportunities, culture and environment shape the perception of missions in the global church today?

Recently, we read a news article about the entrance exams taken by 25,000 students in the West African country of Liberia. The headline said this, “Not a single new student will be admitted into the University of Liberia this year after nearly 25,000 candidates failed the school’s admission exam.” Not a single one in 25,000 passed! Why? For starters, years of war, corruption and low standards in education have laid a culture of underachievement and made it virtually impossible for youth in Liberia to have a chance at higher knowledge. These results in Liberia are simply a result of environment, culture and opportunity

Five Principles to Live By

Five Principles to Live By

Everyone wants to change, make themselves better, healthier, smarter, achieve more, et cetera, but few actually accomplish it. For many people, years pass and regrets build. Failure and unhappiness creep in and soon you are met with a crisis. But you can avoid these struggles! Take faith and know God has great plans for you. Here is a list of principles that will help you effect the change you want to see in your life.

“Xmas,” as an abbreviation for Christmas, offensive?

Here’s a holiday surprise that only the dictionary can provide. Do you find the word “Xmas,” as an abbreviation for Christmas, offensive? Many people do.

You won’t find Xmas in church songbooks or even on many greeting cards. Xmas is popularly associated with a trend towards materialism, and sometimes the target of people who decry the emergence of general “holiday” observance instead of particular cultural and religious ritual.

But the history of the word “Xmas” is actually more respectable — and fascinating — than you might suspect. First of all, the abbreviation predates by centuries its use in gaudy advertisements. It was first used in the mid 1500s. X is the Greek letter “chi,” the initial letter in the word Χριστός. And here’s the kicker: Χριστός means “Christ.” X has been an acceptable representation of the word “Christ” for hundreds of years. This device is known as a Christogram. The mas in Xmas is the Old English word for “mass.” (The thought-provoking etymology of “mass” can be found here.) In the same vein, the dignified terms Xpian and Xtian have been used in place of the word “Christian.”

Source: Dictionary Blog

Travel the Road review by Barry Irwin

Travel the Road review by Barry Irwin

I am a passionate movie lover. My wife and I enjoy nothing more than viewing a well written story in a movie theater, renting one from Red Box, or streaming an indie film on Netflix. What excites us even more is when the film has Christian elements or depicts a Christian story that honors the historical documentation of the Bible. As I research and write more and more reviews about Christian artists, I am excitably encouraged at how God is using film to share His Gospel message. With this discovery, God has opened my eyes to an even newer medium (for me anyway) of how documentaries and reality television can be used to spread the Gospel message.

The Company We Keep

The Company We Keep

Lets talk about the company a person keeps and how that company ultimately influences the person they become. In Proverbs it says,

“Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” — Proverbs 27:17

We are the sum of all the intimate friends we interact with in life. Our thought process, our actions, and our lifestyle all derive from the circle of friends we choose. The source of your beliefs and thoughts are greatly influenced by those around you, for the good and for the bad.

“Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”—Proverbs 13:20

Your dreams and desires are nourished and starved by the influence of your friends. Moreover, your influence on others will also determine the course of their lives. Think about it for a moment. Do you have a friend who encourages you when you are feeling low? Have they said words to you that sustained you when you've needed it? Have they acted in faith or boldness in life, and because of that, influenced you to act similarly? Or to the contrary, do you have a friend who is depressing and critical and constantly taking from you, but never giving? Do you have someone close to you who discourages your thoughts and dreams? Either way, good influence or bad influence, you will become what you associate with.

It is virtually impossible to achieve great things in life while being fed negative input. This is an important fact to recognize if you want to fulfill your calling. This doesn't mean you need to abandon a friend if he or she is negative or has some other flaw, because we all have flaws, but it does mean you need to judge what it is that your circle of friends believes and encourages. True friends want to see the best for the other (Colossians 3:12-14), but immature friends will secretly or openly try to hold you back from great things. Immature friends do this because they are threatened by the idea of change and fear their own failures. The best advice is to find like-minded friends who are on a similar path, and encourage each other in sincerity and kindness. If your circle of friends does not believe or act in the same fashion your spirit says is right, then you are either destined to conform or will one day take a different path.

Friendships are key to sustaining a good life and realizing your dreams and callings. We cannot go it alone.

“For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” —Ecclesiastes 4:10

In the path of life, God gives us many great friendships and these should not be neglected. If someone is a stalwart of encouragement to you, let them know. If someone has helped you up when you have fallen, tell them thanks. Value those who are a blessing to you and as you give your love to them, you will receive it back many fold.

At Travel the Road, we count each of you as friends. Though many of you we have never met face-to-face, we have received your kind testimonies and beautiful words. Your prayers and financial support that are given faithfully each month are such a blessing and touch our hearts. You encourage us everyday with your love of missions and you are like-minded friends that care about accomplishing the Great Commission. We are thankful for you. Peace be with you!

In Him,

Tim and Will

 

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