Just one second…

Frank Laubach and his wife went to the Philippine Islands as missionaries during 1915.  After more than a decade of hard work, having lost 3 of his 4 children to Malaria and now being isolated from his wife and remaining child, this American minister in a foreign country was at an all time low.  He sensed profound dissatisfaction in his walk with God and felt, in his words,  “disgusted with the pettiness and futility of my unled self”.  In a series of letters written between 1930 and 1932 we find an amazing account of how Laubach met God in a way that revolutionised his life.

He began by trying to “keep in constant touch with God” and writes about how his desire was for “… a continuous inner conversation with God…in perfect responsiveness to His will”.  The peers with whom Laubach shared his intentions felt that this was just not a feasible idea, but he was a practical and biblical man who firmly believed that we could all enter into the relationship that Jesus enjoyed with the Father.  In his letters he describes how he set off upon this journey through deliberate acts of his will, which included casting his thoughts towards God and acknowledging Him regularly during the day, even every few minutes, until it became habit. He eventually challenges us to call God to mind “one second out of every minute”, attending to His presence with us in each moment.

Right now your thoughts probably range somewhere between “wow” and “whack job”, but read on…

The results of this “experiment” were nothing short of revolutionary.  Within a few weeks of embarking on this moment by moment walk with God we find him exclaiming “I feel simply carried along each hour, doing my part in a plan which is far beyond myself…I need something and turn round to find it waiting for me.  I must work, to be sure, but there is God working along with me.  God takes care of all the rest”.  Later we read “The sense of being led by an unseen hand which takes mine while another hand reaches ahead and prepares the way, grows upon me daily. I do not need to strain at all to find opportunity.  It piles upon me as the waves roll over the beach, and yet there is time to do something about each opportunity…I feel convinced that for me, and for you who read, there lie ahead undiscovered continents of spiritual living compared to which we are infants in arms.”

Historians focus on Frank Laubach’s  incredible impact upon humanitarian causes and his concern about the effects of poverty, injustice and illiteracy around the globe.  In 1935 he developed the “Each One Teach One” literacy program which has been instrumental in teaching nearly 60 million people to read in their own native tongue.   He later founded a non-profit organisation called Laubach Literacy to continue this work.  He became an advisor to presidents and leaders, travelled to more than 100 countries to address the topics of literacy and peace and authored more than 50 books.

In 1984 Frank Laubach, who is known as the “Apostle to the Illiterates”, became the only American missionary to be honoured on a US postage stamp. Most writers would rather ignore the spiritual journey which lay at the core of his being, probably because it was so foreign to them and they were not sure what to make of it.

What do you make of it? Of the life of a man who achieved so much and yet said that his only focus needed to be upon the absolute surrender to God in every moment? May we hear our Father speak to us as he did to Frank Laubach:

“I am in travail to set you akindle with the Christ-thing that has no name”

Glory to Him

WS

References

1. Laubach, Frank C. Letters by a Modern Mystic (New Readers Press, 1955)
2. Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1998)
3. Gene Edwards (editor). Practicing His Presence: Frank Laubach and Brother Lawrence (Seedsowers, 1985)
4. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Laubach)