Jesus Christ in You
By Jill Briscoe
“Have we not power, to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?”
1 Corinthians 9:5, KJV
Stuart and I had been invited to visit the work of the Sudan Interior Mission in nine African nations, so that we might minister to national leaders and missionaries. As I contemplated the tour, I wondered if the wives of the apostles and evangelists of the early church had ever felt as I was feeling. I was glad that God had given the apostles the right to “lead about a believing wife,” and reflected that Stuart had been given the same happy privilege! I rejoiced that I was the wife he was “to lead about.”
Never having been very good at geography, and having already confused Liberia and Libya, I was thankful to be led! Even so, a great sense of inadequacy gripped me. Would I be able to have a useful part in the ministry? Could I be an encouragement to the missionaries? What would happen if I got sick? And what about the bugs? Seeing a tiny ant, I tried to envisage what it would look like six inches larger! Had the wives of the early disciples faced similar challenges as they ministered alongside their traveling husbands?
Somehow I knew they would not have been the sort of women that “just went along for the ride.” Startled out of my reverie, I heard my husband encouraging a timid friend: “Jesus Christ in you is adequate; get on with it!”
“All right, Lord,” I whispered, “I will! Let’s go!”
.jpg)