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Why my Wife is More than One in a Million?

What happened to this Englishman when 26 years ago he read a book about South Korea and he traveled there three times - on his 4th trip, he upped from England to live in South Korea — his home - so far at the time of, now writing, for 25 years.

Hi there, my name is Christopher John Briscoe and I am from England; where I lived for the first thirty years of my life; but then, after feeling acute symptoms of being restricted within the British culture, I upped everything and moved to the Far East and chose to reside in South Korea, which has been my home for the previous twenty-five years; for various reasons, sadly and gut-wrechingly, I haven’t seen my folks in eleven years, but here’s hoping that will change soon, by God’s deep love for me and you.

Let me Tell you about my 4 Different Excursions to South Korea

My first excursion to South Korea was 1992, and then, and after returning two more times, in 1995 — I came to live in 1997 after marrying my wife; who I had met on my first excursion; so my fourth excursion wasn’t an excursion at all, even though, when we left England, we thought it was; the reason was to show my wife’s family our wedding ceremony which was the second, after having our first ceremony in England.

So in 1997, that was at the time of my fourth trip to South Korea, after I had been blessed with the best wife I could have ever met; I mean, meeting my future wife on my first venture out here was definitely not a co-incidence because that’s what I figure when I do the calculation; let me explain further:

I visited South Korea first because I had read a book by a Korean Pastor man, who had learned the secret of praying his needs to God his heavenly Father, in 1958, when he set up ministry in among the rubble and confusion of a country torn literally in two by war; he had learned the secret of waiting on God the Holy Spirit to give him a tangible assurance that God had heard his prayer; and God had blessed his ministry that his Church had grown in thirty years from five members to 750,000 members; he wrote in his book that when he prays, he doesn’t just pray to God but “prays through to God” the Holy Spirit, after a prolonged period of time spent regularly, every day, in the presence of God the Holy Spirit, waiting for God to fill his senses with a tangible feeling that he had heard his particular prayer; which is when his faith and mind became filled with the confidence that he had received what he had been regularly praying for.

As for me, back in November, 1992, when I visited South Korea on the pre-text to visit Pastor Cho Yonggi and what was called “the largest, smallest Church in the world”, God my heavenly Father had another major pre-text; meaning, he had other business for me; which God, who I believe is my Father and who Jesus said,

“And when you pray, do not be like the religious hypocrites, for they love to publicly pray, standing on the street corners to be seen by everyone. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep babbling on and on, repeating the same words, religiously, thinking that by many words you would be heard. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (From the Bible Gospel book of Matthew, Chapter Six, Verses Five to Eight)

Therefore, I now know that God my loving Father had prepared for me his wonderful gift of a beautiful and Godly wife (and don’t ask me, “Is your Wife really beautiful - as in physical beauty?” because, as you know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder! But I know she has both inner and outer beauty, but her inner competes well with her outer). Even before I had stepped onto that British Airways plane, on November 12th, 1992, my heavenly Father had already prepared her for me! I say that only God could have prepared her for me, which considering this member who is by my side and who fits me like a glove or a jigsaw puzzle, came from a grand membership of 750,000 of other people, with at least 75% of them being of the female kind— so it means it is NOTHING LESS THAN A GOD-INCIDENCE RATHER THAN A MERE CO-INCIDENCE, which I believe rarely happens; I mean, I am convinced that in our world and life, God-incidences are common — much more common that co-incidences.

If you think about it: what are the chances out of 750,000 members in that church which I was visiting that day in a 1992 November Winter, I happened to be introduced to the young lady who turned out to be my wife, by God’s permissive will, and not forgetting the just as important this lady’s permissive will; that out of 750,000 persons, God made sure I met her, not happened to meet her, but by his all-amazing love and grace with which he loves you, too, and with all his pre-knowledge (omniscience) and all-powerfulness (omnipotence) we were both meant to meet by his providence.

That’s my take on it, because the fact that we are still together, twenty-two years later is testament to the longevity of a marriage when both partners make Jesus the third person in the marriage, who is the God and Anchor of our marriage, who we have always tried to focus on, when the storms of life’s enemies try and overwhelm us and our precious faith; Jesus, who is the Saviour of our marriage and through whom fills us with the unconditional love to be able to chose love, rather than disappointment or even hate. To always remember that his love is always there when our love fizzles out. And he helps us when we obey his word to us from the Bible, “In love, always put the other needs before your own.” Or as the Bible book of Romans says, in the Twelfth Chapter, Verse Nine to Ten,

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves.” (Did you see it, “Honour one another above yourselves", which, in other words, means, “In love, prefer the other’s needs before your own.” How many marriages could be saved from the ravages of divorce if a partner decided to do that, instead of thinking of their own needs, first, even thinking of the children’s needs, first. For surely, divorce is always detrimental to the children.

But the good news is God is the God of each of us being healed and him filling our hearts with his love, so that we have the power to love, with his love, not our own, and forgive with his strength and movement of his Holy Spirit to move us to follow his wonderful will.

A Pastor’s Perspective

As I said, the reason I first came to Korea in 1992 was because I had read a book written by a Korean pastor, who in 1958, just after the Armistice between North and South and their allies, the Korean pastor, named Cho Yonggi founded a Church, which he used to meet together with his five members, under a leaky tent which he bought or somehow acquired from the U.S. marines. It was a time when the City was completely leveled from war, and when Pastor Cho started preaching his Gospel, the natural reaction he got from his growing congregation was, “Pastor, how can you say, ‘God loves you,’ when all around us is disaster, and when many of us are just roaming around the City and country looking for news of our lost relative or child, or looking for the next meal???!”

Anyway, he had to try and instill some kind of mature faith into his congregants, and, but for the help of God the Holy Spirit who he had a way with, he and many of his church members would, no doubt have lost any hope of finding hope. Thankfully their shaky faith rested on One who they were convinced loved them more than anyone, and who was working on their case to pull them up out of the muddy and miry pit they had fallen into.

Pastor Cho had learned that God was his Father, and Jesus was the Son of God, but the Holy Spirit was his Energizer, his Comforter, his Healer and Deliverer, now, in the hellish circumstances he and his church members had been thrust into; and so, it was the Holy Spirit he prayed to every day; and Pastor Cho shared in his books that he learned a way to have a deep relationship with God the Holy Spirit, so whenever he prayed for certain things he needed, he never gave up and he always prayed those things through into existence; meaning, he said that he learned the secret of “praying through to the Holy Spirit”, waiting upon the Holy Spirit until He gave him breakthrough in the spiritual realm, meaning Cho felt his spirit enlightened and flooded with the feeling of a tangible assurance that his prayer had been answered; and it was just a matter of a little more faith and patience, until he received what he felt God had promised to him, through the Holy Spirit communicating the wonderful and amazing feeling of God’s warmth and grace.

When Cho was in his early months of ministry, trying to visit as many of his members, he needed a bicycle with which to visit them, as well as a desk to write his sermons, and also an accompanying chair. And these three items he spent around three months praying for until one night, as he was waiting in prayer, he felt God the Holy Spirit whisper into his spirit to ask him what kind of bicycle, “Cho, there are many different kinds of bicycles on the face of this earth — what kind of bicycle?”

That’s when Cho said he had one of those - in my words - “moments in ministry” of discovering something about God’s ways. That God wants us to ask him, and he wants us to ask him in such a way that when he delivers those things, we recognize that only he could have provided them because he is our “Father who knows what we need before we ask him”; now, I am not sure whether you believe that this is theologically sound, but I am just relaying Pastor Cho’s testimony. However, there are times when we can rest in the assurance that whatever we ask for, there are instances and seasons when what he has “up his sleeve” is way, way, better than what we are asking for; but nevertheless, small consequential things such as these three items can be asked for with the appropriate dimensions at the feet of our heavenly Father. The most important aspect of our prayer is, are we asking in faith? And with sincerity, always seeking his will, not our own.

So Cho paused and had a thought. He answered,“I would like one of those sporty types, with the handle bars leaning downwards, which I can only get from the U.S.A.!”

And then, he felt God the Holy Spirit prompt him to ask, for a certain type of chair, “I want one of those CEO chairs which are on wheels, so I can feel like a BIG SHOT on wheels!”

And then , for the table: “I want an up market one — a mahogany wooden table for writing on.”

And so, a few days later or weeks, someone in the Church who had been a Missionary in the U.S.A. said to Pastor Cho that he had a racer bicycle which he had brought from the U.S.A. and he wanted to give to Cho.

And regarding the table, one man in his church said that he was closing his furniture shop and he had a nice, mahogany table, and would like to give Pastor Cho first claim.

And the chair came through the same means or through some CEO who was retiring, I can’t exactly remember.

Anyway, HALLELUJAH, Our heavenly Father is alive and well, and knows what you need, and is waiting for you to ask him.

At the early time of his ministry, Cho was living in just one room; the same room he slept in and the same floor he slept on, (as you know, generally, orientals — particularly at that time — never usually sleep on a bed) where he ate off on a little put-me-up table which is where he also studied off and prepared his sermons; and the remainder of his time, he would devote at the very least two hours or three hours to prayer, communing with “His Senior Partner” the Holy Spirit. And the rest of the time, he would devote to visiting his church members; his ministry grew explosively and exponentially from just five members in 1958 to 750,000 by the time Seoul was hosting the Summer Olympics in 1988.

But back in the 1950s when material belongings were sparse, most of his church members were impoverished and needed to find the means to eat something nourishable, as well as to find their relatives scattered by war; you can imagine the horror and repercussions of this country, about the same size as Britain, being split - which means, now, many of the population haven’t seen their close relatives for over 60 years.

One day in church, Pastor Cho shared with his members that he felt God had impregnated him by the Holy Spirit with the assurance of faith that his bicycle, his table and his chair were on its way; he said to them it was like God had made him pregnant with a bicycle, a table and a chair. “They are growing in my stomach in the spiritual realm!” He exclaimed.

After church, Pastor Cho walked the short distance to his one room; and on the way a little boy who was the son of his church members ran up to him and greeted him, and cheekily patted Pastor Cho on the stomach and said, looking up to him with a cheeky smile, “Pastor, how is the baby doing?”

Our Greatest Need

But do you know, that our greatest need is to know him and experience his unlimited and unconditional love ? So if you are not one who has the slightest whim or wish to be religious — I am not talking about religion because religion means doing something, over and over again, repeatingly, without real meaning; this is not a religion but rather the best relationship whereby we discover that he is the greatest source, joy and comfort in this dark and evil world. That he is our healer.And if you are not sure, then go ahead, and ask him to show you. Just pray a simple prayer,

“ God,

Wherever you are, whoever you are, I heard you love me more than anyone, and that you can make the greatest difference for good in my life; and that you are waiting for me to ask you to come into my life; I invite you in to show me your love, and enlighten my dark eyes so I would experience your love for me, personally, so that I would never be the same again, because of the wonderful healing and grace I receive from you.

And in the meantime, or in my past, if there is anything that is an offense to you, please I turn from my bad and selfish tendencies and ask you that you to change me inside, and I place all my negatives at the cross of Christ who has promised to turn all my negative into positive, through the power of taking all my negatives, two thousand years ago; I ask you to come into my heart and flood it with your new life and healing assurance, that you are my loving Father, so I can, like a butterfly, be born again, by your Holy Spirit.

I place my little hand into your huge hand, and give you all my negative on your wide shoulders at the cross, trusting you, from now on, and I believe you will break into my darkness with the light of your perfect love and healing, for me, individually.

Thank you.

Amen.”

God invites us from his word in the book of Psalms, to test his love:

“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who makes the Lord his trust.” (Psalm 34:8)

Have you at least asked God to show you because,

ONLY THOSE WHO EXPERIENCE HIM, BELIEVE IN HIM!

Please, I implore you to put this at the top of your bucket list to do, and to pray before your head hits the pillow,tonight, or after your head hits the pillow - but before you reach the end of your life, and something else hits the fans, when you realize the tragedy of what you have missed, and what could have been if you have just experienced God’s individual love for you!

I hope you have found this story helpful, and my prayer is that you would find God your personal Father, who knows what you need before you ask him, and who will move in the practical, everyday trials of your life, when you ask him.

Amen.

P.S. Please let me know your thoughts, I would really appreciate and it would really encourage me in my writing, whatever you contribute, as long as its uplifting or constructive — even constructive criticism, which is to make us all better writers.

If you would like to read more of my writings please click to the following Link

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