-MOJune 12, 1972NO.169—GP

Copyrighted June, 1972 by The Children of God

P.O. Box 31, London WC2E 7LX, England or GPO Box 3141, San Juan‚ Puerto Rico 00936

My Precious children in the Lord! Greetings in Jesus' Dear Name! We've been following with joy your tremendous progress‚ from the lowly days of your first experience with us to your present important position on which you're doing a beautiful job which improves with time, Praise the Lord! God bless you and all your wonderful staff! We love you!

2. However, we know this is a very great responsibility, a heavy burden‚ and just a plain big job of a lot of hard work, tension, confusion, excitement, concerns, and physical‚ mental, and nervous strain which tends to be pretty hard on you. Even the Lord Himself could not bear the continual strain and virtue drain of a constant ministry to the multitudes, which is what your ministry really is, so He frequently had to get way from it all and take His disciples up into the mountains or out to sea or on a private visit to friends, for a spiritual retreat, rest‚ and recuperation and inspiration—sometimes even all alone!

3. No one can continue to keep pouring out to others without spending some time alone with the Lord getting filled up again! I've been in the Lord's Work for half a century, and my Mother for half a century before me, and my Grandfather for half a century before her, so I know what I'm talking about! As A. B. Simpson, that grand old man of faith, once said, "You cannot do the Master's Work without the Master's Power"!—And to get it‚ you must spend time with the Master!

4. You may recall the poem we quoted along this line, beginning with the words, "I was longing to serve the Master"—one of my Mother's favourites, which I think I included in "Stop, Look, and Listen!"—along with the homey little illustration about "making bedroom slippers for God!" I would encourage you to read these again and heed their simple admonitions: We all need more quiet time alone with the Lord in rest and refilling, drinking at the Living Water of His Word and fellowshipping with Him in the Communion of Prayer and the sweet love—making of the Spirit! PTL!

5. NONE OF US CAN STAND THESE CONSTANT PRESSURES of continuous demands on our time‚ strength, body, soul, and spirit to which we are so often forced to submit, without relief, by the press of time, necessity, need, and one emergency after another so prevalent in such a fast—moving and rapidly expanding work such as ours where the labourers are so few, the Harvest so big, and there's so much to be done to gather it in before the Storm!

6. But the Lord Himself has said, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy—laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and my burden is light." And His Word also warns us that we must be "temperate in all things" and "let your moderation be known to all men". It the yoke gets too hard and the burden too heavy, it's not His yoke nor His burden, but our own or someone else's which we've unwisely undertaken or permitted to be placed upon us beyond the Lord's knowledge of our strength and abilities! He Himself will never suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able!

7. SOMETIMES WE'RE TEMPTED TO TAKE TOO MUCH UPON US, but certainly not by the Lord, and sometimes we allow our strength to be taxed beyond what we know we can wisely endure; and in so doing we often allow ourselves to be pushed beyond the measure of our own faith and suffer the consequences in a physical, mental, nervous or spiritual collapse or breakdown, of which I myself testified in the letter "Breakdown". Please don't let it happen to you! "Take time to be holy."—Wholly His and whole in body, mind, and spirit! "Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee‚ because he trusteth in Thee."

8. YOUR STRENGTH MUST BE CONSERVED AND NERVES PROTECTED FROM TOO GREAT A STRAIN! Please forgive us for several times having let you be put under too much pressure, and may the Lord forgive us! We love you, and you have a great work to do for the Lord! Take more time out to be strengthened for it! You could do this partly by reading MO Letters and His Word! Thank you so much for your notes, letters, tapes, etc. God bless and keep you and continue to make you a blessing! Thanks also for your sweet pictures which I affectionately kiss! You're precious!

9. TO SOME OF YOU EXPECTANT MOTHERS, let me say: I'm glad you're concerned about not having your baby in a hospital, and I don't blame you; and I'm very sorry that we seem so short of midwives‚ but those we have seem so busy delivering babies that they don't have time to train any more!

10. I agree with you! I'd certainly rather have my baby at home trusting the Lord than in those Godless hospitals!—And that's the way I was born—in a humble little cottage in California! And you're right!—The Lord is really the one who delivers them, and‚ as someone has said‚ you only need someone there to catch it!

11. HOWEVER, THERE MAY BE SOME LEGAL TECHNICALITY why you're required to at least have a midwife furnished by the Government‚ or registered. So maybe you'll be able to have your baby at home‚ still trusting the Lord and still surrounded by your praying bothers and sisters, but merely complying with the System technicalities by having the System midwife present. I'm sorry I don't know the laws there, so you'll have to discuss it with you elders.

12. IN SOME PLACES, YOU'RE NOT PERMITTED TO HAVE A MIDWIFE FOR YOUR FIRST CHILD, BUT ARE REQUIRED TO HAVE THE FIRST ONE IN A HOSPITAL. However, from what we've heard of one experience, she was allowed to have her child naturally right in the hospital with one of our girl's help and her husband present, and had a very good natural delivery.

13. So, since it's required by the law some places‚ and we have to obey the laws as much as we can according to God's Word (Rom.13), you may have to have your first child in the hospital according to their regulations. We can at least be thankful that, if it's required, you should be able to trust the Lord in the hospital just as much as at home. We understand that free prenatal care and postnatal care and maternal training are also available free of charge in some areas, so why not take advantage of that, too? You could probably learn a lot, especially if we have none of our own midwives or nursery workers there to help you. The System is here for your use! Read "Use It!" Just don't let it use you!

14. SO DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT: JUST TRUST THE LORD‚ and I'm sure He'll take care of you! He never fails, no matter what the conditions, and we'll all be praying for you. God bless and keep you and continue to make you a blessing! Keep up the good work! We love you dearly!

15. And for your further encouragement, we want to share with you what one of our dear girls wrote us about her delivery! Julia says: "No one at the Colony was prepared to deliver the baby, so I got to the hospital at the last minute and they left me in a room with only the attendant, not believing when I told them the baby was about to come out. So, sure enough, just five minutes after I had entered the hospital, out popped little Andrew David when no one was looking! It caused no small stir in the hospital and was a wonderful testimony to the whole staff of real faith in God and how He can take care of His Children!"—Hallelujah!—Your father in the Lord,—Love,—MO.

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family