Mar 20, 2007

Here is a story from Megashift, by James Rutz, pages 104, 105, which I think you should know:

"How important is unity to the Lord? He spoke dramatically to this point in 1997. I got the following report directly from a highly placed U.S. leader in world missions.

"The true (non-government) church in China now has seven main strands, or families, each led by a man who has done hard time in prison for his faith, typically about 20 years. They meet twice a year, and this U.S. leader has met with them on several such occasions.

"One of the those seven leaders is Wang Xin Cai, a tough-as-nails, highly outspoken man about 5'3".

Wang spent 13 years in prison loading rocks onto trucks by hand. His daily quota was a staggering 20 tons. By 1996 his health was broken and he was near death. The government didn't want the embarrassment of a top religious leader dying in prison, so they sent him home to die with his family.

SURPRISE: God healed him.

The next year, he and his wife had a second child, another girl. (The first was three years old at his arrest. He returned to find she was a 16-year-old traveling evangelist.)

Though things were going well for him, Wang was quite distressed by a major problem: At that time, there were just four major strands of the Chinese Church that had ever cooperated with one another, and even they had unraveled from each other because of some minor differences. Suspicion and condemnation reigned all across the land.

He saw this as a major threat to the future of the church in China, so in December he called for a summit meeting in his city in Henan province.

On the morning the other three leaders were arriving, Wang's daughter was hanging out clothes on a clothesline attached to their fourth-floor apartment. She had the baby in a baby pack, but as she leaned out, the baby twisted unexpectedly and fell out, plunging three floors to instant death, her head split wide open.

In a state of shock, Wang gathered up the remains, put the body on a blanket, and laid it on the couch in his living room. Then he prayed loudly, "Lord, if this unity meeting is of You, then You have to heal my daughter. If you don't, I'm finished serving you because I just can't take it anymore. And I'll know that this unity vision is not of You." He then left his heart behind and staggered off to the meeting--to struggle earnestly for unity in the church.

I can't imagine any American--myself included--willing to look so foolish.

After a hard day of prayer and negotiation, Wang returned home and looked at the couch. The baby was still dead, but amazingly, her head was together again, in one piece! In faith, Wang gave thanks.

The next morning there was no change, but instead of staying to pray, he left for another day of conference.

That evening, he returned home to find the baby breathing! But she was in a deep coma. Again, he gave thanks.

The third morning, he put his feelings behind him as best he could and went to the meeting again. That was a day of salvation for the church of China. In a breakthrough of immense importance, the four brothers resolved their differences and found ways to work together as the body of Christ. The largest church on earth was saved from perhaps decades of fragmentation and destructive conflict.

Returning home that evening, Wang Xin Cai found his daughter awake, alert, eating happily, and perfectly whole in every way. Today she is a bouncy seven-year-old who reflects the joy of the Father when He sees His children living in unity.

Why didn't God bring back Wang's baby in one moment? Why did He take three days? Because of you. He wanted to make you stop and think about how important it is to Him to have unity in His family.

This resurrection is one of the foremost object lessons in all history, and in the simplest terms, the lesson is this: A split in the church is like a split head. To be healed, we must have unity."

[End of quote]