Month: January 2025

Tragedy, meet triumph

When a shocking death threatened to crush her heart, God redeemed Maribel Chávez’s life and changed eternities in the process

July 24, 2024.

That’s the day Maribel Chávez’s whole world changed.

Her husband, José, had left the couple’s home on a Monday to run what she expected would be a relatively quick errand. But as the hours passed and he had not returned home, she began to worry.

A day passed. Still no sign of José. One day turned to two. The family reported his disappearance to police. Three days passed, then four—nothing. They continued to desperately reach out to friends and acquaintances to see if anyone had seen him.

Finally, after five days of searching, Maribel’s oldest son, Edwin, now 19, located José at an area hospital, where he was taken after being found unconscious in a street following a stroke. When the family arrived at the hospital, they found José connected to machines that were keeping him alive.

“When we saw him plugged in to so many machines, we were very shocked,” Maribel recalled. “The first thing I did was hug him and tell him to please [not] leave me.”

Though he was unconscious, she knew he could hear her; tears began to stream from his eyes as she spoke.

José passed away on July 24, 2024.

A powerful witness

Maribel, a member of Travis Avenue Baptist Church En Español, knows God has been with her and her family as they have navigated the grief brought on by José’s death. She even said she feels God had been preparing her since the beginning of the year.

Though she had been attending Travis Avenue En Español for two years, she said she had not been feeling very connected to the church or the Lord. She was, in her own words, “just using a chair.”

“I had stopped praying and crying out to God, but in January of this year, I had an urgency and need to feel God’s presence,” she said, “so I began to seek Him with all my heart in prayer.”

While José was in the hospital, the only thing Maribel remembers doing is praying. Through her intercessions, the Lord helped her realize the desire she had to begin urgently seeking Him was a call for her to return to Him as a season of adversity approached.

She noticed something else: the church family to which she didn’t feel close instead pulled close to her, providing for her material and spiritual needs and offering continuous encouragement.

“We don’t have family close by, but we have a family of faith that has continued to keep us,” she said.

“We don’t have family close by, but we have a family of faith that has continued to keep us.”

—Maribel Chávez Tweet

Maribel said the church’s ministry to her family caused a friend of hers, who was not a Christian, to take notice. That friend saw how leaders and church members loved Maribel and her family unconditionally. Travis Avenue’s lead teaching pastor, Ben Bolin, stayed in contact. So did En Español Pastor José Rodríguez and his wife, Lea. Bobby Bridge, the church’s minister of pastoral care, was there, too—showing compassion and concern that made her feel a deep sense of gratitude.

The friend, quite frankly, didn’t understand what she was seeing.

“Who are all these people that come to visit you?” the friend repeatedly asked Maribel.

Maribel’s answer was always the same: “They are my brothers [and sisters] from the church.”

The friend also did not understand how, even in the face of tragedy, Maribel was able to remain calm. Maribel said it gave her opportunities to testify about the peace that only God can give through His gift of eternal life through Jesus.

“I am calm because I know that my husband is with God,” Maribel told her friend, turning the conversation to her friend’s own spiritual state.

“And you, are you ready to go with God?” she asked her friend. “Do you know where you are going [when you die]?”

“I don’t know,” the friend replied, “but I want to be with God.”

The friend has now heard the gospel and regularly attends Travis Avenue En Español.

The Lord has continued to use Maribel to tell others about Jesus. She has led two families to Christ, as well as her three children. Her 11-year-old daughter, Amy, was impacted by seeing the peace Maribel had knowing her husband was with the Lord. It caused Amy to see her own need for God, so she accepted Christ as her Savior. A week later, Amy, Edwin, and her other son, Joshua, 15, were baptized.

Maribel said she takes every opportunity possible to tell others about the Lord, letting her moments of grief and anxiety over “losing such an important pillar” of her home trigger gospel conversations more than sadness.

“When I’m very anxious, I go out on the street in my neighborhood and evangelize people on the street, including alcoholics and drug addicts,” she said. “Doing that takes away everything I’m feeling at that moment.”

One church, one mission

For Rodríguez, Travis Avenue’s En Español pastor, it was powerful to see how Maribel and her children have been witnessing for Christ and how God is working in their lives.

Rodríguez has pastored Travis En Español since August 2022, when he began serving as an interim pastor before being officially installed that October. One thing Rodríguez said he loves about his church is that the Spanish ministry at Travis Avenue En Español has the same vision as the rest of the church.

Since his ministry began there, the focus has been on discipleship. As a result, Travis En Español has seen a group of about 45 attendees blossom into about 140 by God’s grace. The church seeks to cast a vision into its community of biblical faithfulness, service, and kingdom expansion by sending people on mission across the street and around the world.

People like Maribel and her family.

“You think a family will not come back for a while after such a difficult experience,” Rodríguez said, “but it has been wonderful to see the Spirit working in them, testifying of Christ and persevering in the faith.”

Some things are just better together

There are some things we can only do by ourselves.

No student has ever taken a group SAT or ACT exam. No, you are on your own on those! Only you could have married your spouse. You could not have sent someone for you or had a group come to the wedding and say a collective “We do.” No, it has to be “I do.” When you apply for a job, you have to go it alone in the interview because you are being hired as an individual, not as a group.

This is also true spiritually. You and I are accountable to God and how we respond to His offer of grace. We have our own individual quiet times with Jesus. I cannot ask you to be my proxy and go pray in my place and read the Bible for me.

However, there are some things where we are just simply better together. If you are married and have children and you are to sit for a family portrait, you do not sit alone; you sit with the family. If you play a team sport like football, you do not go out and line up by yourself against 11 other football players. You are doomed if you don’t have your team lined up beside you.

Let’s say you have a very large house with 30 rooms and you have your family over for the traditional Thanksgiving meal. You could have everyone get their plate and go to their individual rooms to eat in silence—but we would never do that! We want to be together. The food is sweeter and the fellowship so much more rich when we share the meal together rather than in isolation.

In corporate worship, the people of God come together and do what no one could adequately do alone—join in the chorus of other believers and worship Him. The Bible commands us to worship with the people of God. Hebrews 10:24-25 states,^“And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”

There is power in numbers. When a watching world sees the people of God gathering on Sundays, we want them to ask why we are doing that. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, said there are a lot of other things he could do on a Sunday morning than go to church. He is right, but he is also mistaken. Of course, there are many things he could do other than go to church, but there is nothing more important than going to church with the people of God on the Lord’s Day—when we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

Speaking of being together, I invite you to the annual Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Empower Conference Feb. 24-25 in Irving. You will be blessed with excellent Bible teaching and worship. There is strength in the people of God coming together to be encouraged in our mission of making disciples, so come join us!

10 reasons we should all resolve to take care of ourselves in 2025

I confess I don’t always take care of myself as I should. I have to work hard to maintain a healthy weight, keep my blood pressure down, etc. In fact, I’m re-posting this blog from 2019 as a way to hold myself accountable to you, my readers. I don’t want to give guidance that I myself don’t follow in 2025.

As a Christian, I see this issue of exercise and bodily well-being as more a spiritual one than a physical one. Here are some reasons believers need to take care of ourselves:

1. We are created in God’s image.

The Bible is quite clear here—we are made in the image of the Creator. That image was marred in the fall of Adam and Eve, but not destroyed. That fact alone should give us reason to take care of ourselves.

2. This body is the only one we have.

This point might sound silly, but sometimes we live as if we have bodies to spare. When this one is worn out, we don’t have a replacement until the day of resurrection.

3. Poor discipline is a bad witness.

It’s hard to tell people to be disciplined in their Bible study, prayer life, giving, etc., when they can look at us and see we are undisciplined in exercise and eating. A lack of effort in one area of life is often indicative of problems in other areas.

4. Bad health is costly.

Eventually, the costs of poor health add up. Medical bills pile up. Insurance costs increase. Moreover, bad health makes us less productive at work. Others are forced then to carry some of our load.

5. Our families deserve better.

Frankly, it’s unloving not to take care of ourselves. Our families worry about us when we struggle to climb steps or find clothes to fit. Our love for them ought to motivate us to do better.

6. Being out of shape might indicate idolatry.

Those words might be difficult to hear, but they’re necessary ones. If we cannot push away from food in order to take care of our bodies, we must ask if something other than God has become our god. On the other hand, it’s also possible to idolize exercise because we’ve become our own god—so balance is in order.

7. Better health = more energy to do God’s work.

God’s work is not easy. Those of us in ministry know the burdens are sometimes heavy. The hours are often long. Being out of shape makes the work only that much more difficult.

8. Proper care requires rest—and it’s biblical to get rest.

God expects us to take time off, focus on Him, and enjoy His blessings. In fact, nottaking time to rest can be self-centered (that is, we think we must be doing everything). I struggle here, but I’m learning.

9. We might be called to the mission field.

Many missions organizations will not consider sending someone who is out of shape. The work is often rigorous, and the stresses of cross-cultural living are only compounded by poor health.

10. Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

This truth is difficult to comprehend, but God really does live within us (1 Corinthians 6:19). He who created us and indwells us expects us to be wise stewards of the body He gave us.

This article originally appeared at ChuckLawless.com.

4 prayer goals to pursue in 2025

Do you have any goals for your prayer life? C.S. Lewis once said, “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”

About 60% of young adults will make New Year resolutions this year, hoping new goals will lead to self-improvement. Since we never grow spiritually by accident, here are four prayer goals to pursue in the new year.

Think why not just how

There are innumerable resources on “how” to pray—a teaching which is desperately needed. In addition to instruction on the mechanics of prayer, however, we also need to grasp the motivation for prayer.

For instance, the most common understanding of prayer is that through it we receive things from God. Of course, Scripture itself insists that prayer is often transactional. After all, God said to Jeremiah, “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known” (Jeremiah 33:3). Maintaining a dynamic prayer life, however, involves more than presenting God with a list of our pressing requests. Yes, prayer is transactional; but, more importantly, prayer is relational. Consider, for instance, the example of David who prayed, “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek”’ (Psalm 27:8).

An important goal for your prayer life in the new year, therefore, is not merely to get something from God. Pray in order to get to know God.

It’s a matter of time

Prayer is one of the most common exercises in the world, practiced in some form by all the major world religions, as well as the smaller sects and cults. We might assume, therefore, that prayer is the easiest of the spiritual exercises; but, in fact, a real prayer life requires discipline.

One of your prayer goals for the new year involves your most valuable non-renewable resource—your time. There are three aspects of time related to a powerful prayer life. The first is the frequency of your prayers. Most people seem to understand the importance of frequent prayer since an astounding 55% of Americans report praying at least once a day.

The second aspect of time involving your prayer life relates to the time of day you pray. E. M. Bounds said, “The men who have done the most for God in this world have been early on their knees.” Of course, Jesus set an example by rising for prayer “a great while before day” (Mark 1:35); but people in the Bible, including Jesus, also prayed at all hours. A question for your prayer goals, therefore, is clear: What time will you pray? Before we answer, consider the third detail of prayer related to time.

How long will you pray? The Bible describes prayers of all lengths. Still, Jesus was astounded when his close disciples could not pray for one hour (Matthew 26:40). Since none of us runs the risk of being too prayerful, the answer to the question “how long should I pray” is simple—you should prayer more.

Why is time for prayer significant? Putting prayer on your daily calendar is like placing an object in a body of water—the object displaces the volume of water equal to the volume of the new object. In the same way, when you add a standing appointment with God to your calendar every other calendar entry is affected, thus requiring a schedule adjustment. As Craig Groeschel said, “We sacrifice what we love for what we love more.” If you want a prayer life you will find the time. Otherwise, nothing will change.

Feed the stream

Mark Twain bluntly said, “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.” In order to motivate yourself in prayer, you must constantly read good books on prayer.

From the time of the Prayer Revival of 1857-58 until after the 1904 global revival that erupted in Wales, an avalanche of classic books on prayer rained down from Great Britain and America. It was the “golden age” of prayer literature. E.M. Bounds, R.A. Torrey, Andrew Murray, Samuel Chadwick, and S.D. Gordan are representative of the giants who roamed the land.

During the mid-20th century, the prophetic voices of A.W. Tozer, Leonard Ravenhill, and David Wilkerson framed the conversation on prayer for a modern time. In the 1990s Bill Bright, Jim Cymbala, and Richard J. Foster woke us up to the incredible possibilities of prayer.

Today, authors Pete Greig, Mark Batterson, John Mark Comer, Donald Whitney, Daniel Henderson, Ronnie Floyd, and others are elevating the prayer lives of Christians and our churches.

How can you feed the stream of your spiritual life? Read books on prayer so you won’t dry up!

Take the long view

Rosie Ruiz won the Boston Marathon in 1980. Her secret for success disqualified her eight days later, because she only jumped into the race at the last half mile. In other words, she cheated. Later it was discovered she rode the subway for the bulk of the New York Marathon six months earlier. The laurel wreath of marathon victory is not awarded to those who cut corners.

Similarly, in order to excel in prayer, there are no shortcuts to success. Your prayer goals for the new year, therefore, must include a commitment to persistence. The prayer life you desire isn’t a sprint—it’s a marathon. In other words, your prayer life can only finally be measured by its consistency. Remember, Paul told the church in Rome, “be constant in prayer” (Romans 12:12). Corrie Ten Boom said, “Don’t pray when you feel like it. Have an appointment with the Lord and keep it.”

An old adage is trite but true even for prayer: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Setting goals for your prayer life will propel you toward the prayer life you’ve always wanted.