The Bristol Epistle has not fizzled, at least not yet.
It has been a few months since my last post. Time is flying by, faster than ever before. At least it seems like that, as I rapidly approach my 80th birthday.
Mary Lou and I, with the blessing of my children, recently established and provided initial funding for the Betty Hess Bristol Endowed Scholarship in Nursing at Baylor University, from which Betty graduated 55 years ago. Its primary purpose is to assist nursing students who sense a calling from God to serve God’s Kingdom as missionary nurses. I know sweet Betty is very pleased with this and wanted to let all readers of this epistle know they can donate to this fund by going to baylor.edu/give and selecting Betty’s fund.
This past President’s Day, I was invited by my good friend Morse Tan, who serves as Dean at the School of Law at Liberty University, to address a group of faculty and students as part of their series “Life in the Law.” Mary Lou and I drove over to Lynchburg and enjoyed a wonderful two-day visit to the campus. We had hoped to see my granddaughter Annabelle, who is a freshman in their undergraduate school, but she became very ill just before our arrival in what was possibly part of a campus outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease.
I am planning to post a copy of my prepared remarks to this site.
I have two granddaughters in college studying to be nurses just like their Grams, aka Betty. Alexis Powell is at Pensacola Christian College and Isabelle Bristol is at Clemson. Both are finishing their sophomore year. My namesake Matt C C Bristol V is about to graduate from high school where he captained the basketball team and will soon decide which university he will attend. The youngest grandchild is Noah, who will be 18 in September and will graduate from high school next year. He recently spent his Spring break with us and it was a special blessing. It’s scary how much he reminds me of myself at that age.
I am still mediating family law cases and ministering to couples in distress, and Mary Lou still volunteers at a local hospice thrift store two days a week. I also take part in conducting special ceremonies for veterans that are in hospice care. We really do not want to go on cruises or do extensive traveling. It feels good to be in our own bed every night. How much longer we will have the energy to maintain our volunteer activities is unknown, but we know we are slowing down.
Recently I have been blessed to reconnect with two of my former Air Force colleagues, and that has been very special. My how we have aged! And I have forgotten some of our adventures, which is good. I know God was watching over me all the way. Otherwise, well I just don’t want to think about that.
I also recently reconnected with a fellow Baylor Law classmate, and we collaborated on what could be an article for their alumni magazine. It was amazing how much I remembered and how much I had forgotten. We drove up to Manassas and shared a wonderful lunch and visit with these dear folks.
I am weary of all the craziness going on in our country and in the world, but will resist adding now to the substantial commentary I have already shared on this blog. My father used to complain that the world was going to H---, and I vowed never to adopt that attitude. I am still struggling. But my faith keeps me positive and hopeful. I know God is still in control, and while I cannot explain why He has not intervened, I still will trust Him. That means we continue to live one day at a time, just as the Lord’s Prayer teaches. And we live not just for ourselves but to bless others.
Even though I am no longer serving God overseas, we partner with many couples who have done what Betty and I did 25 years ago, and left the comforts of home to serve others and share the reason for the hope that resides in our hearts. One couple lives in the city where we lived in rural Kyrgyzstan, and others serve in Central America, South America, and Africa. One single woman whom Betty encouraged to move to our country of service is still serving as a nurse and is closer to 90 years of age than we are. She is amazing, as are her two sons who regularly visit her and help with her work among disabled children in a remote area.
Sometimes, God connects me to people I have never met, but who are serving in hard places and in need of support. Yesterday during the solar eclipse, I was on a video call with a young Egyptian couple who were called to move to Lebanon to minister to Syrian refugees in the Beqaa Valley. They live under continuous threats and yet they walk in faith each new day. They have so many needs, including a vehicle that they can use to get from their small apartment in a church building to the camps. Here we are in the US. We have so much and yet many are lacking real joy. This couple have learned not only to trust that God will provide their needs, but to be perfectly content in their actual circumstances. I am trying to mobilize prayer and financial support for them, and if you feel led to know more about them and the opportunities to become engaged in their ministry, please send me an email to aksakal64@gmail.com.
I am getting tired now and so will close. But rather than wait any longer for the next time the muse moves me to post, I am adding the prepared remarks from which I spoke at Liberty University. Of course, what I actually said differed somewhat as I never read from a text, but you will get the gist of it, minus the war stories. Have a good evening, and thanks for tuning in. Matt
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“Learning to Soar in the Kingdom of God”
Good morning. It is a great privilege to be able to share with you all today.
In the book of Deuteronomy, God uses the image of an eagle soaring in the heights to remind the Israelites how He had rescued them and led them through the wilderness. In verses 11 and 12 of Chapter 32, we read: “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions, The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him.” We all know the hymn On Eagles Wings… “and He will raise you up on eagles’ wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you shine like the sun and hold you in the palm of His hand.”
Today I want to share a story about how God stirred up my nest and carried me soaring into the heights of His Kingdom.
But first, a bit of history, or as my brother Sam Ericsson loved to say, “HIS-story.”
Almost 2000 years ago in Roman occupied Palestine, and after His ascension to be with His Father in heaven, Jesus Christ suddenly broke into the life of a Jewish lawyer named Saul and radically altered the trajectory of his life and work, from Saul the zealous persecutor of Christ followers to Paul, a humble but committed apostle called to take the Gospel to the known world, both Jews and Gentiles, all peoples.
Under the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit, Paul wrote a series of letters to churches that formed a major portion of the New Testament, including a letter to local churches in what is now the provinces of Ankara and Eshkishir in Central Turkey in which he proclaimed: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20).
In the same letter, Paul urged his readers, and that includes us, not to use our freedom to indulge sinful nature, but instead to serve one another in love. “The entire law is summed up in a single command: Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Gal. 5: 13-14). And we know what Jesus said when a lawyer asked Him who was his neighbor (Luke 10:25-37).
In the process, Jesus gave Paul and all of us a radically different definition of liberty. To the believers in Corinth, Paul wrote: “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (2 Cor. 3:17). And in a letter to the church in Rome, Paul, after painfully recounting his daily struggles between the spirit and the flesh, wrote: “Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of Life set me free from the law of sin and death.” The point: True righteousness does not flow from following the law but from following the Spirit of God.
Think about it: Followers of Jesus Christ live in two very different realms: the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this fallen world. One world we can see and touch and physically experience, the other we can only see or experience through faith and surrendered personal will. These two kingdoms always collide.
Please do not view these two kingdoms as a Venn Diagram of partially overlapping circles. No, the Kingdom of God includes all His creation, not just planet earth. And it covers every square inch of planet earth, all subject to the exercise of His sovereign will and control.
Which brings me back to a story about how God suddenly interrupted a 20th century American lawyer’s life of comfort, prosperity and professional pride and took him on a path he had never imagined, to a place he never thought he would see, and to a client base of only One—and to soar in the heights for Him.
In the Fall of 1989, I was a very young Air Force Colonel who was serving as a Chief Circuit Trial Judge, trying some of the Air Force’s most difficult cases. I looked much younger than my then 45 years, and young soldiers would stop me in the airports with the question, “are you really a Colonel?” It was hard not to feel very proud and important.
To digress for a moment: I was born in Australia while my father was fighting the Japanese in the jungles of New Guinea. My mother was a volunteer typist in General MacArthur’s office in Brisbane. My grandfather and father were both Colonels. I grew up in a military household where discipline and order were very similar to the children in Robert Duvall’s movie “The Great Santini.” I was taught to work hard, live with integrity, and never lose control.
God was not in the picture, until at the age of 13, I started attending a Southern Baptist church with a boyhood friend in Arlington, Virginia. I diligently memorized the Books of the Bible, was a part of the church’s Boy Scout Troop and made a decision to follow Christ. My parents thought I had fallen under some type of spell, but they rationalized it by saying at least I would not be drinking alcohol or getting into trouble.
Fast forward, I finished both college and law school at Baylor University in just over 5 years, joined the Air Force as a Judge Advocate, married my college sweetheart, served all over the world, got a master’s in international law at George Washington University, attended the National Judicial College, and was on the path to becoming a General Officer. I faithfully attended church, was ordained as deacon, but honestly, my work was my first priority.
One very cold wintery day in 1989, I found myself in Michigan trying a case against a senior Chaplain. He had served just short of three decades, including two tours in Vietnam. But now, on the eve of retirement, he was facing charges of rape and a litany of other offenses. He had been counseling the wife of another officer who had been in a serious automobile accident. She suffered traumatic brain injuries and was not really herself. Somehow in the counseling sessions, the couple developed a sexual relationship that was eventually discovered. So, there I was, the chief judge from Washington DC, on a base where this chaplain Lieutenant Colonel was facing a panel of Colonels and Generals from Strategic Air Command who would decide his fate.
If the firing squad had been an option, the court panel would have ordered it.
The defense lawyer did not know me, so inexplicably they did not ask me to try the case by myself. The accused pleaded guilty to the major charges, and I was essentially the referee in a sentencing hearing. After instructing the panel, I retired to my chambers and wrote down the sentence I would have adjudged had the defendant opted to have me decide the sentence. I folded the paper up and put it in my pocket. The panel imposed a sentence that dismissed him from the service (the officer equivalent of a Dishonorable Discharge), took all his pay and allowances and ordered him restricted to quarters pending appellate review. This meant he lost retirement pay that was worth over $700,000 given his life expectancy. It wiped out his entire service record, as if it never existed.
I was really troubled by this outcome. I had written down a sentence of five years at Fort Leavenworth Confinement Facility, and partial forfeiture of his pay and allowances, and a severe reprimand. I figured he could minister to the collection of the worst military offenders at Leavenworth, and eventually retire from the service and live the rest of his life with some level of dignity.
This was not the first time I had been somewhat uncomfortable with the strictures of military justice, the apparent absence of any element of grace or mercy. But now, it was really bothering me. As I sat in my seat on the plane taking me home, I silently prayed. God, why am I feeling so uncomfortable in my current role? For the first time in my life, I asked, God, what do you want me to do? After a few very painful moments, I suddenly heard the word “Retire”. I mean I actually heard it. I looked around and saw nothing. The people next to me were asleep. Continuing my silent prayer, I asked God for more details. Why? When? And what shall I do next? There was no response. Just silence.
As soon as I arrived back home, I shared this news with my wife Betty. She smiled and said: Are you finally going to let God take the controls of your life? Betty was a nurse, who at a very young age was called to serve God as a missionary. She was so selfless and patient. She waited three decades for me to do what my dad had told me never to do: To surrender control of my life and work. All my life as a Christian, I had done my best to serve Jesus and love Jesus, but I had never surrendered all aspects of my life to Him. My wife and I got on our knees and told God we would do whatever He asked, and go wherever He said, no questions, no conditions, no reservations.
The next Monday, I submitted my retirement papers, to the surprise of all my colleagues and bosses. When they asked my why, I just said it’s time for a new course. I did not say God told me to retire, thinking they would doubt my sanity. The next Sunday, a woman in our church approached me and said, “I hear you are retiring from the Air Force.” Incredulously, I asked her how she knew. I mean no one outside the Air Force personnel office knew. She said I just know, and my boss wants to talk with you about a job. Who is your boss, I asked? She replied, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice. And when does he want to see me? Tomorrow morning at nine.
I silently gazed upwards and thought, OK, God, here we go. You drive, I will get in the back seat. Take me wherever to want, for Your glory, not mine. And I remembered the Biblical mandate, don’t look back. Just follow Me. Let the dead bury the dead. Don’t worry about your two adult children, I love them more than you ever could. Just follow me. If you really want to be my disciple, deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow me. (Luke 9:23) I silently recited the Lord’s prayer. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. And Thine is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.
The ride was indeed wild: quickly promoted to leadership in the Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs, sent by the Attorney General to help establish new legal systems in the former Soviet Republics, sensing a calling to prepare for missionary service, an assignment in Haiti as White House Coordinator for Justice Reform, a trip to Iran to explore possible missionary service, and finally moving to the Kyrgyz Republic with my wife to serve God with a major US global missions agency. It was almost like a dream, except it wasn’t. I was beginning to soar.
Lawyer as missionary? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Like honest lawyer?
God caused me to meet Sam Ericsson while I was at DOJ. A fellow traveler whose successful life as an anti-trust lawyer was suddenly interrupted by God on a sidewalk in San Francisco. Sam was diverted by the Holy Spirit to serve the Kingdom of God and to establish Advocates International. I started working with Sam on his outreach to judges and other legal professionals in the former Soviet Union and eventually joined his board of directors.
Can lawyers really succeed by surrendering control to Christ? Truthfully, God is using lawyers all over the world to help the persecuted church, to develop a network of innkeepers along the Silk Road to minister to wounded missionaries, to build bridges of trust, under the radar, with dictators for the benefit of the church, to serve as architects for new legal systems that promote human rights and religious freedoms, and to keep the pathways open for the Gospel to the final frontier.
Don’t think for a moment that you need to be appointed as a missionary to serve God and advance His Kingdom. We all share the Great Commission. It does not say Go, but rather, as you go. As you go about your daily life and work, be an effective living witness for the Kingdom of God. You may not realize it, but God has brought representatives from virtually all unreached people groups to our very shores. They are in your neighborhoods, on public transportation, working in convenience stores, all around us. Most of us don’t need to pack up and go anywhere to be a welcoming host and seek opportunities to share the Gospel—starting with loving actions, and then when the door opens, with a verbal witness.
I am just finishing my 80th year on this side of eternity. God is still using me, this time to minister to couples who are in broken marriages. I work in the office of one of my spiritual daughters, Erica Baez. I married Erica and her lawyer husband Jesse eight years ago. Working with Erica and her former law partner Tara Hatcher, who is now a judge in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court of Chesterfield County, we developed the only Bible based mediation practice that we know of in Central Virginia. It was all God’s doing, believe me. There is a pause button for reconciliation, and every now and then, that is exactly what happens. That really warms this old man’s heart.
Before closing this message, and hopefully getting a chance to share some amazing stories of how God has chosen to use lawyers to advance His Kingdom, I want to share ten very important lessons that I pray each of you specially notes for further reflection and action in your own lives. I want each of you to learn to soar.
Number one: Don’t make the mistake I did by delaying the complete surrender of the controls of your life and work to Christ. Climb in the back seat and let Jesus drive the car that is the remainder of your life and work on this earth. Following Jesus propels you into the eternal Kingdom of God, where God directs your paths, for His glory.
Number two: Always remember your true identity is in Christ, your primary allegiance is to Christ and your true citizenship is in the Kingdom of God. I dearly love my country, but that love and devotion are subordinate to my love for and allegiance to God.
Number three: Don’t confuse spiritual power with earthly power. Satan offered Jesus all earthly power if only He would worship Satan, and Jesus flatly rejected it. So should all of us who profess to follow Jesus. Do not be distracted or lured by a quest for earthly power. It is possible to gain earthly power at the expense of spiritual power. The two are in constant tension.
You need to know that the age of miracles is not over. I personally witnessed a pastor coming back from the dead and a crippled patient’s miraculous healing. God still works miracles when He deems it helpful to advance His Kingdom, to penetrate spiritual darkness with the light of His love and salvation.
Number four: Do not allow politicians to convince you that you are called upon to save our fallen culture, or that your driving motivation should be fear of losing earthly power rather than faith and confidence that God has not relinquished control over His creation. Remember, true love conquers all fear. Using state power to legislate our beliefs does not draw the lost to Christ. It actually repels them.
Number five: Keep your spiritual antennae fully extended, 24/7. You do not want to miss a heavenly assignment. Start each new day with a prayer for a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit and ask God to empower you for the day’s encounters. Expect God to interrupt your plans, and when He does, do not complain. You are about to be blessed!
Number six: Always remember that you are a soldier in an intense spiritual battle. Our enemy will oppose anything you do that threatens his kingdom. He is the master of lies, deception and destruction. Chapter 6 of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians tells us the weapons we have and how we should use them. Many of these are similar to the principles of warfare that I learned and employed in my military career: be prepared, do not be taken by surprise, practice using your weapons, stay alert.
Number seven: In the power of the Holy Spirit, try to live out the three dimensional Jesus: Imitate Christ through your life and work (Ephesians 5:1-2); view all others through the prism of Christ (2 Corinthians 5: 16) (“so from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view”); and treat everyone in your path who is in in need as if they were Jesus (Matthew 25:31-46).
Number eight: Keep your priorities in the Biblical order: first God, then your spouse, then children, then your work and career. Getting them out of order is very harmful, rendering your life on this side of eternity much less impactful for the Kingdom and robbing you of the joy of living in the epicenter of God’s perfect will.
Number nine: Always play to an audience of One, and that is Christ the Lord. Do not be afraid of earthly disfavor or criticism. Remember that the disciple can expect no less persecution than the Master. Draw upon spiritual power to love all who hurt you. It really works.
Finally, number ten: Engage our fallen culture like Jesus did, with love and humility, sacrificing your own gain and fame for Kingdom advance. Jesus cares not just about what you do, but how you do it. The end does not justify the means. It all counts towards the power of your witness.
My dear friend Avery Willis, whose was with me at M D Anderson when he and Betty were cancer patients, wrote a book with his grandson, called Learning to Soar. He asked me if he could include me in his book, and I readily agreed, but he changed the name to protect the believers overseas whose work might be compromised if I was publicly identified as a missionary. Avery and Betty are with Jesus now, soaring the heights.
God is SO GOOD. You do not need to fear giving Him the controls of the rest of your life. Live in continuous awareness of His presence and His desire to use you to advance His Kingdom. That is why you were born, for such a time as this. All followers of Jesus struggle in this fallen world, where we know Christ has defeated death but until He returns, there is war, disease, and chaos. Don’t forget your primary citizenship, in a Kingdom that will never end. Make your legal career a ministry to the Kingdom of God. It will not always be a picnic, but the joy and peace are beyond description. God bless you all, and may He use each of you to advance His Kingdom and finish the global missionary task. May you learn how to soar to the heights of the Kingdom of God. Amen.
And now, I would love to entertain questions and share more about what God has done in the hard places through committed Christian lawyers. My service to the Kingdom has twice intersected Dean Tan’s, and I am happy to share about that if you like.
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