Words of encouragement; words that seek to spur us on in the battle of life—these are words we often need. From the young believer in Christ to the veteran in Faith, we all need and yearn for words to boost our spirits and urge us on as we begin each day anew on the battlefield of life. In this book the author, a medical doctor, attempts to impart some vigour to your spirit and in so doing, hopefully, help you in his own small way to cope with the vicissitudes of life in a fallen world. 

SEE THE AUTHOR'S WEBSITE

From the Foreword:

I believe that every time the verses in this volume are read by a reader who sincerely seeks the Lord and His help, whether in praise or in need, they will rise up to the throne of God’s Grace as acceptable prayers to the Lord, like incense—and that He will hear them and bless the reader accordingly. It is my prayer that the fragrance of these words will spread throughout the world. - Charles Muller.
[See below for The Foreword.]

About the author:

FROM THE FOREWORD:

It was indeed a privilege to be asked by Dr Peprah-Gyamfi to write a few words as a Foreword to this book of praise and encouragement.

I first came to know the author when he asked me to work through and edit his autobiographical testimony, The Call. No one can read through that volume without being aware of a man with a deep spiritual purpose and commitment to Christ – to the person of Jesus and to the Gospel as preached by Jesus. In a sense, Dr Peprah-Gyamfi is a man not entirely unlike Father Abraham, who was called by the Lord God to leave the country of his birth and find a new land where a promise would be fulfilled. The author of this book received a vision from the Lord, seeing a tableau in which he had the assurance that a time would come when he would be greeting fellow Christians in Germany, when, in fact, he would be a resident of that faraway land, fulfilling the Lord’s purpose there.  That vision was the guiding light and strength that kept the young man from Ghana going through all the hurdles and seemingly hopeless plights until he fulfilled his goal to become a qualified medical doctor in a great Western nation – a nation where he had to learn a new language and adapt to a new culture in order to realize God’s unique purpose for him.

His call didn’t end in Germany, for from there he moved to Britain where, practising as a doctor, he is also fulfilling his mission to establish a new ministry for Jesus. The poems or spiritual shards of light collected in this volume might be described as a part from that ministry, and partake of two main themes—praise and supplication. These same two themes were penned by King David in the Psalms, and, indeed, Dr Peprah-Gyamfi’s words put me in mind of the Psalms which, as the Psalmist says, are “a lamp unto my feet”—for they are words of comfort and guidance, often penned in times of trial, temptation or persecution. That of course constitutes their great value for us. The succour and encouragement they give is heartfelt and real since, like the Apostle Paul, Dr Peprah-Gyamfi has his own thorn of the flesh to contend with—a thorn that he clarifies in his Introduction and which he has often brought before the Lord. If the Lord does not offer healing or remove a difficulty, he gives us more than enough grace to endure. As our Lord says, “My Grace is sufficient unto thee.” A tiny fish swimming in the ocean might be troubled that it might run out of seawater, but the vast ocean replies: “My water is sufficient unto thee.” Or a swallow might be troubled that it might run out of air, and the atmosphere that mantles the earth might reply: “My air is sufficient unto thee.”  The verses in this volume will remind us that indeed the Lord’s Grace, and the Lord’s strength, and the Lord’s love, are indeed sufficient for our needs, and will sustain us throughout any difficulty. They will never run out.

 Often it is our need for God that brings us to Him – described by C.S. Lewis as “need love” – and it’s that need that we often feel in the lines in this book:

There come moments in the Christian journey,

moments when we need the Lord the most;

we fall on our knees to pray;

we shout, we wail; we shout and wail.

We fast, we pray; we fast and pray…

We may feel at such times that the Lord is far from our need – yet the author never fails to give us the assurance of the abiding love, grace and strength of the Lord, that will always fulfil our need:

Yes indeed, looking back at all the good things

the Lord has done for us in the past

will help us gather strength to face

present difficulties.

This assurance is all the more powerful since it flows out of the author’s own trials and tribulations, and answers to prayer.  All of his verses are in fact imbued with that dynamic force that binds the Psalms together – the power of praise!

It was Merlin Carothers, in his books Prison to Praise and Power in Praise, that made us so aware of the power of praise – of how praise to God releases His power into our lives and circumstances because praise is faith in action. Dr Peprah-Gyamfi certainly praises God in every situation, as we see in the very first poem:

All glory and honour and praise be to the Name

above all Names, Jesus the Lord –

the name that brings joy to the sorrowing,

hope to the despairing and

happiness to the downhearted.

The Great Burden Bearer, He is called!

When prayer is laced with praise, it rises to the Lord as a sweet incense. Such are the prayers that will find favour with the Lord. And I maintain that the verses in this book are, in effect, such prayers with which the reader in need of help, succour and strength, can identify to make his petitions known unto the Lord of Comfort and Power. 

Perhaps it is not an unrelated incident, or coincidence, that I experienced in the middle of the first night after I had worked through these verses—something that might be described as an uncanny and wonderful presence. I awoke from sleep with an awareness of a very sweet and pleasant aroma in my room, which I immediately identified as incense. When I was fully awake, the aroma persisted, and I awoke my wife Joanne with the question, “What’s that aroma?”  She could not detect it but was alarmed that I might be sensing that something was burning, so I left the room and inspected the rest of the house, including the fuse box, in case there was some sort of electrical fire. But there was no evidence at all of any physical explanation for the aroma, which continued to persist as a very strong and, I might add, comforting presence! There was a fragrance about it that put me in mind of incense, which has a sweet and pleasant burning aroma. I went back to sleep with the aroma still very much in evidence, and by the morning it was gone.  I opened the Bible to see what it had to say about incense and found these words in Revelation 8:3-4:

And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand.

I believe that every time the verses in this volume are read by a reader who sincerely seeks the Lord and His help, whether in praise or in need, they will rise up to the throne of God’s Grace as acceptable prayers to the Lord, like incense—and that He will hear them and bless the reader accordingly. It is my prayer that the fragrance of these words will spread throughout the world.

Charles Muller
MA (Wales), PhD (Lond), DLitt (OFS), DEd (SA)

Also by Robert Peprah-Gyamfi:

This inspiring story tells of the courage of a young Ghanaian boy who, having failed to achieve his aim to become a medical doctor by attending a university in Ghana or by virtue of a scholarship to the USSR, raised funds by working on a building site in Nigeria to pay for a daring one-way flight to East Berlin to become an asylum seeker in West Berlin—a route by which he realised his dreams and became a medical doctor in Germany.

How can words describe the huge difference between life in a little village in a typical developing country in Africa and that of a city in the sophisticated West? Well, that exactly is what the book sets out to achieve.