Sealed Orders

Agnes Sanford was born in China to Presbyterian missionaries. During her childhood, she began to notice that “there was something wrong” with the church. The things they taught and the life they lived gave lipservice to Jesus and the Bible, but contained none of the reality that one comes to expect when reading the accounts presented in the Bible. Her biography chronicles her discovery of the reality of God’s Presence and interaction with and in His creation.

There is an attitude that shines through this book. It is an attitude of continually seeking and finding God’s Presence. This same joyful outlook on life has been described as cosmic patriotism by G.K. Chesterton, and tends to be more naturally accepted by people of the artistic temperament. It is this very outlook that gives the most avowed cessationists and materialists in modern Christendom the heeby-jeebies.

However, reading this autobiography, one cannot escape the fact that Agnes Sanford loved her Lord Jesus Christ and followed Him. Her critics point to her mistakes to discredit what she teaches about the healing power of God, but these mistakes (which she confesses readily without attempt to justify them) show only her humanity. God doesn’t stay within the boxes we construct for Him, and many of the experiences Agnes relates show God breaking out in creative and redemptive force.

This book inspires hope in those who long to see God move in Biblical ways today.