For awhile now I've been longing for something more... to do something significant with my life. I do really believe that being a stay-at-home-mom is of extreme importance and significance but I still can't shake the feeling that I was made for something more. I don't know what it is yet and I'm trying to be patient and content while God prepares me for His plan for my life. And what I am continually realizing is that there is a lot of preparation to be done!
Luke 12:42-48 says,
And the Lord replied, "A faithful, sensible servant is one to whom the master can give the responsibility of managing his other household servants and feeding them. If the master returns and finds that the servant has done a good job, there will be a reward. I tell you the truth, the master will put that servant in charge of all he owns. But what if the servant thinks, 'My master won't be back for awhile,' and he begins beating the other servants, partying, and getting drunk? The master will return unannounced and unexpected, and he will cut the servant in pieces and banish him with the unfaithful.
And a servant who knows what the master wants, but isn't prepared and doesn't carry out those instructions, will be severely punished. But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required."
Right now in my life God has put me in the role of wife and mother. This involves taking care of a household, maintaining a relationship, and raising two precious children. The work involved many times feels tedious and exhausting. I ask myself too frequently, "What is the point?" The laundry will need washing again in a few days. The dishes will need cleaning again in a few hours. Someone will need to be feed again in a few minutes. Someone will need direction or correction again in a few seconds. And sometimes I throw my hands up and {momentarily} quit, letting the laundry pile up, the floors go unswept, the clean dishes waiting to be put away, the crumbs scattered on the counter, the child whining for something. And then I remember that all these things that currently irritate me, are the responsibilities God has given me. This is the work He has prepared for me right now and He is using this work to refine me, to build my character, to prepare me for future work He has planned.
If I am seeking "greater" tasks, I must be faithful with the tasks I already have. I have been entrusted with much, with a home and a marriage and two little lives, and thus, much is required of me.
Showing posts with label Living and Leading Like Jesus {Luke 9-16}. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Living and Leading Like Jesus {Luke 9-16}. Show all posts
Monday, May 13, 2013
Saturday, April 27, 2013
{GMG Reflection Luke 10}
What strikes me about Luke 10 is that God chooses to use us to do His work. He is God. He could accomplish His purposes in other ways. He could command His angels to do His work. {angels who would surely be more obedient than we often are!} But He doesn't, He chooses to use us and chooses to give us the privilege of being a part of what He is doing on earth. That privilege more often than not calls us out of our comfort zones. But I know of no greater privilege and no greater task that brings such satisfaction as partnering with God to bring about His plan.
Clearly the disciples were excited and awed by the opportunity to partner with God too because Jesus has to remind them, "Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven." {Luke 10:19-20 NASB} What an excellent reminder that we should not rejoice in our own accomplishments, even those which are empowered by God, but we should rejoice in our salvation which we could never accomplish on our own.
I so long to have a powerful, effective, fulfilling life. I long for it so badly at times that I am in tears. And I need Jesus to speak these words to me. I need reminding that it is not what I do on this earth that matters so much as whose I am. Yes, it is a privilege to be a part of what God is doing here, but it is not my hard work or *awesomeness* that makes the difference, because God could accomplish His plans with or with out me. But He chooses to use me, and in doing so gives my life purpose, and for that I am grateful.
Recently I have been working on planing an event to raise funds and awareness of the global problem of sex trafficking. It is a cause that God has made heavy on my heart for many months now and it is a cause that I have felt led to do something about. I had big dreams for the potential impact of this event and was confident about God's calling and have been somewhat disappointed by the {lack of} response we have gotten. It is hard not to question whether this really is something God wants me to pursue or if I have somehow failed in my execution based on the response. I was encouraged by reading in Luke 10 about Jesus appointing and sending out disciples and describing how some cities would not receive the disciples. The point being that people's response to the disciples was not what made their calling legitimate. And other people's response to God's calling in my life is also not what makes my calling legitimate. I have to trust in God's plan and know that maybe I won't get the human satisfaction of seeing what looks like success, but I can know that God is bringing about His ultimate purpose when I am working in submission and obedience to His calling in my life. And I am so grateful He has given me the opportunity to partner with Him in this way. And I am even more grateful for my salvation- for the opportunity to know God intimately.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Inside Out {Luke 11 GMG Reflection}
In Luke 11 Jesus addresses the religious leaders and teachers. He deals rather harshly with them because the rules they add on to Scripture and impose upon those whom they lead and teach misrepresent the truth and lead people away from the Savior. They are very concerned with external cleanliness but forget about the importance of a pure heart.
Even today it can be easy to fall into this sort of living. Most of us try to keep up appearances. We try to appear good on the outside by doing all the right things even when our hearts on the inside may not be in the right place.
I know personally it is often easier for me to go through the motions of doing the right thing than it is to deal with my heart attitude. I think this is because I have this idea that I can't help how I feel about something. And that may be true, maybe I can't help how I feel, but by the power of the Holy Spirit God can change my heart and my attitude and that is just as important as my actions.
This chapter offers a couple of solutions to getting our insides to match our outsides; seeking the Holy Spirit in prayer, and keeping focused on Jesus allowing His light to shine through us from the inside out.
Luke 11 begins with a lesson on persistence in prayer in which Jesus says, "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knows, it will be opened... If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?" {Luke 11: 9-10, 13 NASB} So it turns out, what I need to cleanse my heart and change my attitude is promised to me when I persistently ask for the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, referring to Himself, Jesus also says, "No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it away in a cellar nor under a basket, but on a lamp stand, so that those who enter may see the light. The eye is the lamp of the body; when your eye is clear, your whole body is also full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness." {Luke 11:33-34 NASB} The Life Application Study Bible explains that Jesus is the lamp and the eye represents spiritual understanding and insight which can be clouded by evil desires and distractions. But when our eyes are clear and allow the light of Jesus into us, then our lives radiate His light from our insides out.
Even today it can be easy to fall into this sort of living. Most of us try to keep up appearances. We try to appear good on the outside by doing all the right things even when our hearts on the inside may not be in the right place.
I know personally it is often easier for me to go through the motions of doing the right thing than it is to deal with my heart attitude. I think this is because I have this idea that I can't help how I feel about something. And that may be true, maybe I can't help how I feel, but by the power of the Holy Spirit God can change my heart and my attitude and that is just as important as my actions.
This chapter offers a couple of solutions to getting our insides to match our outsides; seeking the Holy Spirit in prayer, and keeping focused on Jesus allowing His light to shine through us from the inside out.
Luke 11 begins with a lesson on persistence in prayer in which Jesus says, "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knows, it will be opened... If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?" {Luke 11: 9-10, 13 NASB} So it turns out, what I need to cleanse my heart and change my attitude is promised to me when I persistently ask for the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, referring to Himself, Jesus also says, "No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it away in a cellar nor under a basket, but on a lamp stand, so that those who enter may see the light. The eye is the lamp of the body; when your eye is clear, your whole body is also full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness." {Luke 11:33-34 NASB} The Life Application Study Bible explains that Jesus is the lamp and the eye represents spiritual understanding and insight which can be clouded by evil desires and distractions. But when our eyes are clear and allow the light of Jesus into us, then our lives radiate His light from our insides out.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Building Faith In His Plan {GMG Reflection- Luke 9}
This week I studied Luke 9 during my quiet times as part of my Good Morning Girls Bible study. This passage has provided such an appropriate challenge for me leading up to Easter.
Jesus empowers the disciples to perform miracles and sends them out to do ministry with the specific instruction to "take nothing for your journey, neither a staff, nor a bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not even have two tunics apiece" {Luke 9:3}. They are to rely on God's provision through others throughout their ministry. That idea is scary enough and then Jesus eludes that sometimes people will not receive them {i.e. they will not have shelter and food}. Jesus is telling them to go with nothing, trusting in His plan, His provision, and simultaneously warning them that sometimes His plan includes hardship for them. What a challenge it would have been to be those disciples and take such a huge step of faith, choosing to put aside their own means and relying completely on God's provision for their very life, knowing that there would be times when they would be hungry and cold.
This must be what Jesus means when He says, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?" {Luke 9:23-25}
Ultimately it comes down to putting God's plan above my plan. If I were one of those disciples, my plan would have included a place to live, something to eat, and a source of income for security. But God had a different plan for them. And in order to follow Jesus they had to choose that plan {pick up their cross}, insecurities, hardships, and all, and trust that His plans are better than ours.
As I reflected on this over the week I looked inside myself asking just how much do I trust that His plans are better than ours? How willing am I to lay aside my plans, my comforts, my very life, to pick up my cross and follow His plan?
I would like to think that if Jesus stood before me and gave me instructions that I would follow them even if they were not palatable to me. But I have heard God's call on my heart clearly at times and have justified my choice not to follow His leading because I didn't think it made sense. However, the more I learn about Jesus, the more I realize that Jesus doesn't make sense! When there is nothing to eat but five loaves and two fish and there are five thousand hungry people, He says to his disciples, "You give them something to eat!" {Luke 9:13}. The disciples went about passing out the food and lo and behold it never ran out! The Bible is full of stories of people acting in faith, doing things that don't make much earthly sense which is precisely how they point so clearly to God {see Hebrews 11}.
This week God pointed out an area of my life I have a difficult time releasing to Him... my children. We recently watched an episode of "The Bible" series in which Abraham obeys God by preparing to sacrifice Isaac {Genesis 22}. It absolutely did not make sense that God would tell Abraham to sacrifice his son, whom God had promised to father a nation through. And yet, Abraham was obedient, trusting that despite the personal pain this would cause him, that God's plan is better than his, and if God called him, he would do it {Hebrews 11:17}. Ultimately, God provided another sacrifice and spared Isaac, but the point is Abraham's willingness to pick up his cross and follow the Lord no matter the cost.
I am ashamed to say that I am fairly certain that under no circumstances would I do the same as Abraham with my children. It has been this thought that has haunted me all week. It dawned on me that it's not God's ability that I doubt, but it is His plan. He routinely allows bad things to happen in this life to people who love Him. I know that I should still trust Him even if *the worst* might happen knowing that "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" {Romans 8:28}. Even though I believe that, I still want to say no if God calls me to do something that would put my children in {what I deem} unreasonable danger.
My challenge this week has been to put God's plan over my children and it has not been easy! There have been moments in prayer when I let my heart soak in His word..."If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?" {Luke 9:23-25}... when I can feel my grip of control in this area loosening, and then moments later I'll think of something horrific that could happen and my heart tightens hard again.
It was in the midst of this struggle, I walked into our church's Good Friday service holding my babies tight to me because traffic caused us to be late so we didn't have time to drop them off at child care before service began. As I held my precious ones I looked up to an image of God's beloved Son hanging on a cross. As the hustle of being late settled into a reflective calm during the service, it dawned on me for the first time this week that the very thing I have been struggling with, that my children are too great a sacrifice to follow God's plan, is what God has already done for me... for my children... whom He loves so much that He allowed His Child to be tortured and murdered despite pleas from His Child, "Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done" {Luke 22:42}. Oh God, how can I withhold anything from You? You have withheld nothing from me.
I know that for me to follow Jesus it will require daily carrying of my cross, daily laying down my control over my life and choosing God's plan, which will undoubtedly include choosing to follow even when it doesn't make earthly sense to me and even when it results in pain and difficulty at times. I am empowered to bear my cross because He did it first, He first loved me {1 John 4:19}.
Jesus empowers the disciples to perform miracles and sends them out to do ministry with the specific instruction to "take nothing for your journey, neither a staff, nor a bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not even have two tunics apiece" {Luke 9:3}. They are to rely on God's provision through others throughout their ministry. That idea is scary enough and then Jesus eludes that sometimes people will not receive them {i.e. they will not have shelter and food}. Jesus is telling them to go with nothing, trusting in His plan, His provision, and simultaneously warning them that sometimes His plan includes hardship for them. What a challenge it would have been to be those disciples and take such a huge step of faith, choosing to put aside their own means and relying completely on God's provision for their very life, knowing that there would be times when they would be hungry and cold.
This must be what Jesus means when He says, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?" {Luke 9:23-25}
Ultimately it comes down to putting God's plan above my plan. If I were one of those disciples, my plan would have included a place to live, something to eat, and a source of income for security. But God had a different plan for them. And in order to follow Jesus they had to choose that plan {pick up their cross}, insecurities, hardships, and all, and trust that His plans are better than ours.
As I reflected on this over the week I looked inside myself asking just how much do I trust that His plans are better than ours? How willing am I to lay aside my plans, my comforts, my very life, to pick up my cross and follow His plan?
I would like to think that if Jesus stood before me and gave me instructions that I would follow them even if they were not palatable to me. But I have heard God's call on my heart clearly at times and have justified my choice not to follow His leading because I didn't think it made sense. However, the more I learn about Jesus, the more I realize that Jesus doesn't make sense! When there is nothing to eat but five loaves and two fish and there are five thousand hungry people, He says to his disciples, "You give them something to eat!" {Luke 9:13}. The disciples went about passing out the food and lo and behold it never ran out! The Bible is full of stories of people acting in faith, doing things that don't make much earthly sense which is precisely how they point so clearly to God {see Hebrews 11}.
This week God pointed out an area of my life I have a difficult time releasing to Him... my children. We recently watched an episode of "The Bible" series in which Abraham obeys God by preparing to sacrifice Isaac {Genesis 22}. It absolutely did not make sense that God would tell Abraham to sacrifice his son, whom God had promised to father a nation through. And yet, Abraham was obedient, trusting that despite the personal pain this would cause him, that God's plan is better than his, and if God called him, he would do it {Hebrews 11:17}. Ultimately, God provided another sacrifice and spared Isaac, but the point is Abraham's willingness to pick up his cross and follow the Lord no matter the cost.
I am ashamed to say that I am fairly certain that under no circumstances would I do the same as Abraham with my children. It has been this thought that has haunted me all week. It dawned on me that it's not God's ability that I doubt, but it is His plan. He routinely allows bad things to happen in this life to people who love Him. I know that I should still trust Him even if *the worst* might happen knowing that "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" {Romans 8:28}. Even though I believe that, I still want to say no if God calls me to do something that would put my children in {what I deem} unreasonable danger.
My challenge this week has been to put God's plan over my children and it has not been easy! There have been moments in prayer when I let my heart soak in His word..."If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?" {Luke 9:23-25}... when I can feel my grip of control in this area loosening, and then moments later I'll think of something horrific that could happen and my heart tightens hard again.
It was in the midst of this struggle, I walked into our church's Good Friday service holding my babies tight to me because traffic caused us to be late so we didn't have time to drop them off at child care before service began. As I held my precious ones I looked up to an image of God's beloved Son hanging on a cross. As the hustle of being late settled into a reflective calm during the service, it dawned on me for the first time this week that the very thing I have been struggling with, that my children are too great a sacrifice to follow God's plan, is what God has already done for me... for my children... whom He loves so much that He allowed His Child to be tortured and murdered despite pleas from His Child, "Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done" {Luke 22:42}. Oh God, how can I withhold anything from You? You have withheld nothing from me.
I know that for me to follow Jesus it will require daily carrying of my cross, daily laying down my control over my life and choosing God's plan, which will undoubtedly include choosing to follow even when it doesn't make earthly sense to me and even when it results in pain and difficulty at times. I am empowered to bear my cross because He did it first, He first loved me {1 John 4:19}.
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