I was in a funk or on a roller coaster where I knew something was wrong but I was spiritually immature to do anything about it. I remember laying under the Christmas Tree's of those years and allowing the tears to roll down my cheeks as I would look up into the twinkles of the lights and just cry out to God -- to please hold me and help me. Where were my kids? Unsure, probably at friends houses or in their rooms. Where was my man? In his cave, watching TV and in his own world. As I reflect now -- I spent a LOT of time alone in those years -- if I was not at school working, I was putting extra hours in at our Insurance office, doing data entry and work that was needed. We needed those extra hours to help finance those LONG soccer and volleyball trips and weekends. I just kept busy. I probably was so numb that each day just went by and I just survived.
I was blessed that I could work after hours, be by myself and listen to praise and worship and then stop and read a blog from Beth as back then, she was blogging about every 3 days....it was my lifeline. It really was my therapy in those years. But I was also seeking counsel with a godly mentor, I met with her weekly. It was those years that God was growing me. I share all of that - NOT to bring up the past or to have you question ..."what on earth?"...but, so often we want QUICK fixes and circumstances to change. However....most often it TAKES time...and it does seek some real changes - like maybe actually - seeking some professional help.
It was in this time...that God was truly GROWING me and changing me from the inside out. It was ME that needed JUST as much help as anyone else around me. It was me and my prideful self. I know now...there is NO way I would of survived the earthquakes and storms of 2010, and 2011 unless....there was a solid assurance from MY LORD that -- I was perfect in HIS sight.
Today, I was cleaning out emails and found a Beth Moore blog I had sent to my 'save' file back in September of 2015. I read it and marveled .....as the Holy Spirit brought to remembrance the thought of Beth today and I did check her blog and there is no 'Christmas blog or Anniversary blog'...yet....
But, in my email...there was this blog:
I have copied and pasted it here - THESE are Beth's words...but they SPOKE volumes to me today.
I highly suggest you get come coffee and allow the words to sink in.... and perhaps you will want to do as I have done....I printed it out so that I could read it and take notes...and then pray.
As the year ends.... and people continue to make New Year's resolutions - I pray that THIS will be helpful as you THRIVE in 2016! -
- humbled, Michelle
LPM Blog:
I had an interesting moment with Jesus
a few days ago and I can’t quit thinking about it. It followed these three
related entries I’d posted right in a row on Twitter:
(1) “I don’t care if it sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime, if they say, ‘But we need your answer right now,’ it probably needs to be NO.” (2) “One of the opportunities I most regret taking was a snap decision over the offerer’s insistence on an answer NOW. No time for prayer? Uh, NO.” (3) “Gah. If I can save you the pain in the neck that decision has continued to be to me for a solid 10 years, please let me.”
I meant every word. Still do.
Good grief, it’s been a pain. A lot of people hopped on board in
response to those tweets and my misery found some good company and, in turn, a
few good laughs. Man, I love when that happens.
A few hours later while I was on a
walk in the woods, a deep and specific conviction of the Holy Spirit welled up
in me unexpectedly. It was a conviction of gratitude: the leading of the Holy
Spirit for me to, right then and there and henceforth, give no small thanks to
God over the very situation that had been such a pain. If I had to
wrap English language around a conviction of the Holy Spirit, it would go
something like this:
“You really ought to thank Me for
that.”
Sometimes the conviction of the Holy
Spirit comes so unexpectedly in an area that we are taken aback. I know. I
know. You’re wanting to quote me 1 Thessalonians 5:18 – “Give thanks in all
circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” I get it.
And I know it by heart. But we can read those words, quote those words and
believe those words to be absolute truth, absolutely appropriate and even
restorative and yet have a treacherously hard time applying them to situations
that have nearly perforated our stomach lining. Circumstances get infinitely
harder to be grateful within than the one I’m talking about in this article.
Still, call me superficial but I can’t say I’ve thrown my back out with
cartwheels for a thorn in the flesh that got stuck in my skull from diving
headlong into an instant yes.
It’s been a gift that just keeps on giving.
But that’s just it. I think God wanted
me to stand there in those piney woods and consider what a gift that
situation had been to me. Of course, for the sake of humility. Nothing’s wasted
if it works humility because nothing will get us into deeper trouble
or set us up for a steeper fall than pride. We have no greater obstacle to our
divine callings than our egos. But that pain in the neck also offered me a
second gift. It taught me a lesson I’m pretty sure I won’t
soon forget. It seeded a hyper-phobia of snap decisions made
under human pressures. These days I can’t shake the word “no” out of the word
“now” to save my life.
Pain is the superglue that makes a
lesson stick. That’s nothing new. The most basic one-word synonym for
“disciple” is “learner.” Maybe you need to know today what I’ve needed to know
so many days: learning, for a follower of Christ, is still a mark of
discipleship even if you learned some lessons the hard way.
Or the excruciating way.
Or the embarrassing way.
Or the exasperating way.
Or the explosive, expensive or
excessively long way.
If it attached you to the
Teacher, if it marked you with Him and caused you at all to imitate
Him, that’s the beating heart of discipleship.
Here’s the thing. The lesson wasn’t to
try hard to dodge controversy. That’s not character. That’s cowardice. Those
early followers of Jesus were nothing if not controversial and not just to the
world but also to the religious establishment. The lesson was the idiocy of
doing anything like that without taking the time to seek the will of God. It
sure seemed like something that would be His will. And the folks needed an
answer right then. And goodness knows everybody around me was all excited about
it.
“Therefore do not be foolish,”
Ephesians 5:17 says, “but understand what the will of the Lord is.”
Because that’s the game changer. If we
know – I do mean KNOW – we are doing the will of God, if the step we are taking
is – to the best of our prayerful understanding – in obedience to Christ, the
fallout falls into His very capable lap. We walk in the shadow of the
Almighty wherever Jesus leads us. We may still get hit. We may still be hated.
For Christ’s sake, we could lose our earthly lives. Jesus did the will of His
Father from first breath to last and was hit, hated and crucified. But He was
resolute. He knew nothing He could lose would compare to what He’d gain. What
we’d all gain. Nothing could stop Him. No demon. No disciple. No dread of death.
There is a key word in this segment of
Matthew 16 that stands out to me on the page every time I read it:
From that time Jesus began to show his
disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief
priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.
Of course, there’s always somebody
close by who will try to talk you out of doing God’s will and with good
reasoning and excellent rationale.
22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be
it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” 23 But
he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me.
For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of
man.”
The “learner” part of the disciple
Peter might have suffered a few developmental delays but the lesson took.
Here’s one way we know. From Acts 4…
17 But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let
us (rulers, elders, scribes)
warn them (Peter
and John) to speak no more to anyone in this name.” 18 So
they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of
Jesus. 19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it
is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must
judge, 20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen
and heard.”
We’re not Jesus. Ours is finite
understanding. We can’t always discern the exact will of God in every detail of
a drastic decision. We’re not Peter, who, in his own words was an eyewitness of
Christ’s majesty and heard “the voice” of “the Majestic Glory.” (2 Peter
1:16-17) But we are Christ’s followers now, called to pore over the Scriptures,
to seek the beautiful face of God and the saving will of God. And, then, to the
best of our understanding and with the fullness of our God-given ability, to DO
the will of God.
Gravity holds the soles of our feet to
a spinning blue globe. Because all authority has been given to Christ, we can
exercise the audacity to “go therefore into all nations.” With the
wide waistline of this globe, why would Jesus send us to the same places
with the same gifts to do the same things the same way? Part of His
perfection is His pure practicality. He calls this one there, that one
here, this one to do that, that one to do this. Mind you, audacity out
from under authority is lunacy. But Jesus sent the promised Holy Spirit for the
purpose of leading us from the inside out. He makes His will known if we’ll
seek Him with all our hearts.
I’m going to be straight with you here
after thirty years of ministry and a heap of observation. If you make your
secret goal to sidestep controversy and to keep everybody liking you and nobody
misunderstanding you, you’re going to lock yourself into such a
jail cell of stale air that you will suffocate every last breath out
of your calling. Your soul was made for more than three square inches of
breathing space. If you’re trying to avoid a label, good luck with that. Social
media has sentenced us to label hell. And, since there’s not much changing
that, this is the one label we Jesus-followers can try to avoid: disobedient.
Whatever your calling is, it takes
guts. Jesus didn’t call us to follow Him to the chaise lounge. We’ve got a
globe to cover. Not a couch.
If you’re a follower of Christ, you’re
here on this planet to do one thing: the will of God in the spread of the
gospel. So am I. We must take the time to seek how. Then, with some hint of
clarity, we must do it. Come what may. Whatever others say.
And there we’ll find protection in the
secret place of the Most High. There we’ll have confidence even should it
get brutal or controversial. There we’ll have comfort when it hurts. There
we’ll have fellowship, entering into Christ’s own experience until we make it
safely into His arms. There we’ll have the pleasure of God. And nothing is
like it. A lifetime of man’s approval can’t compare with a single moment of
God’s.
So, you see, that was the missing
factor in that ten-year pain in the neck. That was the frustration. I forfeited
the confidence and comfort and companionship that would have come
with knowing I’d followed Jesus – the best I knew how – where He
wanted me to go. Those things would have carried me. Given me peace. Been
worth any criticism. Every inconvenience. Or the thousandth explanation. I know
that because they’ve carried me other times. They’re carrying me now into
entirely new territories that would have terrified me before.
And they’ll carry you because they’re
bound up in the heart of Jesus and He, Himself, carries us. Let’s be terrified
of this: of missing Jesus. Of missing His will. Of putting the soles of our
feet on a safe tidy path undisturbed by His valiant footprints.
Anyway, I’ve got a new outlook on that
old pain in the neck. Maybe it’s not so bad after all. Maybe God used it to
save me from a dozen other missteps. In fact, maybe – God help me – just maybe,
for the very first time, I’m the least tad thankful for it.
Be brave out there. - Beth
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