Preface
For one of my classes, I am to answer a reflective question each week. So, if the topics seem odd it is because they are not orignal but merely me fulfilling an assignment like the good student I am. (Those who know me will pick up on the dry humor in the latter part of the last sentence.) I find that the questions are helpful and give me a good reason to post something.
The Post
In the past week I have been reading from Matthew, Psalms, Romans, and Numbers. The Book of Numbers has actually taken on new significance and interest for me as I have observed the role and importance of the nations in the book. I now read with a highlighter in hand so as to mark whenever the nations or peoples are mentioned. Lately, my prayer life has been suffering because I have not been trusting, and even resisting, that God would answer my prayers. Who am I that He should think of me, to do for me? As I write this, I hear a voice in my head that says, “It is not for your service that I answer your prayers but to display My glory.” Wow. I have been selfish in my prayer life. It isn’t about what God can do for me but how He uses me to display His glory to the people around me. I have also been struggling with the thought that I am not useful to God. I link usefulness with action; if I am not doing something then I am not being useful. With regard to prayer, God’s glory is displayed more by my inaction because it is Him doing everything and, therefore, deserving of all the glory. I am thankful for these moments of humbling, but I am even more thankful that God humbles gently more often than not.
Anyway, the verse I was going to share is Romans 8:32 which says, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” I was actually talking with a friend last night about knowing when God has spoken to you, and this morning He did through His Word. I need not be afraid of prayer or hesitant of it. I need not doubt that my prayers will go unanswered. God has already answered the prayer of my heart by giving me Christ. Since, He has already given me the most wonderful, precious, and priceless (and for God the most difficult to give up) thing in the world, why would He not give me things of lesser value? To paraphrase the popular t-shirts: The answer to the prayer is Christ, the rest is just details.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Ramblings on My Relationship with God
Why do I refuse God? I have a relationship with Him in the sense that I try to take from Him. I do not give to Him and neither do i let Him give to me. I have been pretty regular about spending time in the Word, which is good for me. I have not been regular of late. My prayer life is almost nonexistent because i am afraid of what He has to say. I know God loves me and has my best at heart. Why do i refuse Him? Why am i afraid of intimacy with my God and Savior? To be honest, it's because i have been burned so many, many times in the past. I don't want to be hurt anymore. I distance myself as a protective measure but i end up hurting myself more because i deny myself the intimacy with God i desire and need. I want to be wholly God's but i know that i am a liar with good intentions when i sing those words. I have a hard time trusting. I do not like myself this point in my pilgrimage. I wnat to be more than what i am, but i am not obedient enough to get there. I abuse grace. I want to be more godly, but my pride keeps getting in the way. My self will only truly die and be separated from me when I go home to be with Christ. Oh, how I wish that was soon at times.
I have a great tendency to be negative, but there are also some postive happenings with my relationship with God. I previously mentioned reading the Bible regularly. It has actually been exciting to read and i have been more engaged when i do due to the fact that i read with a purpose. My purpose is to see how God cares for the nations and how He has cared throughout the whole Bible. It has been really amazing to see. In Numbers 14 God is about to destroy all the Israelites because they refuse to go into the Holy Land. Moses intercedes and pleads with God to spare them because the nations will hear of it and doubt God's power (v. 11-16). I am excited to see how God reaches the nations, thanks to my mission-minded heart. I have been learning so much at school about this God i serve. He really is amazing.
"Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths betond tracing out!" ~ Romans 11:33
I have a great tendency to be negative, but there are also some postive happenings with my relationship with God. I previously mentioned reading the Bible regularly. It has actually been exciting to read and i have been more engaged when i do due to the fact that i read with a purpose. My purpose is to see how God cares for the nations and how He has cared throughout the whole Bible. It has been really amazing to see. In Numbers 14 God is about to destroy all the Israelites because they refuse to go into the Holy Land. Moses intercedes and pleads with God to spare them because the nations will hear of it and doubt God's power (v. 11-16). I am excited to see how God reaches the nations, thanks to my mission-minded heart. I have been learning so much at school about this God i serve. He really is amazing.
"Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths betond tracing out!" ~ Romans 11:33
Monday, October 02, 2006
Power
Tonight while at work I was struck by a source power, often unknown, and its ill effects upon my life. The source of power is the power of self and in essence the power of the sinful nature. I have been really sick the past two days (strep throat), and just today I have received my vitality and strength back. I wasn't really looking forward to going to work because I didn't want to lose this strength, get sick even more, and not be able to go to class tomorrow, but at least I didn't have to close. Not long after being at work the manager, who knew about my illness, came and asked if I could close stating that no one else wanted/should to do it. I was honest and said I didn't want to but would if there was absolutely no one else who could do it. She left without saying anything, and the other manager eventually came and told me that someone else would close instead.
It was during the time in between the managers' communications that I struggled with the situation. My questions: Why am I penalized because I didn't come in as early or don't have a final exam tomorrow? Why me? I even started to dislike my nature in that people know I will do what I am asked to do. I was upsetting myself, and it was during this time that I started to lose my strength and my throat started to hurt again. I knew I was being unreasonable and mostly unfair in my thinking, but I couldn't stop myself from this thought process. I did not have all the facts so I should not be judging and even condemning. Fortunately, I did not voice any of my thoughts.
On my way home I was thinking about the power of money over people with regard to my manager and her actions, but then it hit me. What about the power of myself/sinful nature over me and the result being my selfish thinking? My focus the whole time was upon me, my physical status, and how I was inconvenienced. Me, me, me, me, me. I didn't care about my other coworkers or what was happening to them. I didn't care about my witness to them. I only cared about me and my own little world. The power of the sinful nature is that it stealthily creeps in at my weakest moment and manages to give me tunnel vision with the end of that tunnel being me. It wipes away all thoughts and concerns I have about others and God. It is able to create the illusion that the whole world or even universe revolves around me and others and God are specks or even nonexistent.
This is the nature within me. This is the nature that God's Spirit wages war against inside of me as well. I learned in a class long ago that a person gains power only when another person or groups of people abdicates power to him. I have abdicated power to my sinful nature, and it has gained a stronghold in my life. It's funny in that if I didn't give it power then it would not have any, but to contrast, the Holy Spirit comes with His own power and all I have to do is be obedient to Him and let Him move through me. Through one is death and through the other is eternal freedom. I have to deny myself and let the Spirit do what He came to do.
Matthew 16:24 ~ Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."
It was during the time in between the managers' communications that I struggled with the situation. My questions: Why am I penalized because I didn't come in as early or don't have a final exam tomorrow? Why me? I even started to dislike my nature in that people know I will do what I am asked to do. I was upsetting myself, and it was during this time that I started to lose my strength and my throat started to hurt again. I knew I was being unreasonable and mostly unfair in my thinking, but I couldn't stop myself from this thought process. I did not have all the facts so I should not be judging and even condemning. Fortunately, I did not voice any of my thoughts.
On my way home I was thinking about the power of money over people with regard to my manager and her actions, but then it hit me. What about the power of myself/sinful nature over me and the result being my selfish thinking? My focus the whole time was upon me, my physical status, and how I was inconvenienced. Me, me, me, me, me. I didn't care about my other coworkers or what was happening to them. I didn't care about my witness to them. I only cared about me and my own little world. The power of the sinful nature is that it stealthily creeps in at my weakest moment and manages to give me tunnel vision with the end of that tunnel being me. It wipes away all thoughts and concerns I have about others and God. It is able to create the illusion that the whole world or even universe revolves around me and others and God are specks or even nonexistent.
This is the nature within me. This is the nature that God's Spirit wages war against inside of me as well. I learned in a class long ago that a person gains power only when another person or groups of people abdicates power to him. I have abdicated power to my sinful nature, and it has gained a stronghold in my life. It's funny in that if I didn't give it power then it would not have any, but to contrast, the Holy Spirit comes with His own power and all I have to do is be obedient to Him and let Him move through me. Through one is death and through the other is eternal freedom. I have to deny myself and let the Spirit do what He came to do.
Matthew 16:24 ~ Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."
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