So I have not posted here in a while. I guess sometimes when I get here and want to post something i instead choose to leave the day blank. It’s so musch easier. To be evasive. Elusive. One of the things i guess, that is most feared is that no one would care. Hmmm. Isn’t that the reason that we post. Because we long to feel connected in some way. Because we want to know that we can share life with others who ARE like minded and who will recieve us in a manner that is worthy of love. I feel this way sometimes. Yet why is it that in the whole dilemma of desiring love we run from it! So strange.
Well, This month has been a roller coaster ride for me. Can I say ups and downs. Just kind of glad that this quarter of classes is coming to a close. Pray that I’d finish strong in God’s grace. There have been other unexpected shifts this month. You remember that apartment I was giong to be moving into? Well, My roomate pulled his application at the last minute. Yeah… It was a shock to me. I thought….. I believed…. I was standing in faith….. But it fell through… You know, there can be no more of a humbling thing than to think you were in the right when you were totally in the wrong. I know that I will move, but, im not sure just how soon the Lord will have me to move. In the meanwhile the Lord made it very clear just how selfish i have been and was becoming every day Instead of loving and serving those in my vicinity. I had come to the place where I thought i could or should be served, honored and respected by them. I thank God for His mercy. God also, through it all, brought back to bear upon my heart a scripture that has continually haunted me. Oh thank God for scriptures that haunt. Here it is:
“Am I not permitted to do what I choose with what is mine? [Or do you begrudge my being generous?] Is your eye evil because I am good?” -Mt. 20:15
The context of this scripture is that of the workers in the vineyard. There were several different categories of workers: some who had worked a longer time and some who had worked a shorter time. At the end of the day those who had worked a longer time expected to be payed more and grumbled because their pay was the same of those who had worked a shorter time.
I had evaded this one scripture for the longest. I did not want to face up to the reality of it. I can humbly admit that one of the chief fears that i have had is that of being left behind. Not in terms of rapture or anything. If you have dealt with it then you understand. You see all of your friends going on into different areas of life yet you are [seemingly] stuck in the same place. God is dealing with your life in a different way. He is sovereign and knows best yet in your heart you feel that you have a need to contend with his ways.
“Woe to him who strives with his Maker!–a worthless piece of broken pottery among other pieces equally worthless [and yet presuming to strive with his Maker]! Shall the clay say to him who fashions it, What do you think you are making? or, Your work has no handles?”-Is. 45:9
The reality is that you desire to appear to be doing something great for the Kingdom, yet God is still molding you and until you have something real in God you will never be a vessel fit and ready for the master to work through and make any significant contributions to the kingdom. In the above scripture from Matthew the Lord applied directly to my heart the fact the I am His own yet I have not allowed Him to do what He wills with His Own. I even begrudged His generosity with my life. I do thank the Lord for His interruptions. If not for His blessed interruptions who knows where I’d be. It has only been His grce that has kept me.
So today our church was guest at a church in a town neighboring my home. I have a friend from high school that goes to that church. In high school we were really good friends who always hung out and talked. We even went to church together. This friend of mine got hit by a car on new years days and almost every bone in his body was broken. He was disabled, in a coma and in ICU for a while. He got out of the hospital last month sometime (i believe) and was at church today. I was glad to see him. I Had often seen his brother at the public library and said I would call or go see him many times but I was afraid. I don’t have any idea why but today it was made clear to me that it was simply a fear of seeing one whom I had known to be so strong appear to be so weak. I had looked up to this brother. Today when I got to the church I immediately saw him sitting in the aisle in a wheel chair. I walked up to hima and gave him a hug and greeted him and sat in the row next to Him. After a while I went up to the pulpit and sat with the other ministers. The Presence of God was most assuredly in that place. After the first song I could see my friend T.J. rolling in his wheel chair up to the be next to the choir stance. Onced there they gave him a mic and he sang after two other ladies sang. The words to the song went something like this:
I’m grateful Lord
I’m grateful Lord
Gratefullness is flowing from my heart.
All I can say is Im grateful.
I’m not sure of the exact words to this song but The Lord really used the song to minister to my heart. The only thing I could do was weep and thank God. I was totally humbled by the fact that my friend was here before me singing genuine praise to the Lord even after such a tragic incident yet in contrast here I was; one who had for the past month harbored such accusations against the Lord in my own heart and was growing more and more unsatisfied with life. There in that pulpit i was humbled. I was ashamed of my own heart and actions. I was grateful. The Lord caused me to understand and see with a clear view my true state in life. I have beeen blessed overabundantly by him by because of my shortsightedness and stinginess i was blinded to all the blessings right before my eyes.
When I saw my friend singing in the way he was singing I could only think, “He is blessed.”
I thank the Lord for opening my eyes once again