my gift

Every (1st and 3rd) Wednesday night my church has care groups where we go off to someone's house and have a great time of fellowship and discussion. We discussed the sermon from the past Sunday. We're in Ecclesiastes. Chapter I-forget-which-one. For some undisclosed reason, I didn't share any of my thoughts. But someone always said what I was thinking so I didn't feel bad. Until one point where we were talking about death (a rabbit trail). A couple of girls mentioned not wanting to die until they had accomplished a certain number of things (marriage, babies, etc). And both said that when people say "praise the Lord! Old 92-year old elder Timmy died in his sleep last night and is now with Jesus!" they think, "how sad and scary."

This lack of trust in God is disturbing to me. That they think being something on this earth is better than being with God is disturbing. That they value the trivial and the temporal more than the eternal and immortal is disturbing. What does being a Christian mean, anyway? I am a Christian because God chose me. He chose me to bend my knee to him. By doing so, I give everything over to him. All my expectations, all my hopes, all my dreams. Given back to God. Once you give your life to God, he gives his life to you. Beyond fair trade. This only emphasizes my eternal indebtedness. These are my feelings. But I also feel sorrow for them. They know that they have eternal security in the grip of the Almighty, but this part of their salvation they are still working out. Faith is a gift. Because God has given me this gift in a greater amount, I need to share this gift. But it also surprises me to find others without it.

Faith is always something I've wanted. I've always felt that I was lacking in this area. So I prayed and I prayed and I immersed myself in the Word because I believed God when he said, "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you."(John 15:7) I was expecting to become a super-human when this super-power of faith took over. Well, eventually people just started saying things like, "I wish I had your faith," and, "obviously, one of your gifts is faith."

I don't mean to sound like I look down on these girls. I know it sounds like I'm being very egocentric but truly I love these girls.

Well, here's what I said to them, give or take a few words:
I've never been afraid of dying. But I have been afraid of my parents dying. Especially when I was very young. I didn't know what I would do without them. And people would tell me, "Just give it over to God," or, "Lay it at the feet of Jesus," or, "Just lay it at the cross." Do any of these even make sense? But what I did was whenever these feelings came, I just prayed, "God, I know you want me to have faith. I know you don't want me to be afraid. I know you have something better planned." Eventually the feelings would subside. And after many years I don't have those feelings any more. So, that's what I'm going to share with you.

Then someone noted that by continually praying through the feelings each time they arose, I was essentially "giving it over to God." (ah! so that's what they meant. -I can be quite dense some times.)

I'm not afraid to not accomplish anything that the Lord would not want me to accomplish. He has determined my days (Job 14:5) and is in control of them all. Anything he "needs" me to do while on this earth, he will not only empower me to accomplish but he also won't hinder me from accomplishing them. If he receives more glory from me living, then living is what I will do. If he receives more glory by me dying, then die, I must. And I will be quite unable to forestall it. I cannot add one day to my life. I am not suicidal at all, btw. I do look forward to dying, though. "What a glorious day that will be," as the old hymn says.

Well, then the ladies separated from the men to have a more intimate time together and allow the men to do the same. As a group we are reading through Feminine Appeal by Carolyn Mahaney. It's my favorite. We're on the chapter where women should delight in doing housework. One of the girls from before, she's single, she does delight in doing wife-y things. She does them for her friends who are single, married, pregnant, hectic etc. She sounds so bitter though when she describes how her friend gets the kiss and the cuddle from the friend's husband. Do you really want your friend's husband to kiss you? ew, gross. Her lack of trust in God is disturbing. This lustful anticipation and lack of contentment is disturbing. To not delight yourself in the Lord and not die to self is disturbing.

If I get married, praise God. If I remain single, it's for his glory. I didn't say anything this time, but someone else did. She said that singleness is a gift. (from first hand account, I have witnessed that this never goes over well with single females who lust to be married.) She said that it is a gift to the married women that single women can come along side them and help do laundry or vacuum or whatever. And this I had never thought of before. I had always thought of my singleness as a gift for myself. However, should the Lord decide to send me a husband and children, I will accept them gratefully! I would very much enjoy having a husband and children. I love men. and children, too. The idea of marriage is very appealing to me. But it doesn't overwhelm me. But to think that my singleness is a gift for others is unexpected. And how true! For a gift is for the common good (I Corinthians 12:7)! So while God promises a good plan for my life (Jeremiah 29:11) he wants me to use my gifting of singleness (and faith) to serve the body.

Praise God, I'm content. Pray to God that I won't look down on others. Praise God for my gifts. Pray to God that I will use them! I love the body of Christ. I love seeing it in action. I love seeing our flaws, and I love seeing how God has provided for the answer to those flaws. Trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus.

and praise God that he's working on my humility...