1 Peter 4:11
If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God, if anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
I write this on a day that I am stuck in bed with a fever, headache, respiratory something and a rash on my belly that I am still not quite sure what it is..... I am writing this on a day that I love in my week..a day that I can serve with wild abandonment...a day that we go to HOH for Tuesday morning outreach and share God's love with girls and children caught up in the evilness of sex trafficking.....lunchtime is spent at the feeding center in the dump..sharing not only food but God's word...and the afternoon ends with sharing Christ's love with the ladies at the Cancer Shelter...Encouraging those, who are oftentimes, at death's very door....and yet today...I am here in bed surrounded by tissues.
Tissues being used for more than just sneezes....for tears. Tears for a multitude of reasons...a world of sin, a daughter no longer here, children abused, starving, neglected, sexual assaulted, and the list goes on and on.... I find myself stopped..today anyway. Held in one place, alone. This occurred not without a fight I might add.... I was dressed, ready to go, tubs packed and loaded in the truck...even dropped Slate off at school...all the while knowing.... I could fight through the day....but was I supposed to? Was it my day to fight? Was I pushing on in my own strength or with God's? As I read and reread this verse allowing God's word to surround me, I realized that while God had given me wonderful gifts....today, He had not given me the strength....not today.
As I made my way back to the house and climbed into bed, I knew I was where I was supposed to be today....I knew it before I went to bed last night...yet, in my humanness, worldliness...I knew that I could trudge on, that I could complete the day....but the strength I would have been using was my own....not God's...and in the world we live in, the world we serve in...I do not want to walk this journey in my own strength. There is nothing that needed to be accomplished today that God could not....nor would not accomplish with out me...nothing. On most days, He allows me to walk the journey of His working, He allows me to take part, He allows me to be the recipient of many hugs and loves that are truly His...not mine, but His.
Too many times, too often, we trudge on.... We trudge on out of feeling guilty, we trudge on out of the feelings of necessity, of responsibility, of debt..... or do we trudge on out of feelings of pride or the need to be in control of everything in our world....... yet, God tells us that what we do, how we serve, what we use of the gifts He has given us should be used in His strength....not ours....not ours.
This is a hard one for me. Being still. I do much better than I have in the past....I used to push this earthly body way past the point that it should be pushed....all in the name of completing an assigned task on time. But I have experienced the strength that comes from the Father....and the strength that we have as humans pales in comparison....pales. That's where I want to be...that's how I want to serve...in God's will, using that strength that He provides to accomplish work for His kingdom...and nowhere in that phrase is the word "me"..... We serve as He directs with His strength...not our own.
Where in our lives are we hitting brick walls? Are we hitting them because they are walls we ourselves are fighting? Are we working in our own strength or God's? Do we really think that the our world would cease to move if we took a day off to just be? I can tell you that it doesn't. It won't. Even the day when my world came to a screeching stop in my mind, the moment that Tae died, the world kept moving.....
If you feel like you are going crazy trying to just survive in this world, if you have to numb yourself to make it through the day, if you don't feel the joy that surpasses all understanding.....stop. Find someone who you know that really does. Choose to make a change in your life that will stop the craziness that consumes to many of us.
Today, I was reminded yet again...that this is not my fight, this is His...His glory, His strength....His. Thankful to be a small part of the journey.
If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God, if anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
I write this on a day that I am stuck in bed with a fever, headache, respiratory something and a rash on my belly that I am still not quite sure what it is..... I am writing this on a day that I love in my week..a day that I can serve with wild abandonment...a day that we go to HOH for Tuesday morning outreach and share God's love with girls and children caught up in the evilness of sex trafficking.....lunchtime is spent at the feeding center in the dump..sharing not only food but God's word...and the afternoon ends with sharing Christ's love with the ladies at the Cancer Shelter...Encouraging those, who are oftentimes, at death's very door....and yet today...I am here in bed surrounded by tissues.
Tissues being used for more than just sneezes....for tears. Tears for a multitude of reasons...a world of sin, a daughter no longer here, children abused, starving, neglected, sexual assaulted, and the list goes on and on.... I find myself stopped..today anyway. Held in one place, alone. This occurred not without a fight I might add.... I was dressed, ready to go, tubs packed and loaded in the truck...even dropped Slate off at school...all the while knowing.... I could fight through the day....but was I supposed to? Was it my day to fight? Was I pushing on in my own strength or with God's? As I read and reread this verse allowing God's word to surround me, I realized that while God had given me wonderful gifts....today, He had not given me the strength....not today.
As I made my way back to the house and climbed into bed, I knew I was where I was supposed to be today....I knew it before I went to bed last night...yet, in my humanness, worldliness...I knew that I could trudge on, that I could complete the day....but the strength I would have been using was my own....not God's...and in the world we live in, the world we serve in...I do not want to walk this journey in my own strength. There is nothing that needed to be accomplished today that God could not....nor would not accomplish with out me...nothing. On most days, He allows me to walk the journey of His working, He allows me to take part, He allows me to be the recipient of many hugs and loves that are truly His...not mine, but His.
Too many times, too often, we trudge on.... We trudge on out of feeling guilty, we trudge on out of the feelings of necessity, of responsibility, of debt..... or do we trudge on out of feelings of pride or the need to be in control of everything in our world....... yet, God tells us that what we do, how we serve, what we use of the gifts He has given us should be used in His strength....not ours....not ours.
This is a hard one for me. Being still. I do much better than I have in the past....I used to push this earthly body way past the point that it should be pushed....all in the name of completing an assigned task on time. But I have experienced the strength that comes from the Father....and the strength that we have as humans pales in comparison....pales. That's where I want to be...that's how I want to serve...in God's will, using that strength that He provides to accomplish work for His kingdom...and nowhere in that phrase is the word "me"..... We serve as He directs with His strength...not our own.
Where in our lives are we hitting brick walls? Are we hitting them because they are walls we ourselves are fighting? Are we working in our own strength or God's? Do we really think that the our world would cease to move if we took a day off to just be? I can tell you that it doesn't. It won't. Even the day when my world came to a screeching stop in my mind, the moment that Tae died, the world kept moving.....
If you feel like you are going crazy trying to just survive in this world, if you have to numb yourself to make it through the day, if you don't feel the joy that surpasses all understanding.....stop. Find someone who you know that really does. Choose to make a change in your life that will stop the craziness that consumes to many of us.
Today, I was reminded yet again...that this is not my fight, this is His...His glory, His strength....His. Thankful to be a small part of the journey.
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