Obedience and the Wilderness

         So earlier this year, the Lord really used a blog post of mine from last year to challenge and encourage me, as well as to continue building on a particular theme/Biblical analogy that He has been using in my life on and off for the past year. There was one part in particular on this post that He really challenged me with as I was struggling with trusting in Him and His guidance and provision in a certain area of my life and it said " I want to make sure that I am one of the Joshua's and Caleb's of the world, not one of the other 10 who caused the Israelites to doubt, disobey, and end up wandering the desert for 40 years." (don't you just love it when the Lord uses your own words back at you to speak to you about something?? haha. It is definitely humbling and probably more effective than anyone else's words.) This quote made even more of an impact on me because of a book that I am reading right now called One in a Million by Priscilla Shirer. In it she talks about how out of approximately two million Israelites, only two - Joshua and Caleb - made it to the Promised Land. She uses the story of the Israelites' deliverance from Egypt and their journey to the Promised Land to illustrate the seasons/ways that God moves in our lives as well.
     So I know in church, when we are usually talking about the Israelites, we talk about how they had to wander the wilderness for 40 years and how they never got to make it to the Promised Land because of their disbelief. We also talk about how we want to be a 'Joshua' or 'Caleb' and be willing to believe in God's promises to come true. Yet, the more that I thought about it, the more that I realized that I didn't think that I had ever heard anyone talking about how even though Joshua and Caleb did the right thing by believing in God, they were still stuck wandering in the wilderness for 40 years with the rest of the people who didn't believe!!! Let that sink in....40 years of wilderness wandering with everyone else even though they made the right choice to be obedient and to trust in God. So this got me to thinking that just because we are doing our best to be obedient to and listen to God doesn't mean that we won't spend time in the wilderness...The wilderness is not just a punishment for those who were disobedient and unbelieving, but it's also about preparation and strengthening of character for those who are obedient and believing. It is just like Beth Moore was saying in the video last week at Bible study, God's got an amazing calling and inheritance for us, but it is something that we are going to have to fight for!! After all, it will not only be worth more to us because we had to fight for it, but God knows that it is the spiritual muscle that is gained through that fight that will enable us to be successful in the fight to keep our inheritance.

Divine Restraint

        "I know everything about you, far than you know of yourself. But I restrain my yearning to "fix" you, waiting instead for you to come to Me for help. Imagine the divine restraint this requires, for I have all Power in heaven and on earth." 

This excerpt from my Jesus Calling devotional this weekend just blew me away! For someone like me, who is a "fixer," (i.e. I see a problem and I immediately start thinking up a step-by-step plan of how to rectify or resolve the issue, and then I set out to fix it using the aforementioned steps*.) this was just a mind-blowing thought to process for me. If I, as a powerless finite human am constantly struggling to keep myself from trying to help "fix" all the problems of the people in my life, I can NOT imagine the patience that the Lord exhibits on our behalf in waiting for us to come to Him to ask for help with our problems and struggles, especially given that He possesses ALL power in heaven and on earth. It is here that once again the Lord brings me back to 2nd Peter 3:8-9, which says, "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." Wow. These verses and the continual reminders in my life of God patience with me and with us just absolutely floor me. God is so GREAT. HE JUST IS. I LOVE IT AND I LOVE HIM. Thank You, Lord, for your patience and Your faithfulness towards us. Thank you for your divine restraint. Let Your example be a lesson to us on how to better love those people in our own lives. We love you. In Your Son's Holy name, Amen. :-)
    How about you? Are you a fixer too? What do you think about the Lord's patience with us? Does it ever seem to you like He is being slow in keeping His promises to you? What helps/encourages you through those days/seasons of your life? :-)

*Which doesn't always work, especially when it comes to the messiness of some of our lives' problems...as several friends and family can attest to. As one of my friends put it when I was trying to help and counsel him on a problem in his own life, "Julia, it doesn't always work like that. I understand what you are saying and that it comes from a place of caring for me and wanting me to be able to overcome this, but sometimes life is more complicated than a + b = c." Or as my youngest sister would say, "I don't need you to try and fix me, I just want you to listen." It reminds of this video that my dad showed me, "It's Not About the Nail". It cracks me up because while it seems to me that this video is trying to highlight the differences between how men and women communicate, I totally identify WAY MORE with the guy in this video than I do the girl.

SCF seeks SCM, Unrealistic Expectations a Must...

"S(ingle) C(hristian) F(emale) seeks S(ingle) C(hristian) M(ale) to submit to in everything as to the Lord, to respect, to serve, to follow and to be led by in discipleship and ministry, to trust as spiritual leader of the home, and to serve Christ with for the next several decades or until Jesus comes back. SCM must possess total confidence (but can't be cocky and must trust SCF's opinion in all things); must be devastatingly handsome but have no idea that he is; must be exquisite interpersonal communicator who enjoys nothing more than long, conversations about the relationship; must understand SCF completely; and must otherwise fit description of how SCF thought 'The One' would be since SCF started thinking about it at age 11."

So I was reading an article on boundless.org earlier and I came across the quote above in it (which was meant to be very tongue-in-cheek) and as I read it, I thought, "Well I have been told before that my standards were too high when it comes to dating, but at least I have never been this ridiculous/unrealistic in my expectations..." However, it did strike me as quite amusing, so I copied and pasted it into a facebook message to several of my close friends who I knew would get a kick out of it too. To one of them I included the quippy comment of "and we wonder why we can't find a decent Christian boy to date....LOL"  She of course, appreciated the humor and ridiculousness of it and yet as we continued talk about it/mock it, I began to wonder, "we joke about it and everything, but I wonder how much of that list are we actually going off of even subconsciously?" YUP. Go back and read through it again, perhaps a bit more slowly and be honest with yourself. Even as overtly ridiculous as it seems, are we girls not (at least) subconsciously guilty at one point in time or another of putting  unrealistic and unfair expectations on the guys around us??
      Now don't get me wrong, having a list and standards are good thing, however those things need both need to be grounded in reality*. The person listed above does not exist. Guys are human, flawed and in need of a Savior, just like we are. Sometimes we need to let our expectations go in order to be able to receive what it is the Lord is trying to teach us/give us. Girls, I think oftentimes that when we imagine our "perfect guy" and the relationship that we will have with him someday, we are actually expecting him to be exactly like our best (girl) friend, but in a male's body. Then we get into a relationship and our boyfriend starts acting like a guy instead of how we thought he would (i.e.like our other girl friends), we get upset and frustrated. The thing is that guys want to be loved and respected for who God has made them as men in the same way that we girls want to be respected for the way God has made us as females. We are both unique individuals that each reflect God's character and complement each other in uniquely different ways. Instead of focusing on trying to find Mr. Right, why don't we instead focus our attention onto Christ and the relationship that He has called us to with Him? After all, relationships take time, energy, and intentionality. If we can't manage to develop an intimate relationship with Jesus now as a single person, what makes us think that we'll make time for Him later? He needs to be at the center of our lives, regardless of who else is in it.


*For an excellent guide on what you should be looking for/praying for in your future husband, be sure to check out Praying for Your Future Husband by Robin Jones Gunn and Tricia Goyer. It'll rock your world. :-)

Where's the Fruit?

Fruit. The concept of fruit in our lives has been coming up quite a bit in my life these past few days, especially on Saturday. As I was reading through my daily Bible reading, I came across these verses at the beginning of  Psalm 1:

“Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither – whatever they do prospers.”

Now, I have read these verses numerous times before, but the part that really jumped off the page to me this time was a phrase near the end of this passage where it says “which yields its fruit in season…”  The Lord really used this to encourage me because I felt like He was saying, “If you are not yielding fruit at this very moment in life/what you are doing doesn’t appear to yield any fruit; that does NOT necessarily mean that you are doing something wrong. After all, fruit trees are not continually producing fruit, but rather they go through different seasons. It could be that I have you in a season of preparation right now, and while you are on the right track, it does not mean that it is the right time for the fruit to be produced. Just as the trees and plants must wait until the time is right for their fruit to come forth, so it is with you.”

However, there is also a flip side of this. You (and I as well) could be tempted to take these words of encouragement as almost an excuse or cop-out for why we are not producing fruit, when I reality we are just being lazy. In John 15:1-5, Jesus says,

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes^[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

         
        So as Jesus’ disciples, if we are abiding in Him, then we should be bearing fruit (of some kind) because of our connection and relationship with Him. It may not be the fruit that you were expecting to bear or wanting to see come to fruition, but there should be fruit of some kind. After all, as I was discussing above about Psalm 1, the Lord may have us in a different season than we ourselves would like to be in, and He may have us producing a different fruit than we would like to be producing, but that does not mean that we should throw in the towel and give up. This is our chance to trust Him and to “take the adventure that has been given us.” Why? Because Jesus loves us and calls us His friends and then little bit later on in verse 16, He says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.”

       He is preparing us to bear fruit that will LAST. Let’s not give up just because we are not in the season that we would like to be. Instead, let us focus our attention and our love on Christ because as we do that and surrender our will to His, we will discover that He has placed in us a contentment that we did not think was possible. :-)  Even though it may be hard, His ways are always the best ways, and so that’s the way for me!