I have been struggling through different friendships and my issues with people. I feel insecure, resentful, and frankly quite pathetic as I continually pursue time with friends but it is not always reciprocated. Now, if I get deep down and personal, I may not always want the friend popping up when it is inconvenient or when they have a need--but especially when it is convenient for me or when I'm feeling lonely, or friends do things without me and I feel left out. I want them to ask me how I'm doing, to pray for me, to whisk me away for a quiet cup of chai, to love on my kids, to stop by unannounced "just because." Now I do have friends that have done this off and on. But I want it all the time (or at least when I think I want it). I want to be sought after and pursued, not always be the one pursuing and making all the effort (again, we're dealing with my perception here).
And then I think of Jesus. It keeps popping into my head that He "did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many" (Matt. 20:28, Mark 10:45). He is the one constantly putting Himself out there, constantly seeking, and pursuing. "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost," (Luke 19:10) not to enjoy pleasantries with friends, be doted on by adoring fans, have riches and comfort bestowed on Him which He gets to share with friends, vacation at the beach with His buddies sipping cool drinks, even enjoy the physical intimacy of a wife. And His relational needs, which He does have as a human man, are completely met by his Heavenly Father (the intimacy they share is obvious). John 17 is full of this:
I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. John 17:21-23, emphasis mine. (Slight aside here, there is so much more to digest in all of this just considering the implications of how God has loved us like He loves Jesus.)
And then on His purpose for life: “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me [the Father] and to finish his work" (John 4:34). "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me" (John 6:38). Again, He is not thinking at all about Himself or His relationships with others His friends. Jesus' perspective is also different in that He says, "By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me" (John 5:30). All of this brings me to realize that my perspective continues to be flawed (selfish at its core), and that the times I have of true unity with a fellow sister are mere glimpses of the Triune God and of what I have to look forward to in eternity with Him and other believers. But for now I can say to myself, "Pursue Him" and bow in awe and reverence that He pursues me as persistently as He does.
Some additional verses to ponder in gaining a perspective on who to seek and who is seeking me:
1 Cor. 10:24 Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.
Psa. 27:8 My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek.
Luke 12:31 But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
John 17:26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.
Now, after all this soul-searching and deliberation, I have new questions about friendship that I wonder about. What is its purpose (as believers)? What about best friends (thinking about Jesus and Peter and John...)? Am I desiring something totally off base? Stay tuned for more ponderings...
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
What a prayer...
Ephesians 3:17-21
...that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge [slight aside, but that really gets me...to know something that surpasses knowledge...wow]— that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Trey's words
Trey has been trying to shoot things (total boy) with the plastic play kitchen faucet (which he takes out). Since Carl told him we don't hate anyone, but sin, yesterday Trey was "gunning sin." He was running around out house with the plastic faucet "gun" with a balloon attached to the bottom "gunning" sin. Lily told him that she is full of sin and to "gun" her...but I stopped him at that point!
Trey also told me repeatedly that he will never leave me. "I love you, Mama. I never leave you!" I left him yesterday and he we super sad about that and wanted to let me know 10 times that "I never leave you, Mama."
Trey also told me repeatedly that he will never leave me. "I love you, Mama. I never leave you!" I left him yesterday and he we super sad about that and wanted to let me know 10 times that "I never leave you, Mama."
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Perspective
I was lying awake a bit overwhelmed with all the things going on and needing to be done. I tried to narrow it down. "Ok, Lord, what is the most important? Glorifying You?" And then He reminded me.
"No--it's LOVING me, soul, heart, mind, strength. Completely loving Me." As He says in Mark 12:30: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
As I remembered that first commandment, I was amazed at how when I love Him completely, everything else falls into place. Loving Him somehow comes back to me. I get to in turn have love for others. I get to be gentle and patient, pour myself out, and...feel joy! What a wonder! Why do I forget this so easily?
"No--it's LOVING me, soul, heart, mind, strength. Completely loving Me." As He says in Mark 12:30: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
As I remembered that first commandment, I was amazed at how when I love Him completely, everything else falls into place. Loving Him somehow comes back to me. I get to in turn have love for others. I get to be gentle and patient, pour myself out, and...feel joy! What a wonder! Why do I forget this so easily?
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Others May––But You Cannot
If God has called you to be really like Jesus in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life
of crucifixion and humility, and put on you such demands of obedience that He will not
allow you to follow other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other good
people do things which He will not let you do.
Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful may push
themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it;
and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to
make you sorely penitent.
Others can brag on themselves, on their work, on their success, on their writings, but
the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it He will lead
you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good
works.
Others will be allowed to succeed in making money, or having a legacy left to them, or
in having luxuries, but it is likely that God will keep you poor, because He wants you to
have something better than gold, and that is a helpless dependence on Him, that He
may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.
The Lord will let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hid away in
obscurity, because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming
glory, which can only be produced in the shade.
He will let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him,
and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how
much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He will let others
get the credit for the work which you have done, and this will make your reward ten
times greater when Jesus comes. The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a
jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feeling or for wasting your time,
which other Christians never seem distressed over. So make up your mind that God is
an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do as He pleases with His own, and He will not
explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with
you.
He will take you at your word, and if you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He
will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other people say and do many things that you
cannot do or say. Settle it forever, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit and
that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing
your eyes in ways that He does not deal with others. Now when you are so possessed
with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this
peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit
over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven.
––The Biblical Evangelist
of crucifixion and humility, and put on you such demands of obedience that He will not
allow you to follow other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other good
people do things which He will not let you do.
Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful may push
themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it;
and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to
make you sorely penitent.
Others can brag on themselves, on their work, on their success, on their writings, but
the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it He will lead
you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good
works.
Others will be allowed to succeed in making money, or having a legacy left to them, or
in having luxuries, but it is likely that God will keep you poor, because He wants you to
have something better than gold, and that is a helpless dependence on Him, that He
may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.
The Lord will let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hid away in
obscurity, because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming
glory, which can only be produced in the shade.
He will let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him,
and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how
much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He will let others
get the credit for the work which you have done, and this will make your reward ten
times greater when Jesus comes. The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a
jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feeling or for wasting your time,
which other Christians never seem distressed over. So make up your mind that God is
an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do as He pleases with His own, and He will not
explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with
you.
He will take you at your word, and if you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He
will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other people say and do many things that you
cannot do or say. Settle it forever, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit and
that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing
your eyes in ways that He does not deal with others. Now when you are so possessed
with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this
peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit
over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven.
––The Biblical Evangelist
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