Backpacking Through Joshua: Week 2

Howdy Campers!

First, I would like to take this moment to implore you to pray for my friend, Joanne, who suffered a massive right hemisphere stroke last Tuesday morning.  Click here for details.  She needs a miracle, friends.  Please pray.  And feel free to steal this button.

 
Our two questions of the week were: 
1.  Have you ever been influenced in either a positive or negative way concerning your relationship with Jesus? How does this influence your behavior now?
2.  How much responsibility do you think Christians have to live in a particular way?

1.  I have been influenced everso greatly by the Christ-led brothers and sisters in my walk over the last 10 years.  They have shown me, through their own imperfect, yet honestly seeking ways, how to love the Lord  with all my heart, mind, and strength. 

I have also been influenced everso greatly by the poor media representation of Christianity, as well as folks all around me who misrepresent the Bible, using little sound-bytes and cheeky tones.  Oh, and there's the full on cultural declarations of "I deserve", "What about me?"  And, perhaps hardest of all, there's my unbelieving "I believe in God, but I just don't believe in the Trinity.  Mary got pregnant..." love-of-my-life spouse (who was raised going to church, BTW).

Both of these groups of people  have influenced my faith in a positive way.  Why?  Simple.  The former shows me an example of how to live for eternity.  And the latter, in showing me how not to behave, leads me to want to live and love others toward eternity. 


2.  Am I responsible to behave in a Christ-like way so that my life is a pleasing aroma to non-believers?  Yes.  I think so.  Also, as my believing friends have sharpened me as iron sharpens iron, I believe that I have a responsibility to not tire of doing good, in order that I may be an encouragement to them. 

This is my part. 

BUT...Sometimes, I forget that GOD is the source of this behavior, this responsibility, and this faith.  I start living in my own strength, worrying that my son is perhaps walking away from Jesus because he doesn't like church, and stressing about the fact that my husband still does not walk with God.  And this is where His good and pleasing and very worthy will ends and my sinful ways begin.  So, instead of lovingly, graciously showing my family and friends Jesus, I may start judging their behaviors--this may result in giving them the cold shoulder, gossiping about how so-and-so was not very nice, nagging my son to read his Bible, or sighing loudly on "yet another" Sunday morning when my husband chooses his work-out and a football game over praising and worshiping the One true God with me.  Ick. 

God has a part.  His part is bigger than mine.  Can you believe a (recovering) control freak just wrote those words?  Holla(lujah)!  His part feeds mine. And he has lovingly, amazingly, incredibly given me a family who demands that I live out my faith wholly and authentically, and free of religiosity.  Thank You, Jesus for being in control!  As much as I'd like to have my finger on the behavior of others, I find that I wouldn't really.  What a hefty responsibility that would be.  A God-sized responsibility, don't you think?  While it would be so nice if I could convince my husband to love Jesus, and my son to exhibit his faith in a more demonstrative style (whose faith is it, anyway?), I realize that my job is to love Jesus and love them.  I am a sinner, saved by grace, who will fall and fall and fall again.  I know that I have about as much power to live as a Proverbs 31 wife or a 1 Peter 3:1 wife as I do to grow a third appendage. BUT, our passage reminds us that He is worthy. He is infinitely more able than I. He brings life from death. Something I cannot even fathom. And if He could bring this tattered, grossly unworthy soul to righteousness, than BY GOD, He can live in me as an example to my husband and other non-believers.  He can meet my husband where the hurts and yuck are and, as Great Physician, heal him (and others) into a believing heart.

God bless you all, Trekkies.  xxxooo

Daniel SAFARI: Week 2

Our assignment this week was to choose one of the following: 

• Describe a time when you've had to rely on faith rather than on your own understanding
• Tell of a time when you found yourself struggling with paying attention to the Word...What did you do to get back on track?
• Be bold! Take the time to outline exactly what you believe about God on your blog or social media page today.

Since I  feel equally inept at answering all of them, but slightly better about the first one  couldn't really decide, I thought I would take a stab at the first one, since, for me, it related best to my thoughts as I was studying this chapter.

I have 3 specific situations which are coming loudly to mind right now re:  living in faith rather than upon my own understanding.  But as I know that you have other activities in your life besides reading Gretchen's blog, I am now editing it down to one.  Perhaps the others will come up again later.  But as I type, God is assuring me that this is the story which needs telling...

Wha I'm learning is that trusting in Him and His ways is not easy, but it's really my only choice if I want to keep the anxiety demons away and the pride demons at bay.

Many of you know that i am part of an unequally yoked marriage.  I cannot tell you the tears of anger, frustration, and selfishness that I've cried over this. Surely over the last (nearly) 20 years, buckets have been filled. I have railed upon my husband and upon God until I am just spent. I've questioned, coerced, cajoled, ignored, been passive-aggressive, and martyred my way through wishing, hoping, and begging so that my husband would go to church.  Big picture?  Godly enough, at least on the surface...I want him to have a saving knowledge of Jesus, so that his life in eternity is secured, and so that he would take the reigns of godly leadership over in this family.  As I dig deeper, though, this is more what you might see, if I'm being honest.  This picture is more human.  Selfish.  Full of sin.  Let's see...I want him to come to church so I'm not alone there.  I want him to believe as I do, so that the children have a consistent upbringing.  I want him to go to church, so that he realizes THAT IT IS NOT A PICNIC getting two kids where they need to be, ON TIME.  I want him to open up this gift with me.  The precious gift of faith.  I want him to want this as much as I do. 

Guess what? 

It's not happening the way I had envisioned.  I go to church alone.  I sit alone, or with girlfriends.  I worship together in a body, but apart from my husband.  I go to worship team alone, choir alone, Bible study alone, and I pray alone.  I am deeply, gratefully rooted in the body of believers at my church.  But I am also largely alone. 

God, in His never ceasing mercy has led me to friends, some of whom happen to be pastors, and I've even had the opportunity to sit down with them to discuss my unequal yokedom.  And do you know what?  Without fail, they lead me to the Word.  They lead me to trust in Him.  They lead me to pray for my husband.  They lead me to submit to my husband.  They lead me to love him where he is and with God's eyes.  And I can do this because of Jesus.  Because of His strength, I can be merciful.  Because of His suffering, I can be long-suffering.  Because of His grace, I can be gracious.  Because of His forgiveness, I can forgive.  Because of His timing, I can be patient.  Because He never leaves, nor forsakes me, I am never alone.

So...how's our marriage? Well, because of faith...we are happily married.  I no longer cajole or press.  I do invite.  I share what i learn.  I listen.  I hope.  I give thanks because I see seeds of faith in my husband.  I see many seeking behaviors which tell me that he may be close to accepting Jesus without reservation or hesitation.  Then again, maybe he's not as "close" as I think--at least right now.  I am prepared for that.  I don't like it.  I often have to repent of my worries where he is concerned, because I do want him to have this.  I DO.  After all--what is the Great Commission about if not to gather more believers to the saving grace of Jesus? 

But I'm standing on faith--somedays, it's firmly, while on others, hanging on only by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin, or by my fingernails.  God is gentle and faithful throughout this journey.  And ever so patient...with me. 

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold othat for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do:  Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God ha called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12-14 (NIV)


"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.  "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."  Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV)


Soli Deo Gloria!