Yesterday was a long day. Meei Yunn stayed over and we had a lovely morning together catching up. Afterward the young adults went to Ling Kwang Home for the aged to spend time with the old folks there. I miss volunteering. It gives me a good feeling to spend time with people no one wants to spend time with. Old folks have alot of wisdom to impart, and we young people just need to ask them and they can give us wisdom that we can't get on our own.
Children are like this too. They impart wisdom that young people forget. They see things in different ways, sometimes sweet, sometimes funny, sometimes surprising. We mustn't always just stick with our own age group, or say that the age gap is just too large.
Anyway, the topic I would like to bring up today is housekeeping. But my womanly spaghetti brain has decided that she must share another few anecdotes from this morning's sermon, which is related to children's surprising insights:
"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love." Rebecca - age 8
When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth." Billy - age 4
Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK." Danny - age 7
"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well." Tommy - age 6
"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford." Chris - age 7
"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day." Mary Ann - age 4
"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget," Jessica - age 8
Aren't children so sweet? Haha, anyway, back to housekeeping. Today, I got back from church after breaking down in front of Joelle (thank you, my dear housemate. You have really helped me through alot!! I don't share alot of things very often to many people, but these days I seem to let my feelings out more. It's not very good to bottle up emotions, so it is always good to have a trustworthy friend to share things with, who will not judge, and will not let the whole world know. Because some things are best kept within four walls.)
So I got back from church and felt exhausted, and went to sleep, still feeling quite bad. Then after a bit it felt really bad, and then by God's grace I picked up Oswald Chamber's My Utmost for His Highest and turned to today's devotion:
We tend to think that if Jesus Christ compels us to do something and we are obedient to Him, He will lead us to great success. We should never have the thought that our dreams of success are God’s purpose for us. In fact, His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have the idea that God is leading us toward a particular end or a desired goal, but He is not. The question of whether or not we arrive at a particular goal is of little importance, and reaching it becomes merely an episode along the way. What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself.
I felt immediately that God was speaking to me. For the past month or so, my devotions were done habitually, just a reading of God's word, then the reading of several devotions, but my heart and soul were not in it, and there was little joy derived from the understanding of it. And now I realize that it was because I had placed my expectations upon God's promise, and forgot that it was the process of arriving at God's promise that mattered more, rather than the promise...like the story of the Golden fleece, where the journey to get the golden fleece was what gave a man strength and courage more than the promise that the Golden Fleece would magically give strength and courage to a man.
What is my vision of God’s purpose for me? Whatever it may be, His purpose is for me to depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay calm, faithful, and unconfused while in the middle of the turmoil of life, the goal of the purpose of God is being accomplished in me. God is not working toward a particular finish— His purpose is the process itself. What He desires for me is that I see “Him walking on the sea” with no shore, no success, nor goal in sight, but simply having the absolute certainty that everything is all right because I see “Him walking on the sea” (Mark 6:49). It is the process, not the outcome, that is glorifying to God.
I have been going through some turmoil in life, and I forgot that it is His will that I stay calm, faithful and unconfused during this period, and it glorifies Him. I forgot that my purpose in life was to glorify Him!!
God’s training is for now, not later. His purpose is for this very minute, not for sometime in the future. We have nothing to do with what will follow our obedience, and we are wrong to concern ourselves with it. What people call preparation, God sees as the goal itself.
God’s purpose is to enable me to see that He can walk on the storms of my life right now. If we have a further goal in mind, we are not paying enough attention to the present time. However, if we realize that moment-by-moment obedience is the goal, then each moment as it comes is precious.
This is an apt reminder that following God is a day by day process. It's following Him every moment, right now. Not tomorrow, not one hour later.
Then, I turned backwards to the devotions of the past month, and found to my horror that although I had been reading the devotions like clockwork daily, nothing actually sunk in!! Because I saw in the daily devotions for July, enough of God's word to have guided me through the tough period of tender I was going through, and the emotional upheavals I was facing in other areas of my life.
So while I thought my walk with God was fine, in reality it was going downhill, backslidden. And just like my house, where I have suddenly discovered a mild ant infestation, probably due to my neglect of cleaning up during my tender period, my spiritual life has gone through another kind infestation, an infestation of doubt, of lack of faith, of lack of trust, of jealousy, envy, anger and discontentment. Infestations are hard to remove, once they are there. And the poison for the spiritual type of infestations are the word of God. Funny to think of the word of God as a poison! Haha but it is, poison is poison to things that cannot handle it, but life giving potion to what it was created to do. Weapons are good when used against the things that are bad!
Lord, I need to walk with You daily, and never neglect Your word, no matter how tired I am or how busy I feel. And if I feel terrible, and if I feel stressed, let me learn to tell myself to not allow the stress to get to me until I have spent my time with God. It is a question of priorities. Always put God first, then others, than myself. And then my life will be full of joy, and there will be an outpouring of love towards everyone around me, and there is the Kingdom of heaven, where God's abundance flows and there is always more than enough.
