07.31.2007

Hebrews 4:10
…for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.

Psalm 91:14-16
“Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.”

Hello everyone,

Between taking a trip to North Carolina and then going to Ocean City for two days, there was quite a bit to catch up on back at home. I feel as though I’ve been in a whirlwind of motion (this seems to be a frequent predicament for me, doesn’t it?). But as mentioned two weeks ago, there is much for me to talk about. There’s possibly more going on in my head than I even know what to do with, so hopefully I’ll get to get some thoughts out in my blog as well. God has been teaching me many things, and stretching me in many ways – and I hope you’ve been experiencing much the same, being changed and molded by our Father.

One of the ways that God has been challenging me is through my concept of work. What does it mean to be faithful to God? It’s still a question that I’m still trying to work on, wrestling with the notion while being bombarded in my thoughts about what’s bred into me by my social environment. Work, according to our culture, is a means to value and worth and rewards. I do not mean work in an occupational sense exactly. It’s more of a “I’ve given time and effort, so I should receive X, Y, and Z. I’ve done X so I should see the results of it. I do something that you think is a good thing, and so I will earn merit with you,” and so on and so forth. It’s very hard to have the work that I do (in this case, fund raising and ministry) get wrapped up into these notions, especially because they seem to be subtle or even harmless. However, it comes to a point that I’ll work hard, and because of that “hard work” I expect to see the results right away. However, they don’t always come in a time that I would expect.
Because I don’t see immediate results, I come to the questions of, “Am I doing something wrong? Am I not being faithful?” I get myself tossed into doubt, and worst of all I fumble around in worriment. While I’m sure that there are plenty of issues that I need to sort through and pray over, I realize what part of the problem is in getting anxious: my worth and value, and concept of God’s response, is too closely tied to my own efforts and how people approve of me.

People tend to get their identity and their worth out of the kind of work that they do and how well they do it. If I’m doing a good job, I can see the fruit of the labor. I feel really good about myself because other people will be proud of the effort that I’ve put into things. They say that I’m valuable to them as a worker, so therefore I am valuable as a whole person. If I mess something up or make a mistake – or even just perceive that I did – it’s all downhill from there. If I can’t see the results of what I’m doing, I must be doing it incorrectly.

Superficially we all know that the above thinking isn’t the way things work, but in the depths of our psychology that’s how we operate. We weren’t meant for that. I just got off the phone with a friend who reminded me of something that’s very important: God doesn’t ask us for results. God asks us to be obedient and faithful. We may never actually see the fruits of our labors; I recently read through Hebrews, which reminds us that “faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see.” I constantly have to be told that I’m not asked for results or success, but that I entrust God with those things. His are the results and His is the success, because all of what we do and work at is meant for the glory of God, not us. Our value and worth is not measured by efforts, or really in anything that we do at all. Our value is measured by God’s covenants and promises, and nothing we do (good or bad) can change that.

I pray that each one of us would be moved and challenged by God about the ways we think about work and our own efforts, so that we can see that our worth is not found in those things but in Him. I also ask He would move us so that our work is our attempts to be faithful and obedient, and not acts that are seeking favor or merit. May the Holy Spirit continually be changing us with His great power, molding us into the likeness of Christ.

In love and in Him,
Your sister,
Yvonne

07.11.2007

Genesis 2:18
It is not good for man to be alone.

Deuteronomy 6:5
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Proverbs 27:17
As iron sharpens iron, so does one man another.

Hebrews 10:24,25
And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.


Hello everyone,

It looks like I’m late, but to be honest I’ve been having an interesting time wrestling with a lot of things over the past two weeks. It’s been kind of crazy with going back and forth in my own mind about what I know to be true about God and my relationship with Him as a daughter, and being distressed about finances and ultimately dealing with doubt.

Thankfully, through one of those kinds of sermons that kick you in the gut and key people in my life to challenging and encouraging me, I have been strengthened by our Lord. All the more reason why it’s obvious that we are not meant to be alone in our Christian walks, but that we need our brothers and sisters – one-on-one as well as corporately. God uses the people in our lives to teach and rebuke us; to love and care for us; to humble and encourage us; to grieve and celebrate with us. It’s in the very fabric of our created selves that we are meant to be in relationships with other people. Community is important to God’s plan for us.
At the same time, we are also meant to keep God as our primary relationship and focus. It is so easy to distort our relationships with others and effectively put them in the place of God. It seems harsh to say, but in our hyper-dependency and desire to please we make idols out of people -- and they usually don’t even know it, because we don’t even recognize it as such. This can especially be true of romantic relationships, but also true of when we put our worth and esteem in being overly concerned with how others think about us (parents, friends, peers, teachers/bosses, etc). Our thoughts, actions, words, dress, and attitudes are essentially controlled by our fear of being rejected by others. Or, the reverse is that we have unreasonable expectations of the way others conduct themselves or dress or talk when they are with us. We lose our grace and our compassion. The unfortunate thing about it though is that we tend to not even be aware of it. These are so heavily imprinted on the way society runs that we don’t even see it, and it’s especially dangerous (and damaging!) when it creeps into our churches and places of worship. Sanctuaries suddenly lose their safety.
Could we work to be a people who are not controlled this way? Our first step is recognizing it, which honestly is easier said than done. We cannot recognize it on our own without God first revealing it to us in our hearts through His Holy Spirit but we can pray for this end. Perhaps some of us don’t have these issues and God has been increasingly gracious, but certainly then we can pray for it stop running rampant in the lives of others.
When I first started writing this I thought that I would write about God’s sovereignty and provision – obviously that changed and I’m not 100% sure why. But whatever the case is, I do pray that each one of us would learn to embrace friendships with others in a way that is open and honest and safe. On the flipside I also pray that we learn to not put people before God, and that our fear of the Lord would reign supremely in our hearts that we may serve and love Him – and that we would love others as the overflow. I pray that we could learn to trust our Father in heaven and learn to trust one another and not betray one another to gossip and slander. May each of us be refined, shaped, and changed by the Holy Spirit.

In love and in Him,
Your sister,
Yvonne