The Ironing Fairy

I hate the Ironing Fairy.  Every night I lay out my clothes for tomorrow and go to bed with the hope that she will come while I sleep and magically iron my clothing.  She is such a disappointment.  I’m starting to doubt that she really exists, but I’m not ready to give up hope just yet.  If I give up hope, it means that I have to admit that I have to do my own ironing.  If I had any extra money, I would hire someone to do this job for me.  I hate ironing.  It’s so tedious and boring.

I wish that every experience was meaningful and profound, but it’s not.  A lot of life is just drudgery.  Oswald Chambers writes:

“Drudgery is the test of genuine character.  The greatest hinderance in our spiritual life is that we will only look for big things to do.  Yet Jesus took a towel and began to wash the disciples’ feet… (John 13:3-5)  We all have those times when there are no flashes of light and no apparent thrill to life, where we experience nothing but the daily routine with it’s common everyday tasks.  The routine of life is actually God’s way of saving us between our times of great inspiration which come from Him.  Don’t always expect God to give you His thrilling moments, but learn to live in those common times of the drudgery of life by the power of God.”

I know, I should be thankful that I even HAVE clothes to iron.  It’s not the end of the world.  I guess I’ll put on some worship music and attack my pile of ironing for the month. That darn Ironing Fairy is such a let down.

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Die! Die! Die!

Remember the scene from the Pixar movie, A Bug’s Life, where the little ants are doing a play for the ‘warrior bugs’ and they end with the words, “Die, Die, Die” to everyone’s horror.  Well I heard those words in my head as I wrote this blog.  To my flesh, I say, “Die, Die, Die.”

One of the most painful things about following Jesus is dying to your own desires.  As long as you choose what God wants above what you want, your flesh will cry out.  You will be at war with yourself.  You have to get used to the idea of disappointing your “nature”.  It’s not easy to deliberately put down what you naturally long for in exchange for something that seems unnatural and unappealing at first.  I never get used to this struggle.  Once I seem to conquer one desire, another crops up.  This is not easy.

Oswald Chambers talks about this struggle in his famous devotional My Utmost for His Highest.  “Where our individual desire dies and sanctified surrender lives” is the title of this devotion.

“One of the greatest hinderances in coming to Jesus is the excuse of our own individual temperament.  We make our temperament and our natural desires a barrier in coming to Jesus… There is actually only one thing which you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself… The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ.  In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life.  The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh.”

I find my own desires lead me to a dry, empty well inside of me.  It is a well of deep, unfulfilled longings.  When I deny myself, unnatural as that seems, and take up the Cross of Christ, choose things that please Jesus instead of myself, I find my well filling up with fresh water, fresh ideas, fresh perspective, fresh creativity.  I will have to learn and relearn this lesson a million times in my lifetime.  My flesh has more than 9 lives.  It keeps rising from the dead and trying to make demands again.  “Oh who will deliver me from this body of death?” lamented the Apostle Paul.  And I can relate to that.

“So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.  For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.  They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.” Galatians 5:16-17

Right between the eyes

This is a part of a devotional I read this week in My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers.  It hit me right between the eyes.  Emphasis is mine.

I claim God’s promises for my life and look to their fulfillment, and rightly so, but that shows only the human perspective on them. God’s perspective is that through His promises I will come to recognize His claim of ownership on me. For example, do I realize that my “body is the temple of the Holy Spirit,” or am I condoning some habit in my body which clearly could not withstand the light of God on it? (1 Corinthians 6:19). God formed His Son in me through sanctification, setting me apart from sin and making me holy in His sight (see Galatians 4:19). But I must begin to transform my natural life into spiritual life by obedience to Him. God instructs us even in the smallest details of life. And when He brings you conviction of sin, do not “confer with flesh and blood,” but cleanse yourself from it at once (Galatians 1:16). Keep yourself cleansed in your daily walk.

I must cleanse myself from all filthiness in my flesh and my spirit until both are in harmony with the nature of God. Is the mind of my spirit in perfect agreement with the life of the Son of God in me, or am I mentally rebellious and defiant? Am I allowing the mind of Christ to be formed in me? (see Philippians 2:5). Christ never spoke of His right to Himself, but always maintained an inner vigilance to submit His spirit continually to His Father. I also have the responsibility to keep my spirit in agreement with His Spirit. And when I do, Jesus gradually lifts me up to the level where He lived-a level of perfect submission to His Father’s will— where I pay no attention to anything else. Am I perfecting this kind of holiness in the fear of God? Is God having His way with me, and are people beginning to see God in my life more and more?Be serious in your commitment to God and gladly leave everything else alone. Literally put God first in your life.

I think I can just let those thoughts stand on their own merit.  I’ve been convicted.  I’m off to work on my rebellious and defiant mind.  This obedience thing is really hard.

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It’s just not “Me”

When we were at the World Missions Summit earlier this month, one of the speakers, Scott Martin, talked about Predisposition vs. Predestination.  One of his illustrations stuck in my mind and this is my version of his story.  Just giving credit where due.

My daughter went to Kindergarten this year.  As a parent, you’re always checking out the other kids at the Open House to see which ones are going to be problems.  Inevitably there is a girl who is already interested in boys.  She’s the girl that was cute and flirty as a baby.  Now she’s the girl who sneaks her mother’s lipgloss before leaving the house in the morning.  She may only be 5, but she’s got boys all around her.  By the time she’s in late elementary school, she’s already had a string of boy friends and a waiting list far into junior high.  That girl was PREDISPOSED to be flirt.  She’s going to be trouble once she get’s into high school and you can see that on the first day of Kindergarten.

Then there’s the boy in the ninja costume at the Kindergarten Open House.  In the nursery as a baby, he was “the biter”.  As a toddler, he would constantly grab toys from other babies and whack them over the head with it.  He is the one who will spend recess time practicing his karate kicks on the weaker children.  If you build a block tower, he will be the one to knock it over.  By elementary school, he is familiar with the Principal’s office, and by junior high, he’s a thug.  That’s the kid that you’re sure is headed for “Juvie” sometime in his 3 year high school career.  You can tell on the first day of Kindergarten that this boy is PREDISPOSED to be a bully.

Each one of us has character traits predisposed, deposited in our DNA.  If you are the parent of the flirty girl or the bully boy, you might try to counter-weigh those in-born traits with some environmental conditioning.  You might succeed to a degree.  But far too often parents are in denial and young people just default to their natural tendencies without trying to do anything different or to fight against their genetics.  It’s far easier, that’s for sure.

I can not tell you how many times I have heard someone excuse the bad behavior of another person by saying, ”Oh, that’s just how they are.  You just have to understand them.”  DNA is powerful, but there has to be an override switch thrown every once and a while.  I have also heard people say, “I could never be a missionary.  I’m just not wired like that.  It’s just not ME.”

What I want to say is, “GOOD!  Cause it’s not supposed to be about YOU!  It’s supposed to be about JESUS.”  Both my husband and I have, in our own ways, kicked against the restraints of our personal make up to become missionaries.  My husband lived in the same house all his life, so moving to a foreign country was not something he was automatically attracted to.  He is a home body.  Plus, he hates public speaking, yet God called him to preach.  It’s taken lots of practice and he’s good at it now, but he doesn’t enjoy it.  He is not PREDISPOSED to being a preacher or missionary.

And I have a quiet, thoughtful personality.  I am stressed out by talking to people.  I need big chunks of alone-time.  So anything related to ministering to people drains me.  Put me behind the scenes and I’m happiest.  I am not PREDISPOSED to being conversational or “putting myself out there” so to speak.  It looks like we were both unlikely candidates to do this job.  So why do we do it?  Because we feel that God asked us to go and do something.

And he’s asking you too.  He’s asking you to do something that is uncomfortable.  He’s asking you to push against your natural tendencies.  He’s asking you to lay aside your disposition, your excuses that “it’s just not ME”.  He’s asking you to make it about HIM.  When you get your eyes off yourself and onto HIM, then your ears will also tune to his voice.  Then you will hear him calling you.  Do you hear him yet?

“The call of God is not a reflection of my nature; my personal desires and temperament are of no consideration. As long as I dwell on my own qualities and traits and think about what I am suited for, I will never hear the call of God.”

~Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

 

The Call

I don’t feel like I was ever specifically CALLED by God to be a missionary.  It’s more like I volunteered… over and over again.  OK, I begged, “Pick Me!  O-o-o Pick Me!”

In his famous devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers said, ” The call of God is not just for a select few but for everyone. Whether I hear God’s call or not depends on the condition of my ears, and exactly what I hear depends upon my spiritual attitude.”  When Isaiah was in the Presence of the Lord, he overheard God ask, “Who will go for us?”  And Isaiah volunteered.  Isaiah’s heart was listening to God.  He didn’t need a personal invitation, he heard God’s heart and delighted to satisfy God’s desires.

A famous quote by William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, says,

“‘Not called!’ did you say?  ‘Not heard the call,’ I think you should say.  Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin.  Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heard of humanity,and listen to its pitiful wail for help.  Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sister, and servants and masters not to come there.  And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell him whether you will join heart and sound and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world.”

So what are you doing TODAY to answer the call?  I will close with one more quote from William Booth.  He said, “Go for souls.  Go straight for souls, and go for the worst.”

What will my obedience cost others?

When I was in college I had to read a book called “Silence” by Shusaku Endo (1966).  It is a historical fiction novel about Portuguese Jesuit missionaries who are sent to Japan to investigate the alleged apostasy of one of their superiors.   In Japan, the church is “underground” meaning they are persecuted and can not meet in public.  When the the main character (one of the Jesuit priests) is finally betrayed and arrested, he is threatened with torture unless he commits apostasy by placing his feet on an image of Jesus placed on the floor.  He is hung upside down until he bleeds from his eyes, and yet, he still will not give in.  Then he is told that a little boy will be tortured in his place until he relents.  At the thought of his stubborn refusal hurting an innocent child, the priest relents and puts his feet on the image of Christ.  Though he is released, he is forever disgraced among the Japanese Christians.  He concludes that the apostasy of his superior was not as simple and straight forward as it appeared back in Portugal.

I have thought of this book often, and my opinion of the message behind the plot has changed as I have grown spiritually.  I am now resigned to the thought that my obedience will also cost others.

On one of the missionary group/chat pages that I am a member of someone recently opened up a long thread based on the lament of leaving behind aging parents in order to go to the mission field.  This honest missionary was deeply conflicted and pained by the grief his decisions caused his parents.  He was taking the grandchildren far, far away.  When he should have been home helping with his ailing parents, he was leaving, abandoning his post.  His obedience was costing others.

I enjoy reading the devotional “My Utmost For His Highest” by Oswald Chambers.  In January, the daily reading talks about this very theme.  Chambers writes:

If we obey God, it is going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the pain begins.  If we are in love with our Lord, obedience does not cost us anything— it is a delight.  But to those who do not love Him, our obedience does cost a great deal.  If we obey God, it will mean that other people’s plans are upset.  They will ridicule us as if to say, “You call this Christianity?”  We could prevent the suffering, but not if we are obedient to God.  We must let the cost be paid.

When our obedience begins to cost others, our human pride entrenches itself and we say, “I will never accept anything from anyone.”  But we must, or disobey God. We have no right to think that the type of relationships we have with others should be any different from those the Lord Himself had (see Luke 8:1-3).

A lack of progress in our spiritual life results when we try to bear all the costs ourselves.  And actually, we cannot.  Because we are so involved in the universal purposes of God, others are immediately affected by our obedience to Him.  Will we remain faithful in our obedience to God and be willing to suffer the humiliation of refusing to be independent?  Or will we do just the opposite and say, “I will not cause other people to suffer”?  We can disobey God if we choose, and it will bring immediate relief to the situation, but it will grieve our Lord. If, however, we obey God, He will care for those who have suffered the consequences of our obedience.  We must simply obey and leave all the consequences with Him.

Beware of the inclination to dictate to God what consequences you would allow as a condition of your obedience to Him.  (Emphasis is mine).

Jesus himself said only if your love for God exceeds your love for your parents and siblings and children… only if your love for God makes your love for your family look like hate, will you be worthy to follow Him.  It’s not that we DO hate our family.  No, we love them, but in comparison to our love for God, family love takes a distant second place.  Let the chips fall where they may.  God will reward and repay.  God will comfort and console.

In the same way that they seized a man named Simon and forced him to carry the cross for Jesus in Luke 23:26, sometimes our commitment to pick up our cross and follow Jesus will cost  the innocent bystanders in our lives.  Our decision to be missionaries is not made only with ourselves to consider, but neither does our concern for our loved ones water down our passion to serve Christ.  Our obedience will cost others.

The Echo

“If you abandon everything to Jesus, and come when He says, ‘Come,’ then He will continue to say, ‘Come,’ through you.  You will go out into the world reproducing the echo of Christ’s ‘Come.’  That is the result in every soul who has abandoned all and come to Jesus.”

 ~Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for High Highest

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Our lives reverberate, flexing and rippling with the impact of something greater than our own being.  And since no man is an island, our ripples expand across the face of time and touch other ripples, effect other lives.  We are the echo of God calling to the world:  “Come to me all who are thirsty.  Come to me if you are hungry for more.  Come to me if you are exhausted by your burdens.  I am as satisfying as food and drink.  I am strong enough to carry your load for you.  Come.”  And we echo the call.

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We reflect.  Like the moon which cannot shine with her own radiance, we reflect the radiance of God.  We are just a ball of dirt in the middle of emptiness and nothingness.  But when God’s light is reflected from our life, we light the darkness with an incomparable beauty.  The moon echos the light of the sun.  Without the sun, she is dark and cold.  Her brilliance is borrowed, her glory is not her own.  I echo the light of God.

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What are you reflecting?  What is the echo of your life saying?  Are you multiplying light or deepening the darkness?

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers.

A long time ago I read a phrase in a book that has stuck with me:  “The weight of wings”.  The idea was that birds never complain about the weight of the things that give them the gift of flight.  They don’t think about it- they just fly naturally.  I think that’s how God wants us to live our Christian life- naturally.

When we spend too much time and energy focusing on HOW we are of service to others, our Christian duty becomes a burden, a weight.  But if we keep our focus not on ourselves and our usefulness but on Jesus, then our service becomes natural and effortless.  We will unconsciously be useful to God and to others.  It will be as natural and normal as a bird in flight.

I am challenged today to keep my focus on Jesus and to just BE whatever he’s made me to be.  BEING is more powerful than all the DOING in the world.  Focus on Jesus, not on myself.