Our prayers for you are always spilling over into thanksgivings. We can’t quit thanking God our Father and Jesus our Messiah for you! We keep getting reports on your steady faith in Christ, our Jesus, and the love you continuously extend to all Christians. The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack, tightly tied as they are to your future in heaven, kept taut by hope. Colossians 1:3-5
Everybody always asks me this question in one form or another: “So, what are your plans? Are you going back to the mission field after you get your seminary?”
Hhhmmm. That’s a tough question.
First of all, I am on the “mission field”. So, I would never say that I am trying to get to the “mission field” or that I plan on going back to the “mission field.” People who follow Jesus are where they are because Jesus put them there . . . for a purpose . . . with a mission. I guess that makes you a missionary too.
The next tough part of this question is the word “plans”. The problem is . . . we don’t really have any plans. That’s not to say that there aren’t things that we’d like to do. And, we definitely have some options. But, the bottom line is this: Jesus has called us to the Promise House. It’s that simple. So, that’s where we are.
I guess we do have a plan . . . to do what Jesus tells us.
How long are you we going to work at the Promise House? We don’t know. 1 year or 50 years. We’re here until he says go.
Bruce talked about 2 Corinthians 5 this morning. It wasn’t the focal point of his message, but he talked about how we are compelled by the love of Christ. Verse 14 says Christ’s love compels us . . .
Geez. Why am I not compelled by Christ’s love? I’m compelled by lots of stuff: hunger, tiredness, pride, fear, approval, disappointment, frustration, etc.
John Ortberg writes:
I am disappointed with myself. I am disappointed not so much with particular things I have done as with aspects of who I have become. I have a nagging sense that all is not as it should be.
Some of the disappointment is trivial, but some of it runs deeper. When I look on my children as they sleep at night, I think of the kind of father I want to be. I want to create moments of magic, I want them to remember laughing until the tears flow, I wan tot read to them and make the books come alive so they love to read, I wan to have slow sweet talks with them as they’re getting ready to close their eyes, I was to sing them awake in the morning. I want to chase fireflies with them, teach them to play tennis, have food fights, and hold them and pray for them in a way that makes them feel cherished.
I look in on them as they sleep at night, and I remember how the day really went: I remember how they were trapped in a fight over checkers and I walked out of the room because I didn’t want to spend the energy needed to teach them how to resolve conflict. I remember how my daughter spilled cherry punch at dinner and I yelled at her about being careful as if she’d revealed some deep character flaw; I yelled at her even though I spill things all the time and no one yells at me; I yelled at her — to tell the truth — simply because I’m big and she’s little and I can get away with it. And then I saw that look of hurt and confusion in her eyes, and I knew there was a tiny wound on her heart that I had put there, and I wished I could have taken those sixty seconds back. I remember how at night I didn’t have slow, sweet talks, but merely rushed the children to bed so I could have more time to myself. I’m disappointed. (John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted. p. 13. )
I often feel that way. But, thanks to Jesus, I am changing. I am becoming, more and more, the kind of person I was meant to be.
“The Life You’ve Always Wanted” by John Ortberg is another one of those life-changing books for me. I’m reading parts of it again and God is using it again re-center me.
He says that his life changed completely when he realized that it wasn’t about ‘trying’ to be a good person or ‘trying’ to do the right thing. We can never do it on our own, by our own will-power. We’re not ‘trying’ . . . we’re ‘training’. We’re doing things to put ourselves in a position to be more and more the person Jesus is shaping us to be.
We can do this! It’s not as daunting as we’ve made it out to be! Are we becoming the person God created us to be? That’s what matters. Are we being transformed by Jesus? That’s the important thing. NOT “Was I a good Christian today?”