A
dear friend is praying these verses for me from 1 Peter.....and I really need
those prayers. I will be joining her, and praying the same verses for
myself.
1 Peter 2:21-25
New International Version (NIV)
21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” 25 For “you were like sheep going astray,”[b] but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
*********
February 13, 2013
“The Poor You Will Always
Have With You” ~ Jesus
(Ain’t that the Truth!)
I
think of these words of Jesus a lot: "The poor you will always have with you." I
am comforted and at times haunted by His words here in rural, southwest Rwanda, surrounded always by the
poor and needy, and wanting to help everyone, yet bumping up against my limitations
even to adequately or fully help ONE.
But
there are other forms of poverty than deprivation of financial or health care resources. And
the most harmful poverty of all is the one I’m writing about today. It is the poverty from which I suffer, and from which I need divine healing.
It is poverty of Spirit.
“The
Poor You Will Always Have With You.”
Yes,
I am rich in financial resources. But I
am often, so often, very poor in Spirit.
I know that my old man, as the country Baptists in Texas tell me, is dead, because I am
in Christ (He is my Savior). And yet,
for a dead man, that old man in me sure pulls me down a LOT and jumps out of
the grave to scare me!
A
disclaimer: Now that I’ve
traumatized any readers of this blog who care about correct
theology…..let me warn you: I am in NO way a theologian. I leave that kind of heady thinking for minds
much keener than mine. Perhaps it is a
cop-out, but I find it difficult enough to keep running to Jesus every day with
my needs, my longings, my worship and my praise. I’ve always thought, “When I get Chapter 1 down
of the Christian Life, and I really have Him first in my heart and life and
mind and always lean on Him and not my own strength, then I will move on to
chapter 2 of the Christian Life and begin to decide about theological matters, end times questions and other such arguments.
Problem
is: I’ve never mastered chapter 1.
Case
in point. I have been ANGRY lately.
Angry
that I am not getting my own way. Angry
because I’ve been asking God for some things for quite some time, and He hasn’t
chosen to give me what I’m asking. No
matter how many times I ask, no matter how many different ways I put it, no
matter how RIGHT I think I am, no matter how many times I try to tell Him how
much better it would be for His kingdom if He would just do my bidding in this
situation, He just doesn’t fix it. Or at
least, I cannot SEE how He might be fixing it.
So I wait. Not because I choose
to wait, but because I have no other choice.
To
be fair, some days I am the picture of surrender to Him. I have joy, peace and contentment knowing He
loves me, and He knows best, and in His time, He will make all things
right. But other days, like the last two
days in particular, I do not wait in holy surrender, but rather in furious,
seething rage – or at least with the pouty face and stomping foot of a 4 year
old child whose mom wouldn't buy the talking doll she wanted in the toy store.
What
is the problem? Has God not shown me
over and over again that He loves me, that He is able to take care of me and my
family, that He always does what is right and good and fair? He has.
And He will continue to be good and holy and will always do what is best
for us.
The
problem is not with God.
The
problem is with me.
Just
like the Israelites, as soon as I have swallowed the daily bread He has
provided, I forget about that bread and fear He will not provide for me and
mine again.
I
prefer to trust myself, my small and fragile self, for what is best in my life. Rather
than trust Him, the Infinite One, my maker and the maker of the stars and all that is, I want to trust me in all my 47 years of wisdom.
I
want to believe that I am somehow above the ancient Sin that ties humans together
in common, alienated brotherhood - the sin of independence from Him, of trying
to be our own god.
But
I am not above this Sin. It runs through
my veins. It is in my DNA. It has been put to death with Christ on the
cross, and yet it still tries to gain control of me. (Here’s where the theological inadequacy
stuff cuts in – I do not understand this, and may not until Heaven. Others do; I don’t. Romans chapter 7, while a source of great
comfort to me because I see in it that I share my sin problem with Saint Paul –
good company, for sure – has nonetheless always eluded my understanding. I just don’t get the whole ‘sin in me is
dead, yet sin is very alive in me at the same time’ thing.)
I
just know that I want to decide. I
want to choose. I want what I
want. I don’t like Walt Whitman’s poem, Song
of Myself. I don’t endorse, approve of
or even like Frank Sinatra’s song, “I did it my way”. And no, I don't like Elvis' version of it, either. Yet, if truth be
told, I do like both Whitman’s poem and Sinatra/Elvis’s song. I live them out more often than I want to
admit.
Now,
dammit.
Just give it to me now.
Get out of my way.
I know what is needed here.
I know what is best.
I am wise and can discern what needs to
happen.
I am a true western, country American, and I can make this happen on my own. Just do it. Just get er done. I will fix this.
Especially
when I am in pain, of heart or body or soul, and I am sure I know how that pain could
be averted or remedied, I find myself exceedingly unyielding to God’s ways or
wisdom or timing. Until the pain becomes too much.
LIke the Israelites, I often have to have my back to the wall, I have to be totally out of water in the middle of the desert before I finally turn to God and say, "Okay, I give. Not my way, Lord, but your way. Okay. Uncle. I get it. You're God and I'm not. I forgot. Again. I'm sorry."
I
do not write all of this to wear my emotions on my blog’s sleeve, nor to say
“Oh, I am so terrible, why don’t you feel sorry for me.” I share this because I know we are all
this way. This is our frailty. Maybe it shows up more often in some of us
than others. I sure know that some of us are more sanctified than others. Many are way further down that path than I, obviously! But, at our core, we all have this in common. Still.
So,
I guess I am sharing my current struggles for two reasons.
First, please pray for me, for I am stubborn
and have a heart prone to anger when I do not get to be my own god. Once God reminds me that He is God and I am
not, and once I agree with Him about that, I am contented and happy again for a
while. But it always comes back – I
always kick the rocks and stomp my feet again.
So, please pray for me. Pray for
my heart to be soft towards Him, towards the Only One who can be trusted to
keep my life in His, to keep my soul and heart safe, and to save me from
myself.
Second,
I write to encourage others – perhaps you - to look into your own foot-stomping
ways. We all need some time to look into
these things. Is there anything you are currently angry with
God about? In what areas of your life
are you insisting on your own way?
C’mon…..don’t be shy. Go ahead
and tell Him. You don’t need to tell
me. Notice I haven’t told you my
specifics! J
But tell Him. He knows,
anyway. And then, ask Him, as I am about
to ask Him, to soften your heart and forgive you for your lack of trust,
etc. If you ask Him to restore you to
the joy of your salvation, to restore you into fellowship with Him by enabling
you to trust Him, my experience is, He will do it every time. Just saying!
This
morning, as I tried to pray, tried to confess to my Master that I have been
rebellious once again and hard hearted against His plans and intentions for me,
that I have been, once again, like a horse trying to gain control of the bit in
my mouth and to wrestle the reins away from my rider – suddenly, Jesus’ words, about the poor being always with me, took on a whole new meaning for me.
Suddenly
I thought: I won’t just always have
financially poor people around me, I will always have ME with me! I will always have the spiritually poor,
wretched, self-destructive, rebellious, determined to have my own way, sin-sick
side of ME with me ….. always,
until I am finally freed from this part of me, when Jesus takes me Home. And I guess in a way, this is a good thing,
because if I didn’t have this problem in me, I would no longer need my Savior. I
guess it is a good thing that in God’s plan, we are not entirely freed from our
sin’s attempts to run from God until we walk through those wonderful, beautiful
gates of Heaven, because if we were, we would not need our Savior any
more. We would have no need of Jesus – we would be our own. And it is the best thing in the world for me to know I need Jesus, and then have Him turn out to be all I need. All that other stuff I think I need? It's nothing. It really is. Oh, why can't I remember that? "Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus....." How true is that song!
It won’t be until
we see Him as He is that we shall be like Him, so I guess I shouldn’t be
surprised when the vile self-will shows itself in my heart. I should not be surprised, but I should
be horrified, because the result of this self-will causes so much hurt, and it ultimately causes my and others’
death. This sin in me is horrific. This is something to run FROM. Thank God I have Someone to run TO every time
I see the foot-stomper in me show up again.
Two other scriptures that came to my mind as I contemplated how upset I've been the last few days are Psalms 95 and 100. As a child in Houston, Texas, I attended an Episcopal Day School called St. Thomas Episcopal School http://www.stes.org/ from Kindergarten through 8th grade. Each morning, five days a week, from 9:05 - 9:50, the entire school attended chapel. And at least 3 mornings a week, we would sing Psalm 95. The other days we sang Psalm 100. I used to wonder why we always sang the same songs. I mean, there are 150 Psalms, why not sing something different every day? But as an adult, I am now so glad for all that repetition. Psalms 95 and 100 sank deep into the marrow of my bones. Nine years worth of singing it 3 times a week will do that to someone. And when I am feeling particularly stubborn, or when I am asking "why" or having a bad day, their words come back to encourage me, correct me, and inspire me. He made us, not we ourselves. We are his people. When you hear His voice, do not harden your heart. I can trust and follow Him. When I do that, I will have JOY, no matter my circumstances.
New International Version (NIV)
Psalm 95
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
3 For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Today, if only you would hear his voice,
8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,[a]
as you did that day at Massah[b] in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,[a]
as you did that day at Massah[b] in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
Footnotes:
- Psalm 95:8 Meribah means quarreling.
- Psalm 95:8 Massah means testing.
New International Version (NIV)
Psalm 100
A psalm. For giving grateful praise.
1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his[a];
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
2 Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his[a];
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
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