Need space? Seek grace!

Our house is full – as well as two young children, we currently have three young adults living in community with us, and regularly have neighbours and people we are discipling popping in (or lingering!), as well as many ministry and social activities happening.

At times it is crazy. At times we definitely need God’s grace and perspective to not become overwhelmed!

One of the values high in my life and our community here is to work from rest and not live continually resting from work. We try to have lives that are balanced and effective, recognizing that it is from a place of rest we are fruitful. (John 15)

Jesus set a pattern of rest and personal boundaries, but he was also surprising in his compassion towards people in times when we would have expected him to withdraw completely.

John the Baptist had just been beheaded, and after the news reached Jesus he went sailing alone. (See Matthew 14) I imagine he needed time to get his head around the news, to cry perhaps or offer up one of those ‘I trust you, Father, even though I don’t fully understand right now’ prayers.

Arriving on the shore, instead of withdrawing to his home to complete a time of mourning and readjustment, he sees the people there and his heart goes out to them – he begins to minister to them.

That is often how I feel – I feel like I have nothing to minister out of – I am tired, overwhelmed, need more than an hour or two of personal space (I am an introvert after all!). Yet, when someone who is spiritually or physically hungry appears on the doorstep, I have to call on God’s grace, trust that He will sustain me and even do miraculous things. And amazingly faithfully, he does. Every time.

‘I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being’ – Ephesians 3:16

Fighting for Joy

I want to be a joyful person. No matter what I do, however, I always seem to get overwhelmed by my circumstances at times. Even though I pray for joy, there are days when it does not come.

So I thought, maybe there is a bit more to joy than just expecting it to appear one day – maybe there are actual steps and things I can do to intentionally be joyful. The Bible even commands us to ‘rejoice in the Lord always.’ (Philippians 4:4)

So I decided to do a bit of an internet search on the discipline of joy. It came up with some interesting (and hilarious!) results. One site suggested I got hold of some CDs of people laughing uncontrollably and listen to it regularly! (Or failing that, I could make funny faces at myself in the mirror!)

Although I am sure laughter is a great way to lighten the spirit, what about those days when I don’t want to laugh? What about those days which are hard and sad?

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 6:10 that he is ‘sorrowful, yet always rejoicing;’ so there has to be a godly rejoicing that maintains us throughout difficult circumstances or down days.

John Piper has written two very interesting books on the subject: ‘When I don’t desire God: fighting for Joy’ and ‘When the darkness does not lift’. I am currently going through the first book with a study guide.

So what have I learnt so far? God is the one who awakens joy in us. We just have to be willing. We can’t make ourselves joyful, we can just focus on Him and allow him to awaken a desire for Him. Seeking joy in God is not only a good thing, it is a necessary thing, simply because ‘God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.'

So what do I plan to do? Just pray that God would awaken a desire in me for more of Him each day, and that that would awaken more joy in my life. My prayer is that I would overflow with His joy.

What is your prayer?

Divine Patience

Someone told me recently that I had ‘divine patience’. I pondered the difference between divine patience and patience in general. I don’t see myself as a particularly patient person (I’m sure my husband would agree!) but maybe, just maybe, with Solomon’s death, I have been given a glimmer of what divine patience looks like. Perhaps it could be defined like this:

‘trusting in a hope of what is to come, despite life’s current circumstances’.

Two weeks ago, Solomon was due to be born. When he left my womb back in August, I thought that I would find these dates really hard. I didn’t. The thing is, I find it difficult to be sad about Solomon’s death, because I don’t see him as dead, but as alive in heaven. I find it sad that I don’t get to see him growing up now, but I actually believe that God will show me his life when I get to heaven and at some point, there, what I lost here will be fully restored there. So maybe what it is really about is divine patience. One day, we will meet and I will play a part in his life and we will share moments in eternity. What I have lost is only temporary, and it just takes patience until it gets restored again. And how strange we will find it then – that it was so hard to wait, when then, life on earth will seem such a quick brushstroke in the masterpiece of eternity.

‘So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.’ - 2 Corinthians 4:18