Updates
Hello.
been some time since the last post. There isn't much worth saying that has spanned the time between then and now. Issues at the 12th continue unabated. Meanwhile I've told charles I won't be able to commit to the year 5 girls, the year 5 program is being pushed ahead as usual. Increasingly Jarett and I find our hands tied in the 12th. There is work to be done, certainly--the officers could be mentored, the year 6 program could go on etc. However all this is difficult if the company is being pulled apart in different directions, with officers refusing to submit to one another for such mentorship (even from the officer who proposed it!) or who think bible study is a waste of time. Of course, there are also those willing to give such things a try, but they themselves are being roped into this and that by other officers who are trying to do their own thing as well. So that at the end of the day, no one has time, or focus for anything. It is becoming increasingly difficult for work to continue, because there is no one vision we can follow, and no one leader everyone will submit to, without tiresome quarreling and weight-throwing. Jarett and I just find it difficult to continue serving as part of a fractured leadership. Our burden for the kids is still with us, esp the sec 4s now. But we feel it may not be where God's leading.
So Jarett and I are praying over direction and the next step in ministry. Where to go, what to do, and how. We want to re-soak ourselves in His presence first, and come back to knowing Him and what a ministry in Him should be like, before stepping out again. We are willing to go anywhere, even back to the 12th, as long as God promises to lead and open the path ahead of us.
Anyway, I wanted to share these thoughts from QT, as a response to all the "glory" talk i'm hearing from the 12th:
God's glory is the wonder of who God is, made visible.
When Moses prayed "show me your glory" (Exodus 33:19), he wanted a deeper awareness and experience of who God is.
When Moses asked to see God's glory, Moses wasn't asking to be entertained. He genuinely wanted to know God. God showed him His goodness, compassion and mercy. His heart had been genuintly enlarged in its capacity for God. He was willing to let this experience cost him anything. It was entirely on God's account that Moses came down the mountain with a shining face, and entirely on account of God's grace, that we, and our lives are changed in meeting Him. It is this change that we cannot effect for ourselves, that the world sees, and praises God for.
Dear friends, when we ask to experience God, are we ready? Are we genuinely willing to let this experience cost us anything--repentance, reconciliation? Because it involves crucifying your fleshly pride. Are you ready?
The bible says that he who sows in the flesh shall reap in the flesh. All the "glory" talk in the company, about being best company, about winning this or that award, or about the number of scholars it has, is all fine, if as leaders we had simply taken that journey to those awards in faith. But when we have schemed, "strategised" (--I hope we realise we have been tying ourselves up into knots so the Spirit cannot move--), and been just honestly, too afraid to take God at His word that He'll provide, I guess we can hardly say the glory belongs to God when we win anything. Sure, we've credited it to Him. But God knows whose credit it really was, and we journeyed, raced, and won in vain, because at the end, we came away without being changed in our human insecurities, or our fleshly nature. We may be more strengthened in our fleshly determination and discipline, we may grow more intellectual and argue apolegetics better. But how have we been strengthened in our spiritual identities as His children? Children of the God of the impossible?
When we cannot trust God enough to take Him at His word, three things happen. One, our vision grows small--we expect only this or that of God, never expecting Him to amaze us, but to give us what we hanker after. Two, we live with a poverty complex--we grasp and grab as though we could never have enough of awards, fame and recognition. Three, we become slaves to our vain worldy reputation in a bid to keep maintaining it--We had to work very hard to get it, which means we simply have to keep working hard to keep it for its own sake. Dear friends, God means to give us so much more than our own vanity!
Come away with me, and behold the Lord. Come away with me, and look upon what matters--the Lord!Come away with me, and reconsider what you have to fear when you stand before the Lord! Are all these things that cause us so much anxiety we bicker and quarrel, really worth being anxious about? Between being excellent in PR games that allow the company to hold weight in ACSI, being excellent in devising our programs, and being excellent in our love for God, which comes first?
And if we say we love Him, then we must have faith to put love above all else--we must choose to receive brotherly love, and show love to one another above all else. For that is the 2nd highest commandment, and God's glorified there first. When your boys are convinced of your character as a leadership that walks with God, then will your programs bear fruit.
| e.s.t.h.e.r in the arms of Jesus @
5/15/2007 08:31:00 am |
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