Breakthrough Weekend
I've just returned from a 3 day retreat with God (holed up in a little hotel on the island of Batam). Just thought I'd write in to share how I've been. If you're too busy to read/this is too long winded to read, its ok, and I understand.
God has done a lot to deal with my bitterness re the 12th and my severe discouragement. Over the past year, I'd started to doubt God was there at all when I ministered to you and the year 6s. I came to believe we were all just delusional and any good that happened as a result of my actions, precipitated out of the idealism in my imagination, and people's responses to my actions. Because if God were there, I couldn't have crashed so badly--He wouldn't have left me with nothing to go on for faith. If God were there, the very nearest and dearest that I'd ministered to for years, whom I gave all to, believing that in God I had unlimited resources, wouldn't have started to say things like "all heart and no skill", "the primers have a terrible program", and "you've done nothing". A life of ministry had been my worship to Him. I gave all He asked of me--everything I had to give. I couldn't understand His silence as the very ones I loved expressed their displeasure and judgement. I thought maybe it because all along it'd been my strength and not His at work. Consequently I grew to believe I didn't actually know Him. Because if I had, and if I'd heard Him right, I couldn't have come so far wrong. I still wanted very much to give all my worship to Him, but I also felt that my all was never going to be enough for Him, and He didn't need me anyway, with brothers who steamrollered around in His name.
So why not squander everything I have on my own discretion? Start taking good care of myself--get a computer game, or a massage, with the time, energy and money I've spent on others in futile waste. That's the message I was getting-- "you're not making a difference. your worship is a waste, and along with that, you're wasting everybody's time." In that episode spanning the past year, I returned to comfortable self-dependence, I liked being in control, knowing where things were going, making my own plans without anyone's interference. I could go on being the financial supporter of missionaries, even if it was a job I could no longer do. I could be comfortable being circumstantially happy, if joy was not my inheritance. I no longer consulted God on most decisions, like buying a house. If my all wasn't enough when I obeyed God, it didn't make a difference anymore whether I listened to Him or not. I loved my friends, but I didn't know how to hold out hope for them anymore, so I retreated into my world. I believed God had answers, love and provision for them, but no longer me. I no longer knew how to bring His heart joy and delight, if my all wasn't enough to do that. In church I could no longer mean the words I sang. I didn't know how to worship in church anymore, and felt terribly out of place there. I also thought if Jesus's death on the cross for me wasn't enough to bring Him delight when I responded with every fibre of my being, every atom in my ownership (that's all any human being can do really), then I must not be His child. No longer a Christian. I broke up with Jarett--I didn't want him to live unequally yoked--that would be an untenable courtship. From now on, I was my own person. I'd just get by doing what I know was right. I'd still pray as honestly as ever, but I didn't dare to believe He was pleased because I prayed. I prayed because I knew I should, and I needed to. Surely non-christians could still pray.
I started out on this retreat restless and afraid. I knew if I gave all to God, He would inevitably get me involved in this and that again. I wanted none of it. I feared getting all crashed up again. But I came to the realisation that trusting Him with my all was the only way to go on living coherently, even if it was immensely painful. It wasn't courage that compelled me to trust Him. It was the desperate realisation that I can't say I trust Him for some things, and not for others, and call that complete submission. Even with a hardened heart, I still had to explain how 5 yeras ago, I could have heard a voice in my heart, and how the rain never fell on me amid a thunderstorm. Even if I chose not to be with the person God's chosen as a life partner for me, I was painfully aware that it was a choice I'd made because I was no longer able to bear with circumstances both within and without the relationship. Deep in my heart I realised I had remained quietly, deeply hurt and angry with Jarett, even though my love for him never allowed me to stay consciously angry for long. Besides simply hiding away when his officers did things that hurt, refusing to get drawn into the fray and help mend things, on certain occassions he had the insensitivity to criticise the acts of love before the officers BS. It's not face or pride I cared for, but I was already broken, and here was a man I loved best kicking it in, unable to see how my discouragement was already derailing my belief in God. This was certainly not something you did to someone you loved in Christ, much less the one you'll become one in Christ with. I did not blame him, but I also could not comprehend his carelessness. Still, in spite of all this, in the deepest recesses of my heart, I knew God had chosen rightly my life partner, and I did love him. God could see further than me, from beginning to end, and had a purpose to work out in me. I also had a calling to Turkey to explain, if everything had just been my imagination. The question was whether I believed it, and whether I had the courage to believe it. Being a pew warming sunday Christian is just not a viable lifestyle, and I couldn't live with its contradictions.
On the first day, God dealt with my fear and unwillingness to rest completely in Him, by showing me who He was--not a Father who'll abuse you in spite of everything you do to please Him, nor take away everything you've grown to love, but a Father who releases everything good for us. (Luke 11:11) He also affirmed through a bible verse that morning, that what happened in my time in the 12th was not of Him, but of Satan. (James 3:13-16) It reminded me again of the dream that I had about the legion of spirits coming to disunite the 12th, God warning that this officer would be instrumental in the entire process, and I realised I'd become sucked into Satan's game too. I remembered His solution was to make sure we persisted in mutual love and submission, and knew I was part of the reason for that disunity, simply because I coud not trust God for not just me, but for growing others too. On the first day, I had to learn to say "God, I want to trust you and serve you again, no matter what it costs me. Even if I'm still struggling to trust You, I want to try. And you gotta help me. Help my unbelief." And I knew "no matter what it costs me" this time meant reconciliation with the officer in my dream, because I found myseif immensely pained and irritated with the way he quarrelled with and treated other people. I must learn to love him again just as I used to when we were non-judgemental, very good friends. It's just something I had to do, to get right with God.
The second day at worship, I was yielding my time in the 12th to Him, and lifting up my heart to Him, acutely aware of my inadequacy. Then gently, suddenly, God spoke.
He said "I have seen what you have done in the 12th, and you were with Me every day. I know you have given of your best, and I am pleased. Well done." The silent tears just wouldn't stop flowing for a gd 2 hrs. The only validation and affirmation I needed all these years was finally here. What my brothers could easily have given instead of judgement and criticism was more than made up for. God knew my brothers, some in their self-convenience, had not afforded the validation and encouragement, nor protection from the evil one, but He was still teaching them to grow into men of God. He said "I know the hurt others have caused you, through their critical spirit, callousness, and carelessness. Receive my comfort. Accept my healing. Receive Me, for I am giving you all of Me, and I hold nothing back."
Later in the afternoon, I met a missionary who'd ministered in France for 7 years, and had only one salvation. She actually walked right up to me and volunteered to pray for me, before i even said hi. After praying, as she shared with me her journey through discouragement, she led me to what Jesus said when others criticised Mary for pouring a jar of perfume on Jesus feet. (John 12) To them it was waste. To Jesus it was an act of worship and love, and it was good enough for Him. She finished by saying that if God's called us into long term ministries, and if we know He's using this time to prepare us before launching us, then this can only be something God wants us to grow through. She also affirmed a conviction that had been growing in me. Leading up to this camp, I'd felt I really need to get deep into God's word, for faith comes by hearing the word. I couldn't hear God properly, but there were promptings in my heart that this was an area of lack for I'd not been spending time with God studying scripture for about a year. I spent time preparing my heart for this retreat by opening up His word again. He took over from there. Over the next 3 days, I was circumstantially saturated with His word, even if that saturation had not yet reached my heart. When this missionary prayed for me, she said "God wants to teach you to use your weapons. Hold your sword high." She raised my arm as though I were holding an invisible sword, and declared God was going to use me immensely to serve Him. I still could not believe it at heart, but it was something I wanted very much, and so I agreed in prayer.
On the third day, I came back to the story of 5 loaves and 2 fishes. God led me to examine Jesus's questions to Peter and Andrew. (John 6: 5-8)
When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
Philip answered him, "Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!"
Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"
I realised how the two main challenges of learning to be a disciple of Christ is beautifully summarised here. Phillip had an unbelief problem. Andrew had a doubt problem. I had both. Jesus could use Andrew's doubt, but not Phillip's unbelief, even though He overcame both. Phillip closed the discussion before it even began. Andrew went ahead in faith to get what he could for Jesus anyway. I saw this as affirmation of how God had been moving me from unbelief to doubt over the past 2 days, that this was exactly the lesson He wanted me to work on first. And I was glad.
My journey with God still goes on. There are many things to fix, but He's just starting me on spending time with Him in solitude first. I'm learning to love Him first, be still in quietness and trust all over again. The rest will gently come later. I'm thankful for that. Exceedingly thankful that God teaches us to trust Him in gentle ways, without chiding, ridiculing or rejecting our lack of faith.
Esther
| e.s.t.h.e.r in the arms of Jesus @
6/20/2007 04:03:00 pm |
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