I wrote yesterday about having a stroke but now I want to share about God’s work in my life. For the last few weeks, you may have sensed that I have been feeling a bit of discontent with my Christian walk. The Lord has been making it clear to me that there are areas of my life that He has been actively working on changing and I have been resistant to change. He has shown me areas where I lack basic trust in His goodness to bring the transformation that He desires. This has hindered relationships with Him and the people in my life. That is probably the biggest reason for everything that is happening.
In frustration a few days ago, I finally prayed what I knew the Lord had been prompting me to pray all along. I asked that He would do whatever was necessary in my life to make me a clear reflection of Jesus to those around me. I know that many times there has been too much of me clouding what He wants to reveal of Himself through me. Our short earthly lives are too important to waste on building our own kingdoms and on accumulating the praise of people. This life will end and we cannot take anything with us except those who come to know Jesus through the way we represent Him. My prayer is that everything of me that clouds the picture would be laid down at the cross.
Now I do not believe the Lord caused me to have a stroke, but I believe He allowed me to ask that whatever it takes to purify my heart and actions could take place. I believe this whole thing began with Him allowing me to feel the discontentment with a life with one foot anchored in the security of feeling at home in this world. He allowed this to help me realize that everything in the world is fleeting. There will come a day I can no longer build a kingdom centered around me so it might as well end now,
The reality is that there is a house full of boys in Guatemala that I love more than my own life. They have had many rough times, not because of their own choosing, but because other people have made bad life choices that have done great harm to them. I started to realize than any area in me that isn’t sanctified fully cannot clearly reveal the love of Jesus to them. My own insecurities would eventually cause them more pain and harm. That would crush me, to know all the love of Jesus available for them and then to misrepresent him in a way that made it harder for them to receive that love. Many of them have summer birthdays and I have already missed a couple. It is heartbreaking to not be able to celebrate with them. But, I know the Lord is a master builder and whatever He is doing in me will benefit them and in His timing, it will bring more good for them than if I were there right now.
I would not have chosen to have a stroke, but I am celebrating the work the Lord is doing in me so I can reflect Him better, to become the example He wants me to be to draw people to Himself through my life. I realize it is not all about me but about the work Jesus is doing to make me a fully useable instrument in His hands. Through this, my biggest prayer is that houseful of young men in Guatemala would come to know the full depths of the love of Jesus for them and to know that He is for them no matter what the world has thrown at them that has brought them harm. He is purifying my ability to let His perfect love flow through me without picking up the pollution that has so often colored my love for them and everyone in my life.
As for the stroke, I learned years ago that God has a purpose for our lives. Cancer didn’t kill me 15 years ago when a doctor I really like thought I wouldn’t make it past 51. 10 years later I still have a purpose for being here and the stroke can’t stop or change His purpose or plan, if anything it can only bring clarity and move me closer to the fulfillment of God’s purposes in and through me. I don’t fear my long term prognosis. My days were numbered before I was born. I am praying that as long as I am breathing, I would be a useful instrument to point people to the love and goodness of Jesus. I must decrease and His work in me must increase.
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