Tonight, some dear friends shared with me the story of their coming to America. She was a highly-sought child physician at the most prestigious hospital in the world, Beijing Children's Hospital. He decided he needed to take them to the United States for a superior education in Health Economics. How do I know such excellent people? In response to his leadership, she left a job that all of her med school classmates envied her over, at the most renown hospital in Asia, to accompany her husband to America, to a small city on the Eastern seaboard, at a school not many have heard of, and not even to work. She wont be able to regain her position if they were to return. This woman left the job of her dreams, and a presigious one by anyone's estimate, to follow her husband. I asked him what kind of pressure that laid on him, to guarantee that this was the right decision. He said it was immense. But she did this in love, without demanding an equitable return ("we'll have more wealth this way in the long run"), she loved him and would follow him wherever he went. Pressure should he feel not, but love. And his response to her will be in love, as they journey, as he labors at the new school, all in love. Were it in duty or even a spirit "needing to make it up", resentment and distance and death would have occured. For how could he put a price on her great sacrifice for him? His acting out of duty would and should be a grotesque offense to her, to attach that as the price of her sacrifice, doubly so, as she did it in love and not for repayment. Be this friend of mine YOU and me - all who are in Christ.. may we live out of love for what Jesus Christ did for us, and truly see the abomination we try to live in our hearts when we seek to live as repayment. We live as worship, as people ENABLED to worship, DESIRING to worship by the Holy Spirit, our eyes on Jesus. NOT as compelled to worship. Loving the God Who would send the Lamb to suffer the terrible wrath of God against sin, to reconcile us to Himself. Oh to know this love! Only in the cross! What did Christ do for me? Jesus - through whom the heavens and the earth and ages were made - came in the form of a sinful man and humbled Himself to the point of death? How could I ever rightly respond to that ?? Love. And love only possible by responding to the love of the sacrificial Giver for me. There is no other basis in the universe for such affection for anything.
As far as my friends, we are also the wife. Christ is leading us away from all we ever wanted in life, had invested in, and were capable of. He may be leading us to what seems so much less glorious, and we follow because we love Him.
Father thank You for this analogy, for Christ and the church and how marriage is a picture of it. Father oh for grace to love Jesus. Father oh for grace to behold His glory in the Gospel, more now than when I first beheld it in some way. I love you, please help me to love you. Oh for a mortal heart to love the immortal God.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
When (legitimately) paid more than you rightfully earned..
- to refuse to recieve the extra money is dishonoring to the judgment of the employer, and could even convey that you believe he is in need of it.. he knows you could always use the money, so it may even tell him that you are not wise with your time and resources.. it will likely tell your employer that you are prideful.
- to thankfully recieve the money is honoring to the employer, and beneficial to the employee. It is humbling, but oh so sweet! If one could just get past the nagging voice that says we must turn something down that is legitimately offered by one who has authority to legitimiately offer it..
Jesus thank You for being Jehovah Jirah, my Provider. Oh Jesus, in You are all treasures! Riches beyond measure! Everything that is better than much fine gold! Your wisdom, Your law, Your blessing of reputation, Your commands, Your FAVOR in Your infinitely valuable blood. Jesus You have PURCHASED me! WHY would You? A reason not ultimately found in me, the thought comforting, frightening, and comforting again.. comforting eternally. Show me Your ways oh God, teach me Your paths, lead me in Your truth and teach me. For You are the God of my salvation, for You I wait all the day.
- to thankfully recieve the money is honoring to the employer, and beneficial to the employee. It is humbling, but oh so sweet! If one could just get past the nagging voice that says we must turn something down that is legitimately offered by one who has authority to legitimiately offer it..
Jesus thank You for being Jehovah Jirah, my Provider. Oh Jesus, in You are all treasures! Riches beyond measure! Everything that is better than much fine gold! Your wisdom, Your law, Your blessing of reputation, Your commands, Your FAVOR in Your infinitely valuable blood. Jesus You have PURCHASED me! WHY would You? A reason not ultimately found in me, the thought comforting, frightening, and comforting again.. comforting eternally. Show me Your ways oh God, teach me Your paths, lead me in Your truth and teach me. For You are the God of my salvation, for You I wait all the day.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Meditations on Job Searching
Finding the temptation as I search for jobs online, to place hope in the great "mystery".. that there is just this magic job awaiting me somewhere out there.. there HAS to be right? There are so many jobs out there..
So much of this thinking is false. God's grace abounds, Father Your grace! Our hope is NOT in "fate" or "chance" or "luck".. somehow we've learned this by seeing "life" come to us apart from our own doing. God is telling us the truth!, that it is HE that gives us our life, that RAINS on the JUST AND the unjust, that holds ALL things together in the smallest part, it is CHRIST, the Word. HE is our Shepherd, providing, protecting. Father let me trust YOU for a job, a career, EVERYTHING.
So many thoughts.. on how wisdom and God's law are to be desired above gold / income.. about how we can and WILL REJOICE in the Lord!, though there be NO fruit on the vine, no herd in the stalls.. yet we will take JOY in the God of our salvation.. saving us from us, the world, Satan, and His own righteous wrath toward my self-will and pride, keeping me from trusting in the Way, Truth and Life. Oh He is righteous to judge. Lord, to SEE, to walk in the Light! With You, taking me by Your right hand.
Thinking about how Adam and Eve were told at the very beginning to fill and subdue the earth.. God saw that there was no one to till the ground.. He placed Adam in the garden of Eden to work the land. Father THIS is us, this is how You created us, to work. To subdue Your creation, to fulfill our made-in-God's-image design and DESIRE to CREATE and ORDER, to feel accomplished, to PROVIDE for, to take satisfaction in, to WRESTLE and strive with, to be reminded of our wretched independence and rebellion and the reason we need to be saved. And Your mercy, Your grace which abounds all the more as sin abounded, Your garments of flesh which cover our shame, Your righteousness.. this all by wiping sweat from our brow.. coming home exhausted after a hard day, fighting the mid-day lull, looking at the clock.. Father the blessing is by Your love and the CURSE is by Your love. Father, please, for a son who seeks Your righteousness, only by Your grace, lead me in the way I should go. Let me delight in You that You may PLANT in my heart the DESIRE I should have, for work, for everything.
So much of this thinking is false. God's grace abounds, Father Your grace! Our hope is NOT in "fate" or "chance" or "luck".. somehow we've learned this by seeing "life" come to us apart from our own doing. God is telling us the truth!, that it is HE that gives us our life, that RAINS on the JUST AND the unjust, that holds ALL things together in the smallest part, it is CHRIST, the Word. HE is our Shepherd, providing, protecting. Father let me trust YOU for a job, a career, EVERYTHING.
So many thoughts.. on how wisdom and God's law are to be desired above gold / income.. about how we can and WILL REJOICE in the Lord!, though there be NO fruit on the vine, no herd in the stalls.. yet we will take JOY in the God of our salvation.. saving us from us, the world, Satan, and His own righteous wrath toward my self-will and pride, keeping me from trusting in the Way, Truth and Life. Oh He is righteous to judge. Lord, to SEE, to walk in the Light! With You, taking me by Your right hand.
Thinking about how Adam and Eve were told at the very beginning to fill and subdue the earth.. God saw that there was no one to till the ground.. He placed Adam in the garden of Eden to work the land. Father THIS is us, this is how You created us, to work. To subdue Your creation, to fulfill our made-in-God's-image design and DESIRE to CREATE and ORDER, to feel accomplished, to PROVIDE for, to take satisfaction in, to WRESTLE and strive with, to be reminded of our wretched independence and rebellion and the reason we need to be saved. And Your mercy, Your grace which abounds all the more as sin abounded, Your garments of flesh which cover our shame, Your righteousness.. this all by wiping sweat from our brow.. coming home exhausted after a hard day, fighting the mid-day lull, looking at the clock.. Father the blessing is by Your love and the CURSE is by Your love. Father, please, for a son who seeks Your righteousness, only by Your grace, lead me in the way I should go. Let me delight in You that You may PLANT in my heart the DESIRE I should have, for work, for everything.
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