Now What?
Indeed, there comes a time in the life of every believer and of every church where a voice inside us simply asks, Now What?
After we have been introduced to Jesus and have found peace with God through him. After we have been following Christ and have gradually been surrendering the compartments of our life to him. After we have asked him to redeem our past, to heal our wounds, to reconcile our marriages and safeguard our children. After we have asked him to purify our thought life, to sanctify our ambitions, to soften our hearts, to comfort us in tragedy, to lead us in wisdom through confusion at work, at home and in our hearts. After he has filled our minds with the Scriptures, and taught us his Word, his songs, his ways and his love for us.
After all of that, there is a voice that remains and simply asks, Now What?
This is, I believe, a voice of divine restlessness. This is a voice of sacred discontent. This is the voice of a holy yearning for more. This is the moment in which we can see that all the work that God has been doing in our lives and in the life of the church is not an end in itself; rather, the work he has been doing in us is a powerful means to a grander purpose beyond ourselves.
This is the supernatural moment when the rescued enter into their divine destiny as rescuers.
This is the critical transition -- when we who have been rescued by Christ come to understand that our rescue has not been simply for ourselves but for an even more exalted purpose. Indeed our own rescue is God's plan for rescuing the world that he loves. (p.28 Just Courage)
and even better are these words....Isaiah 58:10-11
...and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. 11 The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun scorched land and will strengthen your frame.
Just needed to check....
...and if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: 11 And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
Yep it is clear,
Spend Myself...
Draw Out Thy Soul...
No wonder I'm flailing, no wonder Malawi feels so right. It is there where I am spent, where my soul is drawn out on behalf of the hungry, the oppressed, it was there where I realized that nothing matters if we don't believe.
Why do I PRETEND living here is okay?
Here I am not spent, I am coddled
I am not drawn out, I am comfortable.
BUT,
this is where I find myself, my responsibility, my obligations, my mortgage.
I am free, yet imprisoned.
I know truth yet accept lies.
I am guilty yet innocent.
"We believe something when we ACT as if it were true." (p.? Just Courage)
Father God, Help me to spend myself on behalf of the hungry and to satisfy the needs of the oppressed wherever my feet are. Help me to accept where you have me as long as it is YOU that has me here. God, please make your path clear and absolutely unavoidable, take away the fear, take away the logic and the planning.
Abandon our minds of
worldly wisdom,
which is the darkness,
this wisdom is the obscurity
that chases out the light
You are casting.
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. 1 Corinthians 3:19a
God, help me to trust to ACT as if I believe...That you will guide me always and satisfy my needs in a sun scorched land and will strengthen my frame.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on Earth
(today that I would do your will here)
as your will is done in Heaven.
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