July’s activities are now memories as we start our last summer month. Looking back over the past two months, what’s been happening in your faith journey? Today, Susan Disher shares with us what’s been going on in her heart.
This summer I have been pondering and praying.
I have been pondering hard questions found in books. Questions that make me suck in my breath and want to hold it because I am afraid of the answer that will seep out.
“What do you want me to do while I am here?”
“What is the theme of my heart?”
“What is my God purpose?”
”If God is really real and I am going to live with him forever shouldn’t he be the only thing?”
“What if my life was going so beautifully because I wasn’t chasing after God?”
“What would my life look like if I would completely abandon my life to God and chase after him?”
And I am stopped cold by the statement in Luke 14: “…anyone of you who do not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” Everything I have, all the stuff I have accumulated, all of my little gods, everything that I love other than him was never going to work. I was made for his glory and his glory only.
Jesus says the way we glorify God, the way we step into his story is by accomplishing the work God gives us to do.
Acts 20:24 says: “But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.” Or as The Voice states: “finish my race…fulfill the ministry that Jesus our King has given me…gladly tell the good news of God’s grace.”
That is the race I have been given…this is my part in his story. “Lord, you can have me for anything while I am here.” Gutsy statement made with shaking knees but with a strengthened heart.
As Luke 1:38 says: “Let it be with me just as you say.”
But my finish line is coming upon me faster than it ever has. I am in the last one-third of my life, a very sobering thought. I need to order my days, be deliberate in my ordinary, and be intentional in my walking. What does my work look like? How do I go about telling of God’s grace? By letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God.
So I keep pondering and storing thoughts and whisperings in my heart to bring out on cloudy days and doubting days and days that don’t shine bright with God’s promise in my eyes. Days that I feel alone and lost, and wonder, “what am I doing here?”
It has been a summer of pondering and praying. Prayers have been said for our niece and her husband as they faithfully watch their newborn fight a courage journey into a healthy life. Prayers uttered in the silence of doubt for a mother of 9 children fighting stage 4 cancer with unbelievable grace for the last 3 years. Walking by neighbor’s houses, I pray for the families unsure if they know the Lord.
Names circled in red and knots tied tight for spouses sacrificing to care for each other, friends with aging parents, a sweet friend whose life has been swept off its mooring; prayers that have been shouted out loud and whispered softly and uttered in groaning.
So as I ponder and I pray, I am once again brought back to the truth that the Lord is my portion and I will wait for him, abiding in his love. Beth Moore states in Praying God’s Word: “…We dwell no further from His side than the place we are most keenly aware of His great affection. Place your ear against the chest of the savior so that, when troubled times come, you may not know what will befall you, but you can hear the steady pulse of the boundless love of him who holds you.
Pondering, praying, and now abiding, have become my summer “ordinaries”, the daily rhythm of God time.
I hope the same for you.
Lovingyougood…sd