It was an interesting weekend.
One thing that happened last night at home was that I woke up around midnight with this little tickling on my leg. Half asleep, I reached down and scratched…then I felt it again. I sat up and looked, and in the faint light coming from the window, it looked like I had a huge monster on my leg. I brushed it off in the floor and immediately identified what I call a “water cricket”. We used to find them in the bathrooms at Camp Little Cross Roads when I worked there. For those of you who still don’t know what that is, to me it’s the body of a cricket with the legs of a spider, and they can jump like crazy! I chased him into the hall with my shoe, and then the little guy met his maker. I don’t like anything waking me up.
I went back to bed and felt another tickling, this time in my heart. I brushed it off. I tried to go back to sleep. Then I woke up and looked, and it seemed like a huge monster in my heart. It was called anger – and it was not Godly. And God had to show me what it looked like. And just like the water cricket met his maker last night, my heart had to meet its maker…and it wasn’t God that put this feeling there.
The verse on my calendar this morning was this “See if there be any bad thing in me. Lead me on the road to everlasting life – Psalm 139:24”. God continues to work on all of our hearts…and He reminds us to love each other in the process. I need to remember that.
I thought about obedience, and the things that God puts in our lives to orchestrate His purpose – and how He uses circumstances, and His Word to show us His way. And about how when we are obedient to the roles that He has given us, he not only allows us to show His love to others but will reward us in His time. I had a conversation recently with a friend who shared this story with me:
She said that last year, she was asked to fill in for a few weeks and teach a Sunday School class at her church. She said she immediately accepted, but when she went home and told her husband, he had a problem with it. Knowing that for whatever his reasons were, he did not want her to take this role, she called and explained to the Sunday School director that if this teaching role was going to cause conflict in her home, that she would have to say no. Her answer was greeted with the utmost understanding.
Now, fast forward a year. This friend of mine was at church recently and the church needed someone to fill in teaching a class for a few weeks. This woman and her husband were a part of the discussion, and it was decided that two of the class members would teach two of the Sundays, but they needed one more person. My friend’s husband spoke up and said that he knew someone that would be incredible for the job. My friend said she stared at him, waiting for him to make this great revelation, and this man pointed to his wife and said, “She can do it.” My friend said she almost fell out of her seat, but she remembered the year before when she had respected his wishes and declined the position, being obedient to God by being obedient to her husband. God used that experience, and the time during that year to grow her husband’s heart, and he used her obedience as part of that lesson. My friend said to me that she knows God calls her to do things, but He has called her first and foremost to be a wife to her husband. And in her obedience, they both grew.
This story so touched my heart that I had to share it with you all today. I pray that if God ever sends the right man my way, that I can love God and love my husband enough to be an example of a Godly wife.
One thing that happened last night at home was that I woke up around midnight with this little tickling on my leg. Half asleep, I reached down and scratched…then I felt it again. I sat up and looked, and in the faint light coming from the window, it looked like I had a huge monster on my leg. I brushed it off in the floor and immediately identified what I call a “water cricket”. We used to find them in the bathrooms at Camp Little Cross Roads when I worked there. For those of you who still don’t know what that is, to me it’s the body of a cricket with the legs of a spider, and they can jump like crazy! I chased him into the hall with my shoe, and then the little guy met his maker. I don’t like anything waking me up.
I went back to bed and felt another tickling, this time in my heart. I brushed it off. I tried to go back to sleep. Then I woke up and looked, and it seemed like a huge monster in my heart. It was called anger – and it was not Godly. And God had to show me what it looked like. And just like the water cricket met his maker last night, my heart had to meet its maker…and it wasn’t God that put this feeling there.
The verse on my calendar this morning was this “See if there be any bad thing in me. Lead me on the road to everlasting life – Psalm 139:24”. God continues to work on all of our hearts…and He reminds us to love each other in the process. I need to remember that.
I thought about obedience, and the things that God puts in our lives to orchestrate His purpose – and how He uses circumstances, and His Word to show us His way. And about how when we are obedient to the roles that He has given us, he not only allows us to show His love to others but will reward us in His time. I had a conversation recently with a friend who shared this story with me:
She said that last year, she was asked to fill in for a few weeks and teach a Sunday School class at her church. She said she immediately accepted, but when she went home and told her husband, he had a problem with it. Knowing that for whatever his reasons were, he did not want her to take this role, she called and explained to the Sunday School director that if this teaching role was going to cause conflict in her home, that she would have to say no. Her answer was greeted with the utmost understanding.
Now, fast forward a year. This friend of mine was at church recently and the church needed someone to fill in teaching a class for a few weeks. This woman and her husband were a part of the discussion, and it was decided that two of the class members would teach two of the Sundays, but they needed one more person. My friend’s husband spoke up and said that he knew someone that would be incredible for the job. My friend said she stared at him, waiting for him to make this great revelation, and this man pointed to his wife and said, “She can do it.” My friend said she almost fell out of her seat, but she remembered the year before when she had respected his wishes and declined the position, being obedient to God by being obedient to her husband. God used that experience, and the time during that year to grow her husband’s heart, and he used her obedience as part of that lesson. My friend said to me that she knows God calls her to do things, but He has called her first and foremost to be a wife to her husband. And in her obedience, they both grew.
This story so touched my heart that I had to share it with you all today. I pray that if God ever sends the right man my way, that I can love God and love my husband enough to be an example of a Godly wife.
“Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives.” 1 Peter 3:1
Our hearts can get so cluttered that we forget what’s right and good, and that is to obey God as He has called us to obey Him, in the circumstances He has placed us in. Our hearts can get dirty and we don’t even know it…it may seem like a tiny tickling feeling, and turn out to be a darkness eating away at us inside. We need to ask the Lord to show us if there is any bad thing in us, any disobedience…any selfishness disguised as “righteousness”. I just pray He continues to help me learn humility by submitting to Him and those around me.
It’s just what’s on my mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment