If you’ve been reading my other blog, you know that the past couple weeks have been a struggle for me. (Please my posts here, here, here, here and here and here.) I’m not going to recount all that here, but I will say during that time I felt about as pressed and tempted as I have at any time since I’ve been saved, and though not having been afflicted or burdened as much as Paul was, I felt for the first time that I could genuinely relate to Paul’s words in II Corinthians 1:

The week before last I pulsed

Then later that same day I expanded on that request in my post asking a hard thing.

I had seen I was beginning to look to earthly results for my joy and knew I was headed in a very bad direction, very bad.

My face was not radiant because I was not looking to Him. Psalms 34:5: Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. I was looking pretty ugly and feeling joyless.

After that time I attended a conference at which I received a hand-out on evangelism. It broke the process into three phrases: cultivating, sowing and harvesting. This was truly a God-sent blessing as I read this under the description of the sowing phase:

As soon as I read that, I thought something like, “This is me! That is just what I love to do and thrive on!” I’m not saying I haven’t ever been involved in or wouldn’t ever be involved in cultivating the soil (human hearts) or harvesting the crop (the reproduced life of Christ in hearts), but God has given me a passion and love to sow seeds, and more particularly to sow seeds among those who are already in the church to shore them up in their faith, so their faith might grow deeper. (Notice that Paul told Timothy to do the work of an evangelist and yet Timothy was a pastor.)

Since that time I’ve been praying, “If You’ve made me a sower, then I want to be a happy sower! Lord, make me a happy sower!”

A few days after that I was brought down again and had to scratch and claw back and immerse myself in the Word and God’s promises and to remember that I could always trust God as I am faithful to do what He’s called me to do and not to obsess about the harvest or results.

This is a continuing battle but I’d not had such an extended and intense period of struggle and temptation with it since over a year ago, when God brought joy to my soul in a way He’d never done before. I’ve known His joy in increasing measure since that time, and I’ve come to know that no one or nothing compares. No one. Nothing. So this whole thing continue to grieve my soul as it grieved His Spirit, I know.

I am also more convinced than ever that the messages of joy and assurance are so vital to the church since I keep meeting joyless and unassured Christians over and over and over again.

Jesus Christ came that we might have life and have life abundantly. He came that our joy might be full. The Gospel is a message of great joy to all peoples.

There is so much more I’ve been wanting to write about all this. I hope and pray the Lord will give me the opportunity to do so. This is not only a vital message for others, but I have to say that it blesses my soul to write about God’s love and the joy He makes available to all of His children through Christ and it also brings God honor and glory as we remind one another that Christ alone is our true joy and His love for us endures forever and we need not doubt or fear or waver in our faith.  What glory! What other love compares to Him! What other joy compares to Him!

I’ve been reflecting on Isaiah 55 in the past day. I put my iPod touch onto shuffle yesterday and it ended up on a John Piper message Preaching in the Power of the Spirit. It was really excellent and I highly recommend it, but near the end he referenced verses 10 and 11 from Isaiah 55, and since that time I’ve been pondering those (as well as the whole chapter):

Gospel seed is a gift from God. (Thank You, Lord, for every seed You give me!) I am learning to count Him and that seed ever more precious. I can trust God will accomplish His purposes and it will succeed as He wills.

One of God’s purposes is that I steward that seed well and do so with joy. So, as He gives it to me, I want to be a faithful steward and sower of His seed, to persevere in sowing seed with joy for the sake of the elect.

There’s another thing I’ve been pondering. On my post here, David (TravelingStranger) commented, “God bless; keep up the holy work.”

Holy work. Holy work! The Gospel is holy because God is holy. Anytime we proclaim Christ, we are engaged in holy work. What a wonder that God chooses fallible, broken and feeble vessels like us, but we know it is all to bring God maximum glory (I Cor 1, II Cor 4). What a privilege and joy! As soon as I come to my senses and see the holiness of what I’m doing and the preciousness of the seed I’m sowing, I am melted down and can’t help but weep. I love Jesus and despite my recent wandering, I have known Him as my chief joy and my greatest treasure. I rejoice in Him and treasure Him even more today as I’ve seen His love constraining me back into His fold, to feel His embrace, to hear Him rejoicing over me with singing and quieting me with His love.

Throughout the day today I could particularly relate to the apostle Paul’s words:

Realizing the holiness of the task at hand, the awesome responsibility we have, and the hungry souls needing to be fed I was humbled. I knew that in and of myself I could do nothing. That’s a good place to be. And whenever we’re not there we need to ask Him to put us there once again.

As I said, I’ve been pondering Isaiah 55, and there’s more I would like to write on it, though I’ve not really had time to sit with as much as I’d like, except to say I can’t help but look at verses 4 and 5 and 12 and 13 and see how the Church is in dire need of truly knowing the deep joy of our salvation and having full assurance of God’s love for us:

If we continue joyless and unassured in our faith, are any nations really going to run to us? If we aren’t having joy and peace in believing and breaking forth into singing, are any nations going to have joy and peace in believing and break forth into singing? Are they going to have any interest in a God whose people are miserable and whining all the time? Are we going to be making a name for the LORD (other than bringing reproach on His Name )?

However, if we know God and His love in increasing measure so we might be filled with His joy and walk in deeper assurance, in both the dark and cloudy and stormy days as well as in the bright and sunny and calm days, what a witness that will be of God’s everlasting Gospel!

I do appreciate your friendship and your continuing prayers and support as I strive to be a happy sower by the grace of God at work in me.

One more thing I would ask you to pray about is for wisdom and discernment for me regarding my place in my local church. Long story short, it appears God is presenting an opportunity to me to have an impact on the women’s ministry there. I want to walk in obedience to God’s will for me and not to jump ahead of Him in this. I tend to jump ahead rather than waiting on Him. That was something our Father has had to discipline me several times in the past. This time around He gave me grace to be able to wait and pray, and I did not push, but now a door has been opening by His hand. (This is what I was referring to in my post Trust, delight, commit (Psalm 37:3-5) a couple days ago.)

I am also privileged to pray for you, so please feel free to leave requests in the comments below and/or message me.

The Lord has rejoiced my soul and made me glad!
Karen

In my last real update on July 26, I mentioned that I was feeling

This is one reason I’ve not been posting as much on any of my blogs, including this one.

My obligation is first and foremost to seeking the Lord and His will for me. I could feel guilty about not posting or feel like I’m a quitter or a failure for not following through with blogging, and I confess that at times I have felt that, but I realize those thoughts are not from the Lord, but are coming from my flesh and the devil and the world. Jesus Christ is the only One whose expectations I need to be concerned about. When you post something, you feel you accomplish something, you have something to point to and can say, “Look at me! I wrote this.” (Of course, if there’s anything good I posted, it wasn’t me, but the Lord at work in me.) Or, when you post, you put yourself out there and feel like you might get noticed and commended. Those are all things that God is wanting me to slay by the power of His Spirit. My desires to be noticed and for attention are ungodly and evil desires. By the grace of God at work in me, I’m going to fight my flesh and try not to post something just to post something, but only to post as the Lord is laying something on my heart. Same thing w/ making comments on others’ blogs. And to clarify: though I will recommend posts from this site, I rarely post comments on others’ blogs from this site, but I do that from my other site on occasion. (Yes, I confess deerlife does make visits  w/ another dear deer and does banter with an unnamed llama from time to time. )

Now, more about my journey to prayer…

A few years back, the Lord had been trying to get my attention about my need to pray, and, well, I knew that in my head of course, since we all pretty much know we should be praying from the time we become Christians. And, as most of us have done at one time or another, I’d made resolutions to pray, but it took God repeatedly showing me (hammering me) over and over and over again about my total depravity, my total insufficiency and my total inability to do anything apart from Him. That included a lot of failures, frustrations, humiliation and tears. Until we come to the end of ourselves, we don’t see the necessity of prayer and of our need to seek Him. So long as we can get by pretty well on our own, we won’t get down on our knees in humble dependence and cry out to Him for living water and daily bread and His Holy Spirit. Thank God for His sovereign hand at work in drawing me to Himself through his loving Fatherly discipline.

So now, after all that time, the Holy Spirit has been softening my hard heart sufficiently so those seeds are finally beginning to sprout a bit, so I might really begin to understand in small measure the utter necessity of prayer and seek out time to spend with God in prayer. This calling to prayer intensified early in 2009 (I wrote about it here, and that was why I started up tent of meeting, my other website devoted to prayer for revival). And it has further intensified and expanded since that time. In short, God has been giving me more of a passion to be praying for and encouraging workers to be sent into the harvest and praying for His Gospel to go to all the nations; I’ve alluded to that in a few posts on naphtali_deer, my other blog (e.g. – see here and here). I’m not exactly sure where all of that is going in my life, but I am finally seeing that the Gospel going to the nations is for our joy, for the joy of the nations and for God’s joy and is part of God’s glorious plan to exalt Himself. About a week ago, I stood outside and looked up into heaven and said something like, “God, why did it take me so long to get this?!” I cry now as I consider this. I mean, I’ve been a Christian for almost 28 years now. Of course, I knew we should be supporting missions, I knew the Biblical teaching that God had a plan to save some from every tribe, every language, every people and every nation (e.g. – Rev. 5), but only when God and the mission of God got a hold of my heart did I really begin to see. (Not that I see all yet today, I know that…) As I’ve mentioned, I am a slow learner, but thanks be to God, He is persevering and longsuffering with hard-hearted and stubborn sinners like me and His mercies and kindnesses will follow us and pursue us and His Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth and will lead us in the way we should go. This is one reason I am so passionate about young people not wasting their lives. I wasted much of mine. I was lukewarm for too long. One minute of lukewarmness is too long! Thanks be to God, He has been gracious to me and has been working to restore the years the locusts of my self-absorption and spiritual dullness had eaten up.

I confess that I continue to fumble and slip and slide as I seek to go up to meet with Him on His holy mountain, but I know there is grace abounding for sinners like me there and He never casts out those who come to Him, He never despises those who are humble and seeking to worship Him in Spirit and in truth. I love to spend time with Him. And I know He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. He has also begun to show me that If we are not asking hard things of Him, we are insulting Him and limiting Him. Also, if we are not persevering in prayer, we do not show we consider Him precious enough to spend time with Him and we think we are adequate apart from His resources. These are just a few scattered thoughts here. My heart is full of Him. He is faithful to hear and to save. And He is calling us to watch in prayer with Him so we will not grow faint. To whom else can we go? He has the words of eternal life. He is our life!

What about deerlife….

My intent in starting deerlife was for mutual edification and encouragement, but for the past several months, most of my writing has been taking place on my other blog, so If I’m not posting here, I would encourage you to be reading there. And if you have a heart for prayer, I encourage you to visit tent of meeting, though I’ve not been posting there as often either.

I also invite those of you who feel led to do so, to please message me with prayer requests and the like. Some of you I know better than others, but I believe this is one way God does want me to be supporting you at the current time. I hope I will have the opportunity to blog here more regularly, but I can’t say at the moment. I’m leaving that in the hands of the Lord.

I also strongly encourage you to be seeking out and praying for fellowship in your own churches and communities. I think that is one of the greatest weaknesses of the Church today; we are lacking the fellowship God intended us to have. That leads into my next point…

A way you can be praying for me…

As I mentioned several months ago here, I’d begun to take some steps toward developing friendships and fellowship in our current church home. I would appreciate continued prayer for that. I’m not going to repeat all that, but I’d encourage you to read my thoughts in that post as you have opportunity to do so.

In light of that, I’d like to share an excerpt from the “Memoir and Remains of R. M. M’Cheyne” by Andrew Bonar. I really like Bonar’s description of how M’Cheyne viewed his friendships and the opportunities he had with people. I found this challenging and I think it really speaks for itself as to how you can be praying for me (and how we can be praying for one another) as I continue to step out in faith to develop and cultivate friendships in our churches (and elsewhere) and how we all ought to making the most of every opportunity we have here.

Thank you…and a final request…

I thank God for each of you and for your friendship, fellowship and support. I appreciate your continued prayers for clarity and wisdom for me in all things, including my blogging, specifically that I would not rely on myself but on Christ alone and seek the wisdom that comes from above. In Bible Study Fellowship we’ve been studying through the book of Isaiah and for chapter 5 we were challenged to ask ourselves which of the woes applies to us. For numerous reasons, I answered the woe about those who see themselves as wise in their own eyes for I know it’s far too tempting and too easy for me to get puffed up and carried away with my own ideas or thoughts.

I Corinthians 1:26  For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27  But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28  God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29  so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30  He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. 31  Therefore, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Romans 11:36  For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Yours in Christ, pressing on to know Him by His grace alone,
Karen

a challenge to you (God has some secret ones in all places)
Naphtali News: the Ministry of the Word & Prayer

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Continuing from my last post, John 11:6 When he had heard therefore that he was sick… (reflections on ministry, #1)

A few more reflections on ministry…

The scope of our ministry

There’s no way I could ever minister to everyone I see or hear of who is in need. Nor could any of you. That would be a sheer impossibility. The needs of people can be overwhelming at times, particularly as we read blog after blog here.

We have to remember that God calls each one of us to minister to certain people. Unlike God, we’re not infinite. We’re going to see far, far too many needs out in the world. We’re not called to minister to the whole flock of God, but to a smaller flock, and perhaps we may be called to minister to a single sheep at a particular time. God alone is the Chief Shepherd. We’re undershepherds. (No, I’m not saying we are all pastors per se there; I don’t mean that.) We have to remember that the single soul is precious to the heart of God. God’s love for us is likened to the shepherd who left the flock of ninety-nine to go after and find that one lost sheep. Let’s not discount that private behind-the-scenes ministry God has for us. (Note to self.)

Burnout comes when we start to think we have to minister to everyone we see. We can’t do that. And God won’t ever call us to do that. We must ask God to give us wisdom and discernment in this. We can trust God will equip us to minister to each soul He entrusts to us. That will stretch us, of course, which is good, because we do need to be reminded we can’t fulfill the calling He’s given us apart from total reliance on Him and His power.

Of course, we can certainly be praying for those other souls, and we can and should be praying God would raise up other believers He wants to use to be His instruments of restoration in those people’s lives.

The timing of our ministry

There’s always the temptation for me to swoop in with help, and that help may very well be Biblically based (I’m hoping to write more on that soon), but it may be the wrong time. Once again, we must be asking God for discernment. “Is this person really ready to hear this?” “Are they mature enough?” “Is it time for me to listen a bit more, so I might have greater insight?” “Must the Holy Spirit be allowed more time to work to soften this heart to receive the word?” “Would this be too tough right now?” The right word given too soon will only be snatched up by Satan or choked away by the cares of life. The fallow ground may need to be broken up a bit more. It’s really hard to be patient in this.

All that means we may end up watching someone get into a worse and worse state. That is probably one of the worst pains of ministry. Think of the father in the parable of the prodigal son, who waited for his son to return home. To know someone is making bad decisions and is oblivious and is inevitably making a clear path right into that pig sty, and yet in all that, God has His hand on you and is constraining you and saying, “No, not yet. This soul needs to begin to hunger for me even more. Then it will be time for you to go ahead and cast your pearls there. That soul will be sick of the corncobs, the pigs and the mud in a little while. Abide still in the same place where you are. I’ll let you know when you can go ahead.”

That “little while” can be all but tormenting since you really do want that dear soul to avoid the pig sty at all costs. Yet you do know that trip to the pig sty is sometimes God’s ordained means to bring a wandering, rebellious soul to his senses. The Father’s times of loving discipline are precious and priceless, no, not pleasant at the time, but eternally profitable for sure. We must constantly ask to have God’s mind in these matters, so we don’t interfere or impair the Father’s refining work in another’s soul but rather work in concert with Him.

The attitude of our ministry

I can also be tempted to swoop in with Biblically-based help, and perhaps it is at the right time, but it’s all done in the wrong spirit and with the wrong attitude – the spirit of pride and superiority rather than humility. I can be self-serving rather than seeking to serve. I can minister out of vainglory or strife rather than out of love and gentleness. That’s far from the way of Christ, our suffering Servant, and His plan for us, His servants…

One of our main goals in ministry ought to be that people come to rely on Christ alone. That means they shouldn’t be relying on any person, including me. It’s very nice to be relied upon. It makes you feel good, very good, but that’s dysfunctional for all who are involved. I don’t want anyone to come to rely on me more than they rely on Christ. If that’s happening, then I’m not being Christ’s minister, am I? I must always be pointing people to Christ and not me. Forgive me, Lord, for having done that. Keep me from idols, serving self being my greatest idol.

The impartiality of our ministry

It’s easy to spend time with and minister to our “favorite” people. We have to confess we all have such favorite people, those souls with whom we share more of a kindred spirit, those souls with whom we are more comfortable and safe. Yet God Himself is not a respecter of persons. So if there’s a time when God is calling us to minister to someone else, we can’t ever make our “favorites” a priority, but we must respond in obedience to God’s call to minister to whomever He sends us. Peter didn’t really think much of going to the gentiles, but what if he didn’t? May God give each of us the grace not to delay in helping any robbed, stripped, wounded, lonely soul He gives us eyes to see and a heart to serve on the Jericho road.

I remember the time I was attending a family gathering and had prayed to witness to my unsaved family members there. Well, I ended up in the hotel pool one morning and had the opportunity to witness to a total stranger. Only later as I was reading that account of Peter in Acts, did I realize how unChristlike I was in my attitude. I’d not really prayed at all for God to give me opportunities to witness to whomever He was sending me. May He open our eyes to see the harassed and helpless sheep as He does. May He give us hearts of compassion to care and weep for them. After all, He has graciously shown compassion to us and saved us so we might go out in the harvest field with Him, has He not?

Closing thoughts

When I hear of a need out there, no matter who you are, no matter how dear you may be to me, if you’re someone God has called me to minister to, know that I may not come to you immediately, but like Jesus, I may delay and abide in the same place where I am for a time. But know that during the delay I am anguishing with you. I may not ever end up commenting on your post, but know that I will be praying for you. I may not message you immediately, but I will try to eventually. And, when God shows me you’re really dead in some sense, but you’re not seeing it, and you’re stuck in that tomb like Lazarus (i.e.- you’re persisting in walking in the flesh), as God calls me to do so, I’m going to come round and yell at you while you’re in that tomb, “Friend, come forth!” fully trusting that the Spirit of God will come and work through my works and will quicken you and help you to get walking once again in the Spirit by His Spirit. God’s desire for you is to have Christ formed in you and to have life abundantly and His joy to the full. I am praying these things for you.

I love the Lord and I long to minister for Him according to His leading. I don’t want to be disqualified. Know that I am weeping with you when you are weeping, except I may not think it God’s time yet to come to you, but know that I am going to the throne of grace for you, to the God who is merciful, gracious and longsuffering and is able to sympathize with our weaknesses.

I am privileged and blessed to be working with you for your joy and the joy of Xanga/Revelife and of the nations,
Karen

• the overwhelmed minister’s prayer and the promise of God’s sufficiency
• Bible Reading-Isaiah: When We Think the LORD Has Forsaken and Forgotten Us
• Are you robbing God? Where is God telling you to “Rise and go!” for the joy of others?
• “After the death of Moses” ~ will you obey God’s command to arise, go?
• They went everywhere gossiping the word; shouldn’t we also? (Acts 8:4)
• are you gossiping the word to one another?
• the commission is given to all
• my ministry & your attitude toward the Word of God