wisdom

  • John 11:6 When he had heard therefore that he was sick… (reflections on ministry, #1)

    In a recent update, I shared how I’m often tempted to be impetuous:

    I’m so like Moses. Impetuous. Wanting to take things into my own hands.

    (Granted, what Moses did wasn’t condemned . . .

    Acts 7:23  “When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. 24  And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. 25  He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand…
    . . . yet God had a much more grand and glorious plan to rescue His people from Egypt.)

    I look on others’ burdens and I want to do something: to say something, to write something . . .

    I get impatient . . .

    I’m impetuous . . .

    I’ve gotten into trouble time and again for jumping ahead of God . . . (you think I would learn).

    On the other hand, I’ve been abundantly blessed by God whenever I’ve bent my knees and bowed my neck and waited on Him and in prayer . . . (you think I would learn).

    So often I want to do something, do anything . . . but pray.

    I’ve been itching to speak, to write . . . but God has continue to check me . . . and call me back to the closet, back to prayer.

    That post was focusing on how God wanted me to be patient, to wait on Him and to pray more. That’s one way God has been checking me.

    But there’s another way God continues to check me.

    I think it’s best summarized in John 11:

    1  Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. 2  (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.) 3  Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. 4  When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. 5  Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. 6  When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.

    Did you catch that?

    When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he left the place where he was.

    No, no! It doesn’t say that, does it? Instead we read

    When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.


    We so often think of Jesus as coming to the rescue as soon as we call. Kind of like us calling 9-1-1. Well, yes and no. Yes, He does hear when we call, and He delights to hear our cries, and He does begin acting as soon as we cry (might we say He is acting before we cry, as He is the one drawing us to cry out to Him?). God knows what we need before we need it, but Jesus doesn’t necessarily respond or act in the way or in the time we might think. God’s plan is far, far bigger than what we might imagine and far, far beyond what might make sense to us.

    Isaiah 55:8  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

    Romans 11:33  O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! 34  For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? 35  Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? 36  For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

    Isaiah 30:18 And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him. 19  For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee. (I’d encourage you to keep reading that rest of the chapter.)

    God is God – and we are not. Isn’t that the lesson God continues to teach us while we remain here in these fleshly bodies?

    God’s thoughts and God’s ways and God’s wisdom and God’s knowledge and God’s timing and God’s workings are all about God and God’s glory…

    So it must be with each of us as we seek to minister in God’s Name.

    There are times when the LORD is waiting to be gracious to another soul that He will call us to wait (or, like Jesus, to have us abide two days still in the same place where we are). God may very well have us abide for a time before we visibly move, before we go to Bethany, so to speak, to help out a friend in need. (Note there: I said visibly move. I think we can correctly presume that Jesus had already been moving in prayer toward His Father’s throne, for He was absolutely certain of the will of His Father in this situation and He felt no hurry to leave the place He was at that time. In the same way, as soon as we hear of or see a need, we can begin moving in intercession for that soul.)

    For those of you who take Christian ministry seriously (I mean that in the broadest sense of the word, i.e. – we are all called to be ambassadors; we are all called to encourage one another daily, to admonish one another, etc.), when we hear of someone in need, isn’t our natural response to move, to go and do something? To write a comment. To answer that message. To say something. Don’t we sometimes end up like Moses? Or like Peter? Or like Abram and Sarai? Don’t we so often end up jumping ahead of God just because we think we have to do something, to do anything? Have to. Do we really have to? Aren’t there those times when we react out of our own will without even pausing a moment to ask God in prayer what His will is in the matter?

    Honestly, if we were in Jesus’ place and had heard about Lazarus’ sickness, wouldn’t most of us be sorely tempted to pack up ASAP and head straight away to Bethany? Yet we don’t see our Lord doing that, do we? We see Him content to wait on His Father’s timing because He had an eye to His Father’s glory.

    We also have to see that Jesus loved Lazarus, Martha and Mary. He loved them…and yet He waited.

    Just because we hear of or see a need doesn’t mean God wants us to move immediately.

    Just because we hear of or see a need doesn’t mean God wants us to do anything at all.

    Love for others sometimes means we will wait like Jesus when God is calling us to wait. (It may also mean not doing anything at all; that wasn’t the case in this incident, but it may be the case with us – more below.)

    Love for God and God’s glory means we will wait like Jesus when God is calling us to wait. (Again, it may also mean not doing anything at all. We need to seek God and what is to His glory.)

    There is a time to arise and go, but there’s also a time to abide still in the same place. May God clearly lead each of us in this.

    On my other site I’ve mentioned that one of my “strengths” is restorative. (Um, sorry, I can’t find that post. Grrr! One of my strengths is not organization, I’ve  concluded. ) Anyhow, the bottom line means I want to restore things. To fix things. To make it all better.

    That’s a very noble ambition, and it is rooted in the character of God.

    The fall has wrecked everything, and God’s plan in Jesus Christ is and has always been to bring restoration to this broken world, along with all its broken people. Our God is a God of restoration and renewal and redemption. Amen.

    When I see a problem, or when I see a friend hurting, or when I read of someone struggling, I want to be God’s instrument of restoration. (Even unbelievers have the image of God planted in them to some limited extent and they have similar desires. In much the same way, even unbelievers are grieved when they see people struggling and hurting, when they see the brokenness in the world, but, of course, they aren’t seeing the problems through God’s eyes and they aren’t relying on heavenly supplies to do anything about it and they certainly aren’t interested in the glory of God being done in all that.)

    That God-given desire in me to restore is a good desire, but since that desire has also been tainted by the fall, it must be sanctified – it must be walked out in the Spirit. In other words: not my ways, not my thoughts, not my wisdom, not my power, not my timing and not for my glory. As I minister it must be done according to God’s ways, God’s thoughts, God’s wisdom, in God’s power, in God’s timing…and always with an eye to God’s glory. That’s a mouthful for sure, but I trust you get the idea.

    In short: the best efforts wrought of my own flesh are never going to please or glorify God. In the end, ministry isn’t about results, it’s about God getting glory.

    I did have some other things here, but I’ve decided to break off the rest of that and include it in a second post here…

    Related:

  • update/prayer requests – July 8, 2010

       
    Though I’d sensed a call to more concerted prayer over a year ago (please see part 2 of this post), over the past several weeks, the Lord has increasingly impressed on me the importance of prayer and tarrying in prayer, hence my most recent posts:

    Yesterday I ended up rereading some of the first portion of Exodus, including these verses:

    Exodus 2:11  One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. 12  He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

    I’m so like Moses. Impetuous. Wanting to take things into my own hands.

    (Granted, what Moses did wasn’t condemned . . .

    Acts 7:23  “When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. 24  And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. 25  He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand…

    . . . yet God had a much more grand and glorious plan to rescue His people from Egypt.)

    I look on others’ burdens and I want to do something: to say something, to write something . . .

    I get impatient . . .

    I’m impetuous . . .

    I’ve gotten into trouble time and again for jumping ahead of God . . . (you think I would learn).

    On the other hand, I’ve been abundantly blessed by God whenever I’ve bent my knees and bowed my neck and waited on Him and in prayer . . . (you think I would learn).

    So often I want to do something, do anything . . . but pray.

    I’ve been itching to speak, to write . . . but God has continue to check me . . . and call me back to the closet, back to prayer.

    Thank God for His loving discipline.

    There are things on my heart I believe God has put there for me to speak and to write, yet He’s continued to check me. It’s not yet time to speak and to write those things.

    I admit I get frustrated with that at times. (Understatement.)

    Yesterday afternoon I printed out a post which I’d written up a while ago and had laid aside, a post I really want to finish. It’s about joy in our ministry. It’s so key. I see so many people plodding along, ministering without joy, and I know that God has so graciously blessed me in that (still learning) and I do want to pass along to others how He’s been helping me and what He’s been teaching me. So I really expected to do a little editing on that post.

    Couldn’t do it. The Lord checked me.

    I even opened up a new blog entry. I have ideas galore in my head. (Nothing new there.)

    Couldn’t do it. Couldn’t even write a word. The Lord checked me.

    I was distressed over this, but I knew without a doubt I would be in disobedience to the Lord if I did any writing at that point. Any.

    I’ve dedicated my blogging to Him. If I’m not writing according to His lead, what’s it worth? I can gain the whole world, but lose my soul . . . I don’t want to be a Tekoite noble.  

    Though I’d already spent some time earlier in the day with the Lord in prayer, I knew I had to go back into the closet again.

    So, after a bit of restlessness (and after the World Cup match was over ), I realized I had to get outside and get away from the laptop.

    I went out to one of my favorite places for walking and meeting with God.

    While I was walking, I had David Crowder playing on the iPod and “For the Glory of It All” came up:

    I found myself singing along:

    Oh the Glory of it all is:
    he came here
    For the rescue of us all
    that we may live
    for the glory of it all
    for the glory of it all

    And then I had to, had to, say something like this to the Lord:

    If it is to Your glory that I remain in prayer and not to write, as much as my flesh wants to do that (You know all things!), then by Your grace I will do so, I will remain in this closet, to Your glory. I will wait on You, I will tarry in prayer, until You release me to write, if You ever do so.

    if You ever do so. . . .

    Yes, I said something like that.

    It’s somewhat disconcerting to put yourself out there before God and say that.

    It’s somewhat disconcerting to put yourself out there before God and say, “Do with me what You will,” but if you are His, you know you can’t do anything less than that. That’s the Holy Spirit of Christ in us that is fighting against our flesh. The Spirit of Christ who sought always to be about His Father’s business. The Spirit of Christ which said, “Not My will, but Yours, be done” to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, with sweat as drops of blood. O, thanks be to God for His mighty Holy Spirit who works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure, who does in us what we are powerless to do on our own!

    Yet I know that whatever God is directing me to do is for my good. Whatever. All of it. No matter what my flesh might be telling me. God’s ways and God’s thoughts are higher than mine and His ways are always best. Always. And God’s plans for us are all about maximizing His glory. So, for me to balk at His call to prayer, would be to rob Him of His glory.

    The Lord won’t give His children peace or rest until we submit to Him. Wholly. I will also add here that there are times when our consciences can become seared and our hearts hardened to His voice. Let’s not even go there! May He grant us grace that our hearts would remain soft and warm toward Him and His will for us!

    After that, I began to think through the Scripture once again to instances God called His people to a time of waiting and/or waiting prayer (I’d already done this earlier in the day, hence I say once again). Jericho (see my post here). Nehemiah. Moses. Abram and Sarai. Esther. The early Church. And so on. It seems you can find examples on just about every page of Scripture.

    Yet don’t we want to do any and all things but wait on the Lord and tarry in prayer?

    While I sat there in the park in prayer with the Lord, not specifically asking for anything but trying to rest in Him, reflecting on His sovereign love, power and grace, He sweetly and suddenly showed me something that was missing from another post I’ve been wanting to write, something I didn’t even know was missing – and something I wasn’t even asking for then – since He’d given me the grace to put aside any thoughts about my writing at that point.

    All I can say is that it was one of those Job 42 moments.

    1  Then Job answered the LORD and said:

    2  “I know that you can do all things,
    and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
    3  ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
    Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
    things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
    4  ‘Hear, and I will speak;
    I will question you, and you make it known to me.’
    5  I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
    but now my eye sees you;
    6  therefore I despise myself,
    and repent in dust and ashes.”

    Certainly my loving Father knew what I needed before I asked Him. If I hadn’t taken that time alone with Him in prayer, would I have received that gift from Him? I don’t think so.

    It was also a confirmation that there is a time to write, and when it’s time, He will clearly let me know that . . .

    In regard to prayer requests, first I would ask you to pray that I would be disciplined in prayer: to willingly submit myself to remaining in the closet for as long as God would have me there. With that come my thoughts, “Oh, that means I can’t write so much.” I confess I like to write. I love to write. Yes, I do find writing challenging, and it’s not been without difficulty and I have to continue to ask God to purify my motives for writing, yet I find writing an act of worship because I truly grow in grace and knowledge of Him as I write and I also enjoy the Lord more and more as I write more and more of Him.

    I know I need not ever fear what God is calling me to do, for He loves me and He does all things well. He has plans that are much more wonderful for me than I could imagine.

    Yet, if God is calling me to that private work of prayer, then I must stay there as long as He deems, and put aside public ministry. My life is not my own. My ministry is now my own. If I’m not praying when my Lord asks, what kind of servant am I? What kind of minister can I really be if I’m not doing that one thing that is necessary, taking time to sit at His feet like Mary?

    A second prayer request is that I might have God’s wisdom as I need to speak to someone about a sensitive situation. I don’t like confronting people, but it’s clear God has been directing me to speak to this person as their spiritual welfare is at stake, so it doesn’t really matter what I like. And just to make it clear to me, God had me hear a sermon Sunday morning on Galatians 6.

    1  Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2  Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3  For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4  But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. 5  For each will have to bear his own load.

    Loving our neighbor and bearing one another’s burdens does involve speaking the truth in love. But it also involves time in the closet in preparation. I confess that in this case I’m at a loss at this point as to how to proceed, so I am in desperate need of wisdom. So, in contrast to the impetuousness I described above, I’ve been driven to pray more than I might otherwise. I am trusting the only-wise God to supply abundant wisdom for me from His riches in glory and direct me to speak in His way and in His time.

    I so appreciate your fellowship and prayers.

    If there are any ways I can be praying for you, please feel free to leave a comment below and/or message me. As I said when I set up this blog, I would like this to be a place where we can encourage one another as we work together to build the wall, as we walk with and serve the Lord.

    Yours in Christ for the glory of God,
    Karen

    Related posts

    on prayer:

    on my calling/blogging:

    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.

  • “How mad a true minister of Christ must appear in the eyes of many!” (more from W.H. Hewitson)

    Here’s another nugget from W.H. Hewitson (in John Baillie’s “Memoir of the Rev. W.H. Hewitson – Late Minister of the Free Church of Scotland, at Dirleton [1852], 2nd edition, 315)…I thought this was a good follow-up to some of the comments to my previous post, “Look to nothing but Christ (W.H. Hewitson on sanctification).”

    How mad a true minister of Christ must appear in the eyes of many! He breathes a spirit, and displays an ardour, which the world cannot understand. The more that we are like Jesus, whom the zeal of his Father’s house consumed, or like Paul, whose enthusiasm in advocating what the flesh was unable to appreciate or relish, brought on him the charge of being mad,—the more shall we lie open to the ridicule and obloquy of the carnal. Eternity, with its unchangeable heaven and its unchangeable hell, rebukes the moderate and the carnal, —calling on us to exhibit yet a more close resemblance to Paul in his mad-like enthusiasm, or to the Lord himself in His consuming zeal. Jesus coming into our closet, and breathing on us that we may receive the Holy Ghost, makes us able ministers, and therefore fools in the world’s esteem.

    * * *

    I Corinthians 1:18  For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19  For it is written,

    “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
    and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”



    20  Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21  For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22  For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23  but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24  but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25  For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

    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.”