Many Apologies

I was meant to post this last week and my time ran out as the post was saving! I shouldn’t have cut it so close. At any rate, so sorry for those I told that I would post then. I got permission to post now, but this will definitely be the last thing I put up while here in J-Bay.

I truly have mixed emotions about returning to America. With the opportunities before me pertaining to my education at Grace, I have no doubts that I am meant to finish out the next three years there, or at least to stay there until I am finished with my degrees. However, where I am intended to be during the summers and where I will be in ministry beyond that is a complete unknown to me.

With all the contacts and friends with whom God has gifted me up until now, I categorize people according to country and would be pleased to see them again, but can live without them. It may sound harsh, but it is true that not everyone you meet will be of the same importance to you. Leaving here, though, I am unsettled. I have come to love people with such fervor that I do not feel my life would be of the same quality unless lived with them. I have heard of this in the context of romantic relationships, but this is totally platonic, sibling/family/friend love that has overtaken my heart and arrested me. At the same time as I desire to be where they are, I am aware that one’s ministry is not dependent on the people specifically in that area. But when I shared this with the pastor of Ithemba–the church where we’ve been attending–he said that it was because God was not done with me here and that I would be back. Shortly thereafter, the pastor of Deo Doxa–the church that planted Ithemba–said that I must come back. I don’t want to ignore God, but I’m still skeptical…

 

God has been working in me and through me in amazing ways, though, while I’ve been here. I’ve been teaching some girls in the threes and fours to spell in English, and have been able to incorporate Bible as well into the curriculum. All of them professed belief in Christ, have Bibles and are excited to use them. Praise God, for He is GOOD!

 

I wanted to share a prayer that God gave me this Friday, sorry it’s a bit long:

God, I remember sitting in TOL with Lindsey and Shannon being awestruck that they could pray to you for brokenness, and being terrified of doing the same. I praise and worship you that you had mercy on me; that in your steadfastness your compassion remained over me and you softened my heart to you. God, being a bare, ugly plant is such a good place to be, because the bad/dead limbs are pruned off and the places where growth is most necessary glare forth with all obviousness. GOd, continue to prune me. Don’t let me be filled with your wisdom and your nature. Ephesians 1:4-5 says that you chose me to be holy and blamesless in your sight. Because you predestined me in love to be adopted as your daughter. You chose to be brought in your family, so I am in your family–an heir. My identity is no longer tied to condemnation, sin and death, but redemption, holiness and life. Yet if I am to truly follow in your footsteps and conform myself to your patter, and not that of this world, then I have to be an imitator of God, because I am one of his dearly loved children (Eph. 5:1). Therefore, my attitude should be the SAME–the exact, unadultered, unmodified, true-to-the-original duplicate–of Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature GOd, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness (Philippians 2:5-7). If I am to imitate this behavior, I cannot deviate and throw in modifications to compensate for areas that make me uncomfortable and then justify those alterations with arguments about culture changes, setting of time and place, et cetera etc. etc. I must consider it pure joy whenever I face trials of many kinds– Jesus faced every trial imaginable, but stood firm in his Holy perfection, guarding himself with Scripture, utilizing the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Gal. 6:17). He was silent in the face of his oppressors, led away like a lamb to the slaughter, and I, too, need not stand up for myself in the face of those who desire to contend with me and bring forth altercations. God will defend me, and if I don’t believe that, then where is my faith and trust in him? If I say I must use the words of man, then have I not robbed the Word of God of its power? When Paul preached to the Corinthians, he did not do so with eloquence or superior wisdom as he testified about God (1 Cor. 2:1). His message and preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that their faith wouldn’t rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power (vs. 4-5). Why should I try to justify or save myself by my own power, when God can be so much more glorified by working his power through my weakness? What then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies (Romans 8:31-33). So even if I am wrongly accused, or see that others are wrong on an inconsequential matter, I surrender the right to be right. If my relationship with one causes another to stumble for the sake of that one I will surrender my right to that relationship. I will put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that my ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as a servant of God I will commend myself in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good repot; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; havingn othing, and yet possessing everything (1 Cor. 6:3-10). By my actions and my righteousness in the face of every circumstance will I be justified, not by words or agruments. Not by a rightounessness I have achieved or earned by any means, but that by your grace, God.

 I am to live such a good life that, though ungodly people accuse me of doing wrong, they may see my good deeds and praise and glorify you on the day You visit us (1 Peter 2:12). Ultimately, I am not to shine through myself, but you are to shine through me. THe Corinthaisn were faithful and wise. They were so wise that they even put up with fools and with anyone who enslaved them, exploited them, took advantage of them, pushed themselves forward or slapped them in the face. To my shame, I admit that I am too weak for that! (1 Corinthians 11:19-21). My nature is to prove myself right and to humiliate my opponent by refuting their argument persuasively and with sound evidence; to demonstrate my superiority and strength over them, because You made me and athletic, articulate being and I want to use that for my own glory, justification, and the furthering of my good, my power, my popularity, and my strength! And yet, for all my academia and intelligence; for all my knowledge of your Word and its stories, ethics, truths and morality; for all the growth you’ve enabled me to have these past two months here; for all the grace You’ve given me daily in dealing and living with 21 others and getting up around 5am every day to meet with you; and in your grace of giving me these great revelations and mentoring relationships where I’m daily poured into with wisdom; in spite of all these thigns, if treated as described in 1 Cor. 11: 19-21, I would retaliate and justify myself! I would not calmly sit back and let my life be its own testimony whilst You, Jesus, are my justification. No! I would fight for myself, lose my patience and become angry. I would chuck 2 Peter 3:14-15 to the wind–it and its “Since you are looking forward to a new heaven, a new earth, and the home of righteousness, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with God, bearing in mind that our Lor’d patience means salvation.”

One of my greatest enduring weaknesses is my inability to surrender my pugnacious, self-righteous, argumentative, correcting spirit. It is so difficult for me to be at peace, resting in God, being renewed by his patience and allowing it to save me. Maybe my sardonic coments, constant corrections, proneness to confront others without prayer or without truly desiring their good as the outcome, argumentativeness, over-criticism of authorities, insubordinate rudeness and subversive divisiveness when I feel  like being bratty and when I’m just living life in general–maybe this aspect of my human identity is the thorn in my side. It is in this area that I am weakest and least able to shine for Jesus, radiating God’s glory like a star in the universe (Philippians 2:15-16). But God says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness: Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).”