I’ve been learning a lot over this month and some weeks here. The Lord is turning me to books and certain scripture to direct me to specific areas in my life that I need to grow. In the beginning it was surrender… but even after having thought I surrendered all in my life, in these past couple weeks, the Lord showed me how I am holding on to still some things in my life. Then asked me for total surrender. Sometimes I have to say, I get frustrated with God and I argue with Him… haven’t I given up enough for you… then I put my head down in shame… hasn’t He done enough for me? Why is it that I still want to hold on to things in my life… I know that He’s in total control. I find myself going back to when P and I wanted another child and the Lord would not listen to our desire… that was God’s provision for me for He knew what was to come.
Lately, I have been reading the book “Pursuit of Holiness” by Jerry Bridges. If you haven’t read it, please go pick it up… it is phenomenal and very convicting. In the first chapter it talks about how holiness is for us. I really like chapter two… I was totally redirected in my heart about holiness… a few things hit me, but one thing that was like a stab in the gut was that God does not accept excuses. We are to live a holy life for God is holy and there are no excuses… then he said how many of us justify our actions by saying “well, that’s just the way I am” or even “well, I’m still growing in that area of my life.” Wow… what a strong statement, but without giving away the whole book, I haven’t even finished it, I want to say that the author is not saying we need to be perfect. “God does not require a perfect, sinless life to have fellowship with Him, but He does require that we be serious about holiness, that we grieve over sin in our lives instead of justifying it, and that we earnestly pursue holiness as a way of life.” (p. 40-41)
I thought of what grieving meant… I thought of what my heart was like when P died… the grieving I went through… the heartache… the trauma… the anguish… the hours of crying over him… I prayed that the Lord would give me a grieving heart for my sins in my life… that He would use His spirit daily to even show me the sins in my life. No longer do I want to justify my sins…
I remember a couple weeks before P died, we were together and A was not obeying. I told a little “white lie” and P called me out on it. He told me we were not going to be parents that lie to our kids… not any “white lie”. P challenged me that day… there are no “good” lies… they are all lies… and that means we sin. Hmmm~
I have on my wall a note to myself that I could read every time I go out my bedroom. It states:
Today I will…
- Worship God
- Cultivate holiness
- Invest in eternity
Lord I surrender today to you. Do as you will and let me have the ears to hear and the heart to obey. More of you… Less of me.
Those three “goals” were P’s goals in life. He would evaluate each day by how much time He spent on each of the three. I added my little prayer at the end. I pray A will grow to evaluate her day by those three principles.
God is good. He has been leading me not only in books, but in scripture. I’ve been lead to read different books of the bible and for the past couple weeks I’ve been reading through Deuteronomy. I’ve been surprised at how many times Moses tells the people to not forget God’s goodness. He tells them to be careful when they get satisfied for then they will turn away from God. God’s lead me to pray this for a while now of how I do not want to forget this past year and almost two months… not to remember the sorrow or how much I miss P, but to remember God’s goodness and faithfulness in my life. As I read these chapters, my desire to not want to forget grows… I do not want to forget my manna nor do I want to forget the water that came out of the rock for me… I do not want to forget the way the Lord spread the Red Sea in my life… and I do not want to forget when I get in the Promised Land where the land is flowing with milk and honey, whatever that may be in my life.
This week like I have said, has been the best week of my time here. I really ask that you continue to pray for continual good weeks and His is leading in different areas in our life.
Sometimes you don’t know when something will bring up a memory… this week as I was getting my entertainment room ready, I put a white sheet over the bed in there to make it more like a couch. I had chills run up and down my body and tears started rolling from my eyes… almost in an instant. I remembered walking into the ICU room and seeing P under a white sheet. I had to leave the room. I don’t think I will ever buy white sheets again. A little while later, I went back into the room and fixed it… but really I don’t ever want to see white sheets again.
Last night I started a movie “Amazing Grace” and tonight I finished it. That was a good movie. I remember starting it with P at some point… sad that we didn’t get to finish it together. I think he would have really liked it. I know he would have wanted to talk about it for a few days. Then I put in “Beyond the Gates of Splendor”. I wasn’t quite sure if I would be okay watching that movie… but wow… those families are absolutely amazing. Men and women both, but even the kids as they grew up… The Lord had incredible plans for that people group. I can’t wait to read the book, “Through the Gates of Splendor” that TB left me before she left.
I remember a message by pastor SC at Bethel. He brought up verse after verse, 27 times, on how followers of Christ are not meant to have a easy life… there are costs in our following of Christ. It’s not a easy road, but He asks us if we are willing to pick up our cross and follow Him. I keep going back to how our life here is temporary. The max is probably like 90 years old… or like my grandmother 96… but how after that, we will spend eternity in absolute glory!!! That everything that we endure here, will be rewarded in heaven for eternity. Could we live with that kind of mind set? If not, why not? Is God not worth it? I can’t say that have that mind set 100%... I still have days where I tell God this is too big… He’s asking too much of me… but then I remember how so worth it God is… God is so worth our life.
Today at church, I was so in love with being in one place with brothers and sisters, praising, jumping, dancing, praying… then I started to cry thinking of how wonderful it will be once we are in heaven. When I was younger, I thought about what a dread it would be to be in heaven and sing hymns all day… but today I longed for that day… to sing to my savior for eternity. I know it says that there are no tears in heaven, I wonder about tears of joy… I think it would be such a joyful thing to be in God’s glory…
So… that’s what I wanted to share tonight before I went to bed. I want to live a holy surrendered life to my Lord and Savior until the day I could go before Him and be in His glory forever and ever.
