Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday. Psalm 37:3-6
I am well into my second cup of coffee this morning, so no guarantees as to how this blog will come off--may be one of my best, may be that I sound like one of the chipmunks. Don't know. No promises.
I've told you before that I have a notebook divided into different sections and that part of my quiet time is recording different scripture under those sections. At first when I read the above today, I wanted to place them under God's promises, but after looking carefully at the grammar (I know, I'm a dork), I placed the passage under God's Commands. These are sentences with an understood you as a subject--the hallmark of commands in the English language. Look at the commands here: Trust, do good, delight yourself, commit your way, trust in Him. These aren't suggestions--hey, if you want to, it might be a good idea to just let God do His thing. Nope. These are commands from almighty God. I'm pretty sure He wants us to take those seriously.
When I read these words, I sort of passed over them the first time. Then I looked at something we received at FPO--it's called a heartsearcher, with passages of scripture and questions for each month. This month, the first question is, "Are you self-centered? or Christ-centered?" Hmmm....I'm certainly Christ-centered, right? I've got the whole missionary thing going here, right? Left home and parents and career to come serve Jesus...surely that makes me Christ-centered. But when I really look at the above scripture, at the way God commands me to trust and delight myself in Him, to really focus on who He is and not on who I am...Stink! I'm not Christ-centered. I'm a big, giant, self-centered waa-waa! I'm worried about the elevator being out (eight flights of stairs, my friends...eight flights of stairs) and getting math in before school starts in the fall and how we're going to pay tuition in the fall. Does any of that sound Christ-centered? Nope. It doesn't. Sigh.
Here's what I have to say to you this morning. God is God. I am absolutely not. He was God before the mountains were here, before the world was born, from everlasting to everlasting. I am just a woman trying to be what He created me to be. If at any point in the writing of this blog (not this one, but all of them...you know what I mean) you have come away with the thought that this is all about me or Marc or the kids...I apologize. I want to tell you the ins and outs of our daily lives here in Russia, I want you to pray for us and for our mission, I want you to laugh at our foibles and mistakes. But most of all, I want to call you to trust and believe in a God so big, so trustworthy, that our minds can't comprehend Him. I want to glorify Him. I want to say with Paul that Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst, but He chose me for this because I am so weak, so miniscule, such a broken jar of clay that He would be even more glorified through me than through someone "good." I want you to care about me, for sure, but I pray on a daily basis that through this entire experience what you will see is way more than me. I pray that You will see Him, shining in all of His glory.
On a separate note, I would ask this morning that you would pray for our region. Central and Eastern Europe is the biggest region in the IMB, and a difficult one to work in, mostly because 75 years of communism made for a hard shell for the gospel to penetrate. This is a time of change and transition in our region, with lots of going in and going out and moving around and just being in flux. Would you pray for us, for our missionaries here, for the leadership who must negotiate all this change? Above all, would you pray that the Lord of the harvest calls out workers to come here? Thanks. Really.
Well, it's time to get ready for my Wednesday-morning time of humiliation and failure, or my language lesson, whichever you prefer to call it. I'm just joking, of course. It's a hard language, to be sure, but I think we're making headway. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you are having a Christ-centered day, and that you will not spend your morning saying the lamp sits on the table, the couch sits on the floor, the rug lies on the floor, the artwork hangs on the wall....Blessings to you and yours!
His,
Kellye
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Remember...
The will of God will never take you
Where the grace of God cannot keep you,
Where the arms of God cannot support you,
Where the riches of God cannot supply your needs,
Where the power of God cannot endow you.
The will of God will never take you
Where the spirit of God cannot work through you,
Where the wisdom of God cannot teach you,
Where the army of God cannot protect you,
Where the hands of God cannot mold you.
The will of God will never take you
Where the love of God cannot enfold you,
Where the mercy of God cannot sustain you,
Where the peace of God cannot calm your fears,
Where the authority of God cannot overrule for you.
The will of God will never take you
Where the comfort of God cannot dry your tears,
Where the Word of God cannot feed you,
Where the miracles of God cannot be done for you
Where the omnipresence of God cannot find you.
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