I hate to see people go through tough times. Especially people that I care about. This morning I read a excerpt from My utmost for His highest by Oswald chambers that gave me a new perspective:
THE SACRAMENT OF THE SAINT
"Let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing." 1 Peter 4:19
To choose to suffer means that there is something wrong; to choose God's Will even if it means suffering is a very different thing. No healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he chooses God's will, as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. No saint dare interfere with the discipline of suffering in another saint.
The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints strong and mature for God. The people who do us good are never those who sympathize with us, they always hinder, because sympathy enervates. No one understands a saint but the saint who is nearest to the Saviour. If we accept the sympathy of a saint, the reflex feeling is - Well, God is dealing hardly with me. That is why Jesus said self-pity was of the devil (see Matt. 16:23). Be merciful to God's reputation. It is easy to blacken God's character because God never answers back, He never vindicates Himself. Beware of the thought that Jesus needed sympathy in His earthly life; He refused sympathy from man because He knew far too wisely that no one on earth understood what He was after. He took sympathy from His Father only, and from the angels in heaven. (Cf. Luke 15:10.)
Notice God's unutterable waste of saints, according to the judgment of the world. God plants His saints in the most useless places. We say - God intends me to be here because I am so useful. Jesus never estimated His life along the line of the greatest use. God puts His saints where they will glorify Him, and we are no judges at all of where that is.
(end excerpt)
When I see people who I care about going through tough times I want to fix it, and I spend great amount of mental energies trying to figure out how to help or make them feel better. This article helped me realize my job is not to fix them or the situation, my Job is to be obedient to whatever God wants me to do. If that is helping great, if it is to be an encouragement then that is my role. I need to not stress on what other people are going through (or for what I am) and simply seek to know what God's will is for me and to simply be obedient. There is a lot less stress involved in simply looking to God and being faithful, than trying to play Messiah to all the people in my life.
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1 comment:
Oh this is exactly what I needed to hear. You can't help leave a strong Christian community like Visalia to a less than venerable community such as where I now live, City Heights in San Diego, and feel a little lost. I've been sharing my experiences since my move here with my mother, of all people. Needless to say, she's a bit worried. And should be. But do I really need to move back within the spirtual fort of Visalia? I don't think so. I'm here for a reason and it's not mine, it's Gods. Perhaps it's a mission in disguise. I moved because of the suffocating values thrown on me by my very religious family, that by the way, weren't all godly. I beg them to relearn Jesus 101, in particular "love each neighbor as your own" not just the ones that go to your church. Visalia, its time to rescue yourselves from being foever labeled in history as the Pharisees. I thank God for Crossroads.
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