"Workers with you for your joy"
On turning 24. 12/11/2010
 
Dear age,

I welcome you. True, I do not quite know what to do with your numbers that increase ever upward, but even still I resolutely welcome you. You bring a sense of realness to life that I had not known before, a deep rooted awareness of life's struggles and achievements. You do not scare me and I do not believe you will injure me, for my value does not rest in youth or its beauty. No, I must learn each year to dispel a few more of my generations lies and false pursuits. And, dear age, I believe you will help me to do that. Here's to the future, whatever age I may be...and to the present: happy 24.

K
 
 
It's funny to me how lessons from God can be hidden so well beneath the humdrum of day-to-day activities. I go along, scarcely noticing what I'm doing because it's so routine, and then from seemingly nowhere a thought or revelation comes and I am taught about God, by God. To me, this is the coolest part of adventuring with God, and I'm trying to be more open to it.

I'll share two examples from this week; the first has to do with sharing in the Father's joy as we work for Him, and the second is about how we humans are a bit fickle and weak-willed but how God sees a completely different picture than we do. And then I'd like to wrap up by talking just a little about what learning directly from God looks like. Here goes!

Our house is for sale. It's a glorious house (in my opinion), filled with stories and nooks and character and love. But it's not quite modern...
It's been on the market for quite some time, and it seems that no one really is interested in an old house with 5 acres that needs some constant TLC. But we know that it will be the perfect house for the right family, and it only takes one family to buy the house. So we're working and praying and just pressing on towards this goal. Well, we enlisted the help of a "stager" to get us ready to show. She's had some good ideas and some bad ones, but this last idea ended up with my parents paying a crew to come in and skim-coat some of our old walls downstairs.

Skim coating is a really messy process, and the past few days the house has been disastrous by the time the crew leaves. 4 of the 7 rooms on our first floor are basically unusable, in particular the kitchen. The furniture has all been pushed to the middle, then covered with plastic, and now a fine layer of drywall dust/wall particles lies on said plastic. By the time the guys left on Monday, it was all you could do to walk through and keep your clothes clean.

Now we come to the part of the story from which I will draw the moral: I got home on Monday afternoon and was offering to help my dad outside, whether with mowing the lawn of whatever he needed. He declined, but said that it would really help if I would clean a swath through the plastic-jungle so that we could access the kitchen. So I went to work. Vacuuming and vacuuming, sweeping and dusting... and as I knelt down to give attention to one edge in particular I was struck with this thought: "I don't want to be doing this. But it helps my father in the work that he is doing, so oddly it gives me great joy to be doing this."

And so I thought of how Jesus spoke of always doing the Father's business, and working with Him in His plans for the earth and all creation. And I thought of the potential things the Lord might call any one of His servants to, if they would just be willing to work with Him for His joy. And I thought that I might need to let go of my choosiness and of telling God what I want to do, and just step back and enjoy the adventure of missioning with God.

The second story will have to be shorter, as I need to go to work. This morning I fed the cat. A very normal thing to do, except usually my dad does it. I opened the door to let the cat inside our summer kitchen where her food bowl is, and then I went about making toast and my other sundry breakfasty activities. About 10 minutes later I went outside and she was on our porch, having voluntarily decided that she was done eating. I went to close the door and she scrambled back inside, as though she hadn't just finished eating and was expecting to have another shot at breakfast. I shooed her out, knowing full well that she had eaten and was not in need of more food. As I walked back inside I was reflecting on my own approach to the things that the Lord gives me for seasons... I can be really fickle and, like my cat, not want to make up my mind.

I see this mostly with things that He's asking me to wait for right now, and mainly with waiting on Him and learning that dependency on Him. He's told me things and I'm gung-ho about waiting for them for about 5 minutes. Maybe an entire day if I'm really lucky. But then my little brain goes to town thinking that maybe I should approach it differently, taking it back into my own hands, and stop waiting and believing the promise that He has. Maybe I should work towards my own end instead of believing that my truest joy lies in making Him happy.

So I came away with just an amazement at my own fickleness, but also a deeper appreciation for the heart of God which knows all things. He knows what we need before we ask Him for it.

Well, time is running out this morning so I will save my other thoughts for another time. Blessings to you all, my fellow travelers on this journey.

:)