 |
I have been studying Nehemiah and I am loving seeing his true heart for people. I saw this book on the shelf several months ago and it caught my attention. My initial interst was because a friend expressed her love for studying this book of the Bible and knew I too would love it. The next thing that drew me in was as soon as I turned open the pages I saw little foreign country faces staring into my eyes and Kelly Minter's (the author) words of encouragement to follow what the Lord breaks our hearts for. I was runnning to the check out counter at this point.
For some time now the Lord has broken my heart for children. Thankfully the Lord has allowed me opportunity to love on many. With each passing day He gives me opportunity, some days I fail miserably and other days I am so excited and eager to love on one more for His Glory! I am learning with each step just how much my God loves me and just how gracious He is!
Nehemiah has been tough to get through. His example is a tough act to follow. He never lost his focus on what the Lord called him to do. He never lost focus of His love for people while carrying out his task of service to the Lord. I wonder how many times I do that on a daily basis? The Lord shares His desires for me and I make a mess of it. The Lord has blessed me with three children although regularly I lose sight of the fact that my job is to teach them His ways yet also to love them more even when they are not acting according to what I have taught them. Challenging?? I think yes!!
Let me give you an example. We decided to take the kids to Splash Kingdom and an over night stay in Dallas with a school shopping trip the next day. To my displeasure it did not go as I had planned. You know how us women do, we get a plan mapped out in our heads and it looks just perfect. If our husbands are involved it has a romantic feel and if our kids are involved everyone behaves with such spiritual wisdom and love that abounds. Yea, yea, right!?!? That is fairy tale life and obviously I don't live there!!
Marc, had a busy week at the office and at the last minute had to cancel going with us. Number one dislike! I had also envisioned getting a new car on this trip as we have been searching online for several months and there were several in Dallas that had caught our eye and I was ready! But with no hubby there, a new car was not on the agenda! Dislike number two!
We got a late start and for the life of me I could not find a prescription of medicine that I just bought on Monday. I combed the house, went to Marc's office to check the bags of trash he had hauled off. Dislike number three and four!! Going through trash with the aroma of rotten meals from two days prior is not my idea of a good time! Yuck!!! I think I scrubbed my hands three times after that. Still no medicine! Ugh!!
We went on to Splash Kingdom. My middle child is one that is the talker in our family. Sometimes I think that is a good thing and other times he drives me slap crazy! He asks a million unanswerable questions and is super curious about the things I know nothing about or things I have not ever even begun to think about. His conversations can be so informational that my brain wants to explode and a part of me wants to scream "CAN YOU PLEASE SHUT UP?" (I wont say for sure but that may have come out of my mouth, especially in the heart of road construction traffic) I know that sounds harsh and I love my son immensely he just is a little too much sometimes, if you know what I mean? Not to mention the brotherly love that is in the form of slaps, pushes, and shoves, condescending remarks, and sarcasm. And that didn't just come from one child. Dislike number five!! I'm sure your thinking "What a great family, personal note...don't ever let my kids set foot in their house, friend them on facebook or have their cel phone numbers"!
Upon arrival and despite the craziness the kids were super pumped and just excited to be outside and in the water. I found us a place to call base and laid on the lounging chair for a few minutes people watching. Can I just say that some people are weird!? I guess we all are weird in some kind of way but I'm thinking some lack common sense, normal hygiene, and the TV show "what not to wear" could have had a hay day. Wow!! I'll spare you the details of a few incidents but trust me when I say GAG! Dislike number six!! I text Marc telling him all about the fun he was missing and he pleaded with me not to send pics. Lol! I assured him I wouldn't because I didn't want to remember either. :-/
As the day went on my kids got meaner and meaner. You know what I'm talking about? You ever had one of those days? I kept trying to remind myself to respond in love and firmness. It seemed that was not working so consequences had to come. Dislike number seven! Don't you just hate having to discipline your kids when it is suppose to be a fun time?
Needless to say my focus of being a loving and Bible teaching mother was going out the window. I was beginning to focus on the tasks at hand instead of the souls at risk. It was no longer about a time to love them more but a time to make them pay for the torture they were putting me through. Please tell me I am not the only one that has been there?!?!
That isn't the end of my dislikes but I don't want to harp on the negative (or dig a deeper hole of the poor pattern of my family). The trip had it's downfalls and I was epic in failure with my focus on myself and my fairy tale plan. As I sat this morning reading through more of Nehemiah's life I couldn't help but think of the example he was for many. Even when life continued to throw curve balls at him he kept his eyes on the Lord and his focus on the hearts of the people. Why is that so difficult for us? For me????
The word cornerstone has come up several times in my reading of the Word over the last few weeks. I looked up the meaning...something that is essential, indispensable, or basic; a stone representing the nominal starting place in the construction of a monumental building; a stone uniting two masonry walls at an intersection. Christ is the cornerstone of our faith, of our beliefs, of the Truth. He is the rock that all should build upon and that everything centers around. We can't love and teach our children with out Him as our cornerstone. We can't love others for His Glory without Him as our cornerstone. We can't invest in the tasks the Lord has called us to unless He is our cornerstone. Nehemiah knew what this meant.
Nehemiah was called to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem at a time when others did not want this to take place. The Lord also spoke to Nehemiah's heart in not only restoring the walls but the people. The Lord wanted the people to come back to their homes so that Jerusalem could be at it's original state. I know Nehemiah had some major dislikes lurking around in his mind but He chose not to let them get the best of him. He chose to keep His focus on the One and Only, the cornerstone, and love and care for the people for His Glory. Not an example I can say I always follow but one in which I desperately want to be held acclaimed to.
Our little trip intended for fun and excitement ended mostly being a bag of dislikes for me. Which in turn showed my kids and a friend what a mess my heart was. The cornerstone that should have been the place I stood on became something I just jumped from. I had let my outside circumstance/dislikes/realities cloud my view of what mattered most, the people around me. My reactions, my response, showed my feet were not planted on that stone but kicking fitfully back and forth in the water of the lazy river at Splash Kingdom. My focus was not on the human hearts but on the little fairy tale plan in my head of a perfect trip.
Be encouraged, if the Lord places us in situations of dislikes or a fairy tale gone realistic then our job is to keep our focus because His goal is to bring Glory to himself. So today, I climb back up on the cornerstone and fix my eyes upon Him. Praying my dislikes are not a stumbling block for the human hearts that surround me!
Proverbs 4:25 "Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you."
No comments:
Post a Comment