When Feeling a Bit Lost

I've been reading through Job lately, and this book called Our Ultimate Refuge by Oswald Chambers, which talks about Job and his struggles. As I was reading Job, one thing that hit me was that maybe all this time I was reading the book of Job wrong. I was kind of going through it with an intellectual perspective, and you can probably get something out of Job from that, but I missed the very human aspect of it. The words that Job says aren't from someone who's just reflecting on life from a comfortable chair, but they're coming from someone who is going through unbearable suffering and sorrow and confusion.

So basically in Job 22, one of Job's friends is saying that "you're wicked, you need to seek God, and then good things will be restored unto you," and in Job 23, Job replies. I haven't suffered noooowhere near the amount that Job suffered, but something he says is comforting to me.

Job 23:3; 8-10

Oh that I knew where I might find Him,

That I might come to His seat!

Behold, I go forward but He is not there,

And backward, but I cannot perceive Him;

When He acts on the left,

I cannot behold Him;

He turns on the right, I cannot see Him

But He knows the way I take;

When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

You know, there are times when I just don't feel God. I know I should, I know His love ought to be enough, and I know that His love is the greatest thing ever, but there are times of confusion and darkness. One of the worst things to feel during those times is...is there something wrong with me? Why am I not feeling that way? Am I just lost in my sin, have I fallen from God, what's going on? I think maybe it could be sin and stuff like that, but sometimes it's not anything like that at all.

What I get from Job in these few verses is that, sometimes God does seem distant--you know, not that He is or anything. Sometimes we're looking for Him, and for some reason we just can't seem to find Him at all. Sometimes when we cry out to Him in prayer, it seems like He delays. I think that's normal in a Christian's life, or well, I think it happens, so if that's something anyone is feeling--I feel that way too. But yeah, just like Job, I believe that deep down inside, past all the pain we might be feeling, or the confusion about why God doesn't seem to be saving us right now, we hold onto our trust in God. We know, deep down, that God is good, that God is loving--and that maybe the circumstances around us just don't seem to make sense to us, but we hold onto God like nothing else, waiting for the day when everything will make sense--like it did for Job.

Job 13:15

Though He slay me,

I will hope in Him...

Serving Continued

Hello!

Anyway, so over break I was just thinking about a phrase that was kind of thrown around a bit, "joy in serving," and I wanted to really see the Biblical basis for that phrase, and for serving in general. Serving was a personal struggle for me this past semester because there were definitely times I felt tired, or felt like I was serving too much, and so the question became--is tiredness just something I'm supposed to press on through or am I serving in the wrong way? So I meditated on serving for a bit, trying to think about various Bible passages that talked about serving, what it meant, what it looked like practically, but something that really helped me was a sermon by John Piper entitled "How Not to Serve God in Giving and Sending."

He first went over how we are not called to serve God--we're not called to serve God as if He needs it, Jesus came to serve, and don't look back to past grace and try to make up for it (in either the spirit of debt or the spirit of gratitude) (he referenced Acts 17:25, Mark 10:45, 2 Corinthians 9:8 for this portion).

His main point was that instead of looking back to past grace, we need to look forward to future grace given to us through prayer. He basically said that each thing we do, each bit of "service," we need God's grace at each moment to enable us to do it. Basically, God is not looking for someone strong enough to work for Him, He is looking for someone weak and dependent enough that He can work through. One verse that Piper mentioned was 2 Chronicles 16:9

2 Chronicles 16

⁹ For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.

1 Corinthians 15:10

¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

One of the most useful things in his sermon, though, was how he practically applied it in his life. I mean, it's one thing to say that we need to rely on His future grace given to us through prayer, but how do we implement something like that in our daily lives? He gave this acronym: APTAT

Admit that without God you can do nothing

Pray--ask God for help

Trust a particular promise--store them up in your heart (one that he uses a lot was Psalm 31:19)

Act--work, do

Thank Jesus for helping

Anyway, it's been pretty cool. APTAT is pretty helpful for me, haha, even though as an acronym I feel like it's so weird--it's not like it spells anything.

SIDE NOTE: For those who don't know! We can download any book by John Piper online through his website Desiring God.

Here's his sermon: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/conference-messages/how-not-to-serve-god-in-going-and-sending

Our Ultimate Refuge by Oswald Chambers

Jesus, who's lot with us was cast,

Who saw it out, from first to last...

Would I could win and keep and feel

That heart of love, that spirit of steel.

-Wilfred Brinton

Letting God be God

You might not always feel like Christ dwells within you. A lot of days, I feel like this flesh is just a house for me, myself and I. However, we can't go by feelings. We have to go by what we know from the Bible, and what we know is that God's abiding presence isn't something that's only real when we think about it. “In Him, we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28b). There is no place you can go to escape God. Author A.W. Tozer says, “He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.”

“Be still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10) is one of my favorite verses, because it reminds me that in this world of climbing, striving and dying for more, our best move is simply to be still and let God do what He does best: being Himself through you and as a result making you the most authentic version of yourself.

excerpt from "Organic Christianity: Living for God Naturally" by Jennifer E. Jones

How could I have forgotten?

Deuteronomy 4:9

Only give heed to yourselves and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life but make them known unto your sons and your grandsons.

I've found recently that I have forgotten so much about my experiences with God. With all of the trials that God has brought me through and all the comforts and blessings that He has given me! I thought that I would always remember--that once God had personally revealed Himself to me through my life, I would be cool with that forever. But I think that it does take diligence to keep on remembering all the great things that God has done for us--that sometimes when trials and distractions come, that it is amazingly easy for us to forget the goodness of our God.

I'm glad that God is able to restore the joy of His salvation to me! And I'm going to write this in my journal, and I hope I remind myself everyday of what great things He has done.

Vision.

The past couple of days I thought about what "serving" means, and what 'joy in serving' means, and if the word 'serving' should be emphasized or thrown around so much.

We shouldn't (just) think of serving the fellowship as: I'm helping out with these responsibilities or these things that need to get done. Otherwise we'll just take up little projects here and there, and be doing all these things, thinking that we're helping out.

Mary and Martha: Jesus said that Mary chose the more important thing.

I think a lot of people don't see behind the literal story/incident of Mary and Martha. They just see it as: one did stuff and one sat in the presence of Jesus. And people start saying things like "there needs to be a balance between Mary and Martha". They say things like that because they are trying to be practical and they know God hasn't called us to not do things either.

But the emphasis, as always, is on the heart of both women. It's their focus, their motivation, where their energy is coming from, why they're doing what they're doing. From the story, you can get a sense of where Mary's heart is. You can imagine when Mary is cleaning her room, she is singing worship songs in her heart while cleaning, or she is thinking about Jesus or how beautiful God is or something. She is so in love with and consumed by Jesus that when she serves, she is doing it for Him and thinks of Him, not seeing it as something that needs to be done or that she is helping people out, but really just serving the Lord Himself.

When we serve, we must remember our vision--our personal vision--what God has personally called us to do this semester on this campus. Every little project we take up could be related to that vision. And sometimes we have to say no. We have to be okay with not helping others out, if we feel that God isn't calling us to that. Often we feel compelled to fill in where there is a need, but God's ways are different. Maybe if you didn't fill in, the fellowship would change the way things are done, or rethink certain things.

So, when we say "serving", do we mean serving the fellowship, serving the Lord, serving others, or perhaps all of the above? And also, when we say that we must rest from serving, we really mean that God has not called us to serve in every opportunity that we have taken up. We never really rest from serving, if my definition of serving is correct. We serve others when we love them, and we never stop loving others or loving and doing God's commands. But yea, this paragraph is just some technical thoughts about definitions of words and phrases. Not as important as the rest.

Hope this is some food for thought.