Those People

I wrote this post a few months ago, and didn't want it to be taken wrongly, so I hesitated to hit "publish." But, once again, I've been thinking on these things and asking God to make me a merciful person ~ one who pours out grace on people who don't deserve it. I hope you'll be challenged to do the same.

~Mary

I've been thinking today of the people I don't like to help and "waste" my time on:

The people who really don't want to change bad enough to do it.

Those people that hate their messed up lives, but they refuse to do anything different.

The people that call and whine about their husband and kids and work and house....

....and want ME to come over and make their life all better.

I have lots of friends with struggles. I help a lot of people. I usually enjoy it.

But those people...

Well, that's a different story.

They don't even try.

They don't even care.

They're always a victim.

Do they ever think about anyone other than themselves?

My mom and I were discussing a couple of people today ~ people who want our help and counsel on a near-daily basis. We've been helping and advising for years, but not much has ever changed.

They're still floundering and depressed and tell us that they can't function like we do because their lives are so bad, while ours are so good. (They actually have more money, less kids, less health problems, and waaay less work and duties and responsibilities than we do, but that's beside the point.)

Mom's more inclined to keep helping them and helping them and helping them. She's almost eternally patient with people. Even bad and ungrateful people.

I've helped them for years; driven them to the ER at really inopportune moments when their kids had sore throats and I thought it was silly to go, but they insisted that they had to. I've given up my bedroom so they could stay there for a few days after they'd just had a big fight with their husband. I've watched their kids for long days when I was already so behind with my own work that I could have cried. I've cleaned their refrigerators when they'd been left in a nauseating mess for weeks or months. I've loaned them money and sometimes they've paid it back. I've let them drive my cars, and let their kids use {and break} my stuff. I've given them some of my favorite clothes, just because they really wanted them, and they didn't have many. I've wiped their kids' vomit off our floors and couches... and sometimes I've become sick myself after spending the day with their sick kids. I've invited them to come along when I really just wanted to have a day with my fun friends and family.

I do this same stuff for other people, and it doesn't bother me because they value my help, and they do their best to get back on their feet and to say thank you and to just be nice about it.

But those people....

I was about done being a servant to those people.

My unloving and unmerciful advice to Mom about someone today: She needs to just learn that everyone's life is hard and she needs to deal with it and wash her dishes and take care of her own kids even though she doesn't feel like doing anything. And she needs to learn that we don't have time to talk to her for an hour a day if she's just going to whine about her life and her husband and not going to act on any of the advice she asks for. She hasn't changed a bit in the five years that we've been her friend, even though she always swears that she will.

The words were barely out of my mouth when I wondered what I look like to God.

Do I ever feel like one of those girls who will never learn and will never change?

Do I look like the person who says she loves God but forgets Him five minutes later?

Do I look like a hopeless case?

Do I repent and turn from my besetting sins, only to find myself back there again and again and again? Asking forgiveness again?? Like I'll never learn, never walk on in victory?

Does God ever see that it's me, calling heaven again and sigh that it's... me?

What does God think when He sees me not even caring.... not even trying?

He had compassion on me when I was His enemy.

He loved me when I didn't want to change.

He made an eternal covenant for my soul, even though He knew I wouldn't be faithful.

He loves with perfect love, when I stumble along and don't even realize how lost I am.

He keeps drawing my heart to Him when I have no idea what a mess I am.

Maybe when He said, "Go, and do likewise" and He pointed at fellow messed up people,

He really meant to help the people who will always be a mess.

Maybe He meant to show mercy to those people.

I think He did.

'Cause that's what He does for me every day of my existence.

Not Called You Say?

" 'Not called!' did you say? 'Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity; listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world."

- William Booth

Time to read, but no time to blog!

In recent days I've been caring for an elderly lady a lot. She lives in a quiet little house in town and I spend a lot of afternoons with her and some nights. While she's dozing on the chair, I have time to study with no interruptions. It's wonderful!

However, it ensures that I have no spare moments online. Hence, the lack of lengthy blog posts from me in recent days. I hope to figure out some way to make my blogging work while watching her. Maybe one of her neighbors will decide to set up an unsecured wireless network and I can use that??

In the mean time though, watching her has given me time to read much more than usual. (Yes, most of it is exciting stuff like studying all the cautions/side effects of various medicated creams for yeast infections!) A couple of afternoons ago, I put down Varney's and read the whole of A.W. Tozer's "The Pursuit of God." A few quotes were too good not to take the time to share with you!

One of the premises of his book is that our relationship to God (and thus, every area of life and every relationship) must be one of sincerity and humility. I did some soul searching, and asked the Lord to make me more sincere and humble, and He has been faithful to do just that!

The other day I found myself wondering why so many big, humbling, hard things were happening in one afternoon and wondering what could happen next. I felt extremely insignificant and about 1 inch tall. I was watching everyone else receive exactly what I had wanted so badly and see that they were doing a much better job than I ever could have. There's nothing quite like realizing that God doesn't need you and that other people don't find you indispensable either!!

As I was musing on the turn of events in several areas of life I realized something. This was exactly what I had asked for, right? I managed to smile and say, "Thank you, God! I don't like it, but it's exactly what I asked for, and I still want it!"



"[Christ] waits to be wanted."

"Lift up thine heart unto God with a meek stirring of love, and mean Himself, and none of His goods."

"Whoever defends himself will have himself for his defense, and he will have no other; but let him come defenseless before the Lord and he will have for his defender no less than God Himself."

"To be specific, [the] self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love, and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them...
They are not something we do, they are something we are, and therein lies both their subtlety and power."

"When we talk of the rending of the veil [of Self] we are speaking in a figure, and the thought is poetical, almost pleasant; but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience that veil [of Self] is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us, and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free...
Let us beware of tinkering with our inner life in hope ourselves to rend the veil. God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust.... [But] we must insist upon the work being done....
Insist that the work be done in very truth and it will be done. The cross is rough, and it is deadly, but it is effective. It does not keep its victim hanging there forever. There comes a moment when the work is finished and the suffering victim [Self] dies. After that is resurrection glory and power, and the pain is forgotten for joy..."

-- A.W. Tozer

"You are as holy as you want to be."

This past week I've been thinking often of Keith Daniel's saying, 

"You are as holy as you want to be."

Yes, people can disagree with that statement, or clarify, or whatever. (And, yes, I know that it is only by God's grace that we can do anything right... that's the other side of the coin, but not what I'm posting about tonight!)

That statement is far more true than many of us would like to admit. We lament because we have habitual sins in our life that we haven't conquered, because we just keep having the wrong priorities, etc...
The truth is, usually we don't want personal holiness bad enough.

People decide to go to college and get a degree. Many don't want it that badly, and they quit short of the goal. But for many, it doesn't matter what obstacles land in their way or how unfairly life treats them - their eyes are fixed on the goal  - and they do it! I could think of numerous examples of people who are determined to do something, regardless of the pain, sacrifice, cost, and discomfort but set their mind to who/what they want to be and do it!

Many Christians talk about stopping their anger or bitterness or lust or pride or immodesty or dishonesty or slander or dishonor of authority... or throwing away those magazines, that music, whatever brings them back to sin. They really do want to stop it. But they don't want to bad enough. So they don't quit or they just stick the music or magazines under the bed for awhile to pacify their conscience.

I know, because sometimes that's me. Impatient with a little sister again, I want to repent, confess it, and do better next time. But did I need to act that way this time? No.

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he, the Bible says. I am a goal-oriented person. I make and follow to-do lists, and I prioritize what I want most to get done each day. I don't always get everything done that I want to, but I try hard, because it matters to me.

Does being holy tomorrow matter to me? Of course, it matters. But does it matter enough to make it to the top of my list, above all of my other goals?

My personal holiness depends on how bad I want it. I have no other excuse for my life. 

Our theology is never right till in our heart we invest God with infinite power and perfections.
William S. Plumer

The Bible is the one book to which any thoughtful man may go with any honest question of life or destiny and find the answer of God by honest searching.
John Ruskin

What our Lord said about cross-bearing and obedience is not in fine type. It is in bold print on the face of the contract.
Vance Havner