You get hammered in life, but you get hammered into interesting shapes. Like most, I'd prefer my blessings to come without disguises! And then Life happened.......
Words that do not become flesh in us remain "just words." They have no power to affect our lives. If someone says, "I love you," without any deep emotion, the words do more harm than good. But if these same words are spoken from the heart, they can create new life.
It is important that we keep in touch with the source of our words. Our great temptation is to become "pleasers," people who say the right words to please others but whose words have no roots in their interior lives. We have to keep making sure our words are rooted in our hearts. The best way to do that is in prayerful silence.
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Intersting how it is in dying that we live...
Always living out the dying of our Lord Jesus in the flesh, that the life of Christ will be manifested through us. So therefore, death works in me, but life in you.
The difficult part of living out this dying is not becoming cynical or bitter, which I have a tendency to do. I see Him work life in countless people through our ministry. But the struggle becomes that HE will not do for me what HE does for so many others through me. There is the rub for me. It is my daily cross I must bear. Death, death, death, and MORE death to self. Many days I ask myself if it is worth it. I feel like Kevin Costner in field of dreams... after doing all that was asked, and seeing all that was accomplished, how people were touched, etc. he still wanted to know what was in it for Him. If I am brutally honest, so do I. At least at the fleshly level. I wish we could all be honest about it, what this death of self life is really like. It gets glamorized somehow, like it is a badge to wear... but I'll be the first to say, it sucks too.
WOuld I have it any other way? Not really, it IS a choice. Is it worth it? Who really cares whether it is or not. That is not the issue. I spend too much time focused on ME, I am sick to death of ME. But in the weaknesses of the flesh there is hostility towards God, and it is freeing to admit it, freeing to own it. Only by owning it can I disown it. Only by picking it up can I lay it down. Only by living it, can I die to it.
Death in me, life in you! AMEN. Its not about you or me, its about HIM, and it is about HIS body in this world. AMEN for that.
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