Fullness of Life

I remember the days of high school, my mother, who was a single mother, tended to make my idea of a good time very difficult to achieve. When it came to parties, the choice of some of my friends, and the late nights out, let’s just say she didn’t see things my way; simply put she would give me a hard time, and in some cases didn’t let me get what I wanted.

I remember thinking, “What is with this woman? Why is she trying to stop me from enjoying my life?” I was always a good student in school and went to church on Sunday morning no matter how late I got home. Though I was an outgoing person, I somehow managed to stay pretty humble in a world where pride, lust and vanity reigned supreme. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing that was so wrong that she just had to make my life so difficult.

Well, I didn’t quite figure this thing out until a couple years after I had moved to West Palm Beach for college. It was as though I had to move away for all the hard lessons my mother taught me to actually make sense. It’s easy to criticize the people who are responsible for us, the people in authority over us; the people who’s decisions can directly affect us; however when that person becomes us, life takes on new perspective. There is no one else to blame now but ourselves. I ran out of fingers to point, so I started using them to write.

Desolation, loneliness, depression, grief, fear, anxiety, frustration, and good ol’ fashioned doubt filled my life. There were times when I didn’t know what to think. I was genuinely confused, and I did not like this feeling. I just couldn’t figure it out. I did what I wanted, when I wanted and how I wanted, but I still felt enslaved. It made no sense because there was no one else to blame! I never felt these feelings of desolation and loneliness before, so why now? Then, I remembered a mother’s love. It was the love in the heart of a mother that set out to give me the best life possible, to teach me the virtues of getting the most out of life, to guide me around the treacherous reefs that seemed oh too familiar to her. And what was my response to her? “What is with this woman?” Classy. Real classy. I don’t know why I suddenly saw her acts of discipline as love, but for some strange reason it all just made sense that she was doing her best to protect me from being enslaved.

The discipline she evoked in my life has laid the foundation that has built me up to where I am now. I do not think that I am so much higher in faith, instead I think I am just now able to love.
This very concept of a mother’s love has translated itself and has become real to me in helping me understand my relationship with Jesus.

Just last night I asked God a similar question to what I would think toward my mother, “Why are you trying to take away from me?” It just so happened that in spite of my question to God I obeyed what He asked me to do, and later that night he miraculously provided what I had given up. I was blown out of the water. I remember saying to God, “I’m sorry, I thought You were out to take from me, when all you want to do was add to me.”

I go through some things in my life, like what I’m dealing with right now, and I can’t help but think that God just might need my help this time. Of course I’m then reminded that He didn’t need my help to get me where I am today, much less to where He is taking me. I know that the only thing He wants (though He’s way to modest to ever come out and say it to my face) is for me to love Him no matter what my circumstances may look like. He wants me to trust Him that He knows what He’s doing and that He has my best interest at the forefront of His mind. He wants me to be obedient, and listen for His voice to do the things He asks of me.

All these tough lessons come from the heart of a God who loves me enough to do exactly what my mother did. I’ve realized that I’ve had it all wrong. For too long I thought God was out to rob me of having fun. I thought He was trying to take away my freedom. I thought He was selfish. Now that I look back, I realize I was all these things, and He was merely trying to give me just what I was looking for.

The Standard

Here I am again. In a pretty familiar spot. Why do I do the things I do? Why do I say the things I say? Do I really think that I can get away with these things? There is a lot going on right now, I don’t know where to start. It’s amazing how things go so well, for so long, then there are those times when you have a few trials here and there, then, there are times like these, where it seems as though nothing is going right, and everything is happening to your demise. I guess it doesn’t help reading the early chapters in the book of Job to find comfort, or maybe just the opposite is true. Maybe the afflictions of one whom God considered blameless and upright is just what I need to read about. Blameless and upright, yet suffered more affliction and chaos in his life than I care to mention.

I’m not crying that the world is out to get me, I’m not crying that God is punishing me for something, I’m crying that God has lost His mind in loving me in spite of my behavior.

It upsets me. Why? I don’t think I know. I don’t think I will ever know, but what I do know is that I am called to love in this same way! How can I love others like this, if I’m too upset that God loves me like this!? I sometimes think to myself, “God, why don’t You just let something bad happen to me. I deserve it! It would make me feel so much better to know that I was paid for me bad deeds.” Now, don’t get me wrong, I can never thank God enough for His grace and mercy on my life, but I am so used to sinful human nature that says an eye for an eye, that it throws me when Jesus says, “Come home to the feast I have prepared in your honor” instead of “Come here let me give you a taste of the pain you made me feel. “

This is where I am right now. I don’t think that I let my light shine as it should, and I know that I have compromised my faith in more than a few instances. I don’t know how I intend to live as Jesus lived, when I still get afraid to stand up for what I believe and know is right. I once heard a saying:

“When you compromise your beliefs, you compromise who you are, then you lose yourself.” I am only concerned about losing myself to Jesus, because in this I find gain, but if I continue to compromise my beliefs, I am afraid of where I could end up.

The Holy Spirit revealed to me a pattern in the first few chapters of the book of Daniel. “Your gift is the key to your reward, but even just knowing your gift puts you in satan’s crossfire.” Daniel was considered wise and had knowledge, and was given the gift of interpreting dreams and visions, but when the magicians couldn’t tell king Nebuchadnezzar his dream and interpret it, the king sent out an order to have all the wise men killed, which included Daniel.

Daniel could have died because of his gift.

Many wise men died, but Daniel and many others didn’t die, but only after he interpreted the king’s dream-putting his gift into action. I am now convinced that with great knowledge comes great power, but also an even greater responsibility. I have to be aware. I have to protect God’s gift of salvation to me, but more importantly, like Daniel, I have to be ready to use my gift (of salvation) not only to preserve my faith, but the faith of my brothers and sisters, as the world, no matter how unfair it seems, tend to judge all based on the actions of one.

I have a Standard to hold up. Merely having it will make my place in this world seem like an inconvenience. More times than not I may suffer loneliness, face betrayal, and question my own reason for being. Sounds unpopular, but Jesus counted this very cost, and nonetheless became the Standard-for me and you. How can I not do the same?