I often wonder how some people live without believing in
God. Where is their hope? Do they have none?
There are many examples in the bible that speak of the
difficulties in following Jesus or believing in Him. Trials.
Do I leave my life, my work to become an apostle? Do I claim Him when I am questioned in an
angry crowd? Even when He performs
miracles, do I fail to credit Him as the son of God?
On many occasions, I have pondered if were I there, would I have
been one of those that would have dropped everything to follow Him. Would I have sit to listen to His teachings,
or would I have been among the crowd calling for His crucifixion? Many a Good Friday I have wept because I fear
I would have been among the non-believers or worse, those believers too afraid
to admit it. I’ve been fearful and
ashamed that I would likely have lied about my belief to save myself while He
was going to His death for that very sin among my many others. No doubt, being a Christian when He was in
the flesh would have been so very hard.
Sometimes I wish my faith had been tested in those days, so I would know
if I was good enough to have made the right choices. (Don’t worry I’ll get back to that).
I guess following Christ now is hard too. I mean, we can declare ourselves Christians, go
to church, wear a cross around our neck, slap a Jesus fish on the back of our
cars and call it a day. But that’s not
really following, is it? No, I’m not
afraid to say I believe in God. I’m not
scared to wear the t-shirt or ask for vacation time to attend a Christian women’s
event. I’m not even shy about asking
people about their prayer life. While
that is not where I was 20 years ago, it’s not exactly following Him either.
I believe we are all called by God. He has equipped each of us with a set of
gifts, unique to us, that are necessary for our very individualized
calling. Some people are called to do
great big things and some of us are called to do very simple things. I don’t need to know if mine is one or the
other, but all of the calls are important and necessary. Now, I suppose not everyone hears the call or
maybe some don’t realize that the ‘noise’ they hear is actually the phone
ringing. But just because we’ve turned
our ringer off, it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve got messages piling up –
ya know? The hard part is stepping out
onto the water. I certainly don’t
understand the reason for my calling, so it takes faith and trust in someone I’ve
never seen or touched before. Talk about
hard. Sometimes I don’t even know if I’m
moving clumsily in the right direction, but I want so much to trust Him so I
trudge on. Oh, and I pray- a lot. Every day in conversation, I ask if I’m doing
this right. Are you sure? Just this?
Trust me, I’m like a new hire on the first day – every day. (Yes, He’s also demonstrating what patience
is supposed to look like just dealing with me every day! LOL)
So you get the call, then what? My ‘thing’ is not difficult for me, after all
it is something I’ve been equipped to do – so it’s right up my alley. The hard part isn’t doing what I’ve been
called to do, it’s everything else:
1.
That’s
it? Realizing I’m but a tiny fish in
a great big sea sure puts things in perspective, thank you. I’m an extrovert. I like a challenge. I tell stories and like to reveal the
punchline in a grand finale.
Understanding that my role is so simple is a gut check, one that is
remarkably necessary for me to give the props to my Creator and not attribute
them to myself.
2.
Time. I’m a working mom (I know, redundant). That means I’ve always got a list of stuff to
get done. Making time to visit with God
every day, read The Gospel, meditate on what I’ve read is hard. Then trying to relate my experience with
something worthy and entertaining? I really
need to rely on God to flow through, I’m just a vessel. This is actually very therapeutic, but
carving out the time is still a challenge.
3.
Acceptance. Each time I answer my call, I learn
something. It’s not always pretty. Accepting that new information and applying it
to my life is hard. Who wants to wake up
and realize you’ve been doing something wrong and you need to change? What about not knowing if it’s working? If you paint a picture and sell it on the
street, you know if it touched someone.
Accepting that you may never know if your works have reached someone or
brought someone to a relationship with God… for me, that’s hard. But again it’s about trust and faith in
someone other than myself.
4.
Knowing. Perhaps this is the most difficult for
me. But knowing, and I mean really
knowing, God decided before I was ever formed in my mother’s belly that I was
good enough for Him is hard. Not the
belly part, I mean I was a baby – innocent.
But now, grown up me with years and years of sin under her belt and
later, the old lady me with more sin than I’d care to look forward to having
racked up. He decided long before I was
conceived that I, with all the sin I would ever pack into my carry-on luggage,
was good enough. I’ve done things,
thought things that no human may ever know about – but He does. And still, He’s claimed me? It’s hard to know that. What if I could love, forgive like that? Knowing I don’t have that capacity today,
yeah that’s hard too.
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