From a reading in one of my quiet times ...
Would they say God is your Master? Father? Business Partner? Coach? Santa Clause? Other?
I have been looking more closely at my life as a wife, a mother, a servant of God and I do not like what I am seeing. The longer I look the more SELFISHNESS I see. I am afraid I have been an ordinary wife, an ordinary mother and an ordinary servant of God. It is easy to be ordinary...Encarta.com defines ordinary as being
Yelp...that's me...just getting by as a mother and wife. My energy is sucked out of me at the end of my work day and I am literally on empty and not able to meet their needs. My tolerance is worn thin with such little things it seems. I feel so selfish when I think back to a nothing kind of evening and what I should have been doing with the ones I love the most.
Spiritually I feel unremarkable. Daily I spend time with God in the early morning hours and I call on Him throughout my day...but nothing above and beyond is happening. I mean seriously, all these long drives to meet my parents at their home to go to the Dr's office with them and not a word from God in those times of silence. He has had the perfect opportunity to speak to me-literally-but all I seem to get these days is silence. I feel selfish when my mind can not focus on Him but instead jumps to everything else surrounding my life. I miss ministry, I miss belonging to a church family, I miss being involved.
So whats a selfish mid-life women to do? I guess I need to turn this ordinary around and become extraordinary by God's grace by a purifying of my heart and mind. I have to believe it can happen! My husband says I'm my worst critic but selfishness is a pretty ugly thing and not a characteristic found in the extraordinary woman. I pray that as I enter into this new day, into this new week, that I know in myself I will only be ordinary, and in Christ I can become extraordinary!! To be extraordinary Encarta defines us as:
"unusually excellent and deserving attention and comment because of being wonderful, strange, or shocking; additional and having a special purpose; employed for a special purpose or to do additional work; additional to and going beyond the ordinary or established scope of something."
I want to be all these things..wonderful, excellent, having a special purpose, greater, going beyond, even shocking...for God and for my family. I want others to see Christ in me, to see Him for all the things He has become...but primarily to see Him as my Master.
So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. ~Rom 12:1-2 (The Message)
What would others say about you and your relationship with God?????His Maidservant~Pamela
4 comments:
Pamela,
This is GREAT - not just ordinary but anointed. I loved your honesty and your heart. I identified! I feel so ordinary in my season too. I think we women are great candidates for burnout, and this causes us to feel a certain amount of 'selfishness'. But the desire to be extraordinary - for God- is always a deep heart cry of my mere existence. We can't be extraordinary for God with out the power of the Holy Spirit active in our lives. This means living life 'intentionally' - for God. Mindful of His precepts - open to His voice - and watch expectantly for His lead - His daily instruction.
Being Mindful, is more doable if I do spend the few sacred hours of my morning in scripture reading and prayer with my Lord. I'm much more prepared to handle the day ahead.
The moment I get dad up - my day is given over to his needs - I don't reclaim my needs until 10 hours later. And yet, I feel selfish in addressing my 'needs'. We are our own worsst critic - but I thinbk our 'selfishness' feeling comes from the other overbearing feeling - of 'burnout'. I try to DO too much. There isn't always peace in doing. The key is to find that extraordinary moment that feeds your soul from head to toe - and prepares you for the moments that the Lord walks you through - each day. It's like fuel for our cars - food for our bodies. Time with the Lord in His word and prayer, is fuel for our souls! We can't be extraordinary with out God's spiritual fuel poured into our souls - each and everyday.
I appreciate your desires. God desires more of you and me - with Him. I crave MORE time with the Lord in my secret place. More hours - uninterrupted hours with Him. In my 'giving' season - I cannot survive much longer without MORE of HIM.
I think the Lord is drawing us women into an extraordinary position to become instruments of His GRACE in these trying days ahead. He's drawing you and me to this something MORE - for His purpose. Not that we haven't already been good at our ordinary life. But He is shifting things - and we must come up to more of HIM - the extraordinary gifts of God in and through us are going to shine - at His appointed time. Prepare for it. It is coming.
It feels good to commune with you on this level of ordinary - I'm believing for extraordinary!
Moving higher - with you, friend! It is a good thing. I look forwardd to hearing MORE from you.
God bless you on the climb.
Patrina <")>><
I agree so much. I think we as women try to do so much that we only have the energy to be ordinary in each thing. However, I believe if we will truly seek God and His call in our life and ministry and do only those things that He sets before us then we will be extra-ordinary in all that we do.
Blessings,
Sherri
Your honesty and transparency pours forth...thank you for sharing and encouraging and causing us all to think...
Said a prayer for you with love.
Glad I was able to stop by and visit.
Hello Pamela! I came over from Elaine's place and appreciate this post. I believe selfishness lives in all of us; it's our natural state. But by God's supernatural power, we are transformed by grace, be it ever so slowly!
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