There is much I am pondering on this “Black Friday”…busiest shopping day of the year. I have always been one to rise while it is still dark, list in hand, the thrill of hitting the stores early to get all the best “stuff”. Strange adrenalin surging through my body, propelling me, driving me…feeling the thrill of power shopping as if I were accomplishing some great and wonderful feat!
Then a few years ago, God’s Spirit took us into a new direction. A strange, uncharted and fiercely unpopular direction…into Simplicity.
In the slowing and in the quiet, He worked on the inner chambers of our hearts, bringing freedom where certain bondage of busyness had reigned supreme. What He revealed there in the darkest recesses of our souls was nauseatingly painful.
As He began to touch and refashion even our most basic traditions and celebrations, I found myself struggling against Him…until somewhere along the way, freedom came and I began to release my grip on those holiday traditions that I had held so dear…and began to see it all through His eyes.
Only this year have my eyes begun to truly see though, to turn from “us”, from this little family, and our celebrations, our needs, our memories…as He has begun to turn my gaze outward.
Being raised in church, I have always known of missions and ministry. And yet, it has almost been as though I have become so accustomed to hearing it, that it had a vaccine type effect on my heart. Put into a “world need” compartment that really didn’t touch me or my family…except for the check written from time to time, or a bit of money dropped into an offering bucket. Then going on with my life, never giving it much more thought.
And yet, as my gaze is being shifted, and focused outwardly…it is reaching beyond these walls, these lives, and it is beginning to rest on a world outside my own; I am humbled.
I am compelled from an inner place to pour out my life. This cup of mine that gets filled in the quiet hours of the morning, in busy days of homeschooling my children and tending to my home, I am filled. Blessed beyond measure, and yet feeding on that blessing almost as sustenance, instead of seeing those blessings as something to be poured out into the lives of others. Poured into the lives of my children…sure. Into the life of my husband…without a doubt. But what of the small child in Africa that waits to die, while a vulture waits quietly in his shadow. What of him?
The quiet words of Jesus speak to my Spirit in this early hour…as He divides the sheep from the goats and then addresses the sheep on His right….
“…Come you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom
prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave
me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a
stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick
and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me….I tell you
the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you
did for me.” Matthew 25:34-40
Oh how I long to inherit the kingdom, to lay hold of the inheritance that was prepared for me since the creation of the world. And I pray that my heart would break wide open for the least of these. That God’s Spirit would consume me with His compassion…
I ask the hard questions to my own self this morning…am I His sheep? Or will I be one of the shocked ones…thinking myself righteous and true…only to find out that I was really... a goat?
I humbly insert this link to Advent Conspiracy, praying that it will impact those of you reading these words as deeply as it has our family.
I am grateful to Ann’s beautiful blog, and for introducing me to Advent Conspiracy as well as the wonderful ministries and easy to use catalogs that allow our family to pour out our blessings this year in a simple and inspired way.
