"But God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things- and the things that are not- to nullify the things that are, so that NO ONE may boast before HIM." 1 Corinthians 1:27-29
I thoroughly enjoy this passage of scripture because first of all it takes away all pressure to become something or someone that I am not while allowing God to fulfill His purposes in me. What wisdom I do have comes completely from the Lord and if any strength is found in me certainly does not come from myself either. I freely choose to boast in the Lord alone for these things and stand before Him weak and foolish to be used for His glory and power. There are times that I feel utterly inadequate for the purpose He has set out before me, and those times increasingly grow as I learn that I can do nothing on my own. And when I feel overwhelmed with an increase in wanting Him, I come before Him hopeless in myself to attain any task set before me and cry out for His help and provision of strength. He graciously grants my prayer requests by giving me eyes to see my circumstance the way He sees them and the wisdom that comes through His Spirit alone to understand or be sustained through them. The time for my husband and I to leave for overseas is drawing close, and I am running out of time to prepare myself for such a great task. There is always thoughts in my mind of different things I need to do or checklists to get done, but too quickly I find that just like many who do their last minute Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve, I feel that anxiousness of scrambling for those best buys the night before Christmas as well! The one thing I dread the most in the coming days though is having to say goodbye to my family. My weakness is greatly revealed in my goodbyes...simply because I do not know how to put in words my deeply mixed emotions. I have been asking the Lord to grace my family and myself for that time. My emotions go up and down, I get extremely excited for our departure towards our new home and at the same time I am very sad to leave behind my loving and supporting family. If I could have it my way I would take all of them with me, along with my beautiful cat Bell. Sometimes I ask myself why walking in fulfillment to a call, being completely obedient to His leading, demands our sacrifice... and as soon as I think that thought I am quickly reminded of how Christ made sacrifices for us to have a relationship with our Father in Heaven and then I too am willing to follow in His steps. "..because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors." For Him to bring us to salvation required that He give His life...how could I expect the lost to be saved if I also did not give my life to God and to them. I guess what I am saying is that everything in me compels me to go save a lost people and everything in me desires to be with my family at the same time, but I choose to obey a call as my first obligation and an obligation that I can not ignore. If I were to stay in the States I would be miserable knowing that someone needs to know about the Gospel and highly possible a hearing for the very first time. Some will think that my life choice in living overseas to reach a lost people is foolish and rightly so, but it's my choice to be foolish so that He will be glorified most in my life. "We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honoured, we are dishonoured!" 1 Corinthians 4:10 There will be those that will deny us the right to share our faith, humiliate us for trying, and persecute those that will choose to listen... all for His Glory...all for His Glory.. Amen.
