Will I ever stop putting my identity in things other than Christ? It feels like a battle that cannot be won. (Remember this post? And this one?)
We’ve been studying the story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42) this week. In reading over it last week before church, I could see myself so clearly in Martha. Joel’s sermon only confirmed it. You see, Mary was content to sit at Jesus’ feet. She was content to SIT and listen to his Words. Martha was not satisfied to just be in Jesus’ presence. She needed to be DOING something for him. But, I don’t think it was for HIM. I think it was for HER. I know because she is ME.
This battle for me lies mostly in my ministry to the boys at the home in Puerto Alegria. I so desire for my time with them to be an overflow of love for Jesus. That I would be so fixed on Him, that it would just spill out onto them. But, frankly, it just isn’t. My time with them is mostly an overflow of love for THEM. This seems good, at first. But then, it rears it’s ugly head when they don’t love ME back. When they don’t respond to ME in the way that I want them to. Then the awful realization dawns on me: I have made THEM my object of worship, not HIM. It’s not for Christ and His glory at all, it’s for me and my own satisfaction. If it were unto the Lord, and not unto THEM, then it wouldn’t matter so much to me how they respond to me, because it is unto HIM.
Then, perhaps, I wouldn’t come back from Peru so completely depressed and down and out because I feel I have left my purpose right there on the banks of the Itaya River. You see, my purpose is Christ. My ministry is knowing and loving Christ, wherever I am.
“Wretched [woman] that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24)
Oriel, who "loves" me and always responds in the way I "need" him to.
Hox, who can be so tender, (like in this picture) yet at times can utter words that, if you don't have the right perspective, will cut you down to the core. (PS--He's also the "cameraman" in the last video post)
