Laurie's Ant and God's Shoe

This is part of a worship that one of my deans gave in the girls dorm. It really touched me, so I thought I would share it.

 

I (Laurie) was sitting on a rock out by Seton Lake and there was a little ant crawling on the ground by the rock. The little ant was carrying a leaf about twice her size and was obviously struggling. As I watched her pull and tug and drag the leaf through the dirt I wanted to help her. “Little ant,” I said, “little ant, can I help you? I can take your load. I’m really big and it would be easy for me to carry it for you. See, here’s my hand. I could even pick you up and carry you where you want to go.” But the little ant just kept pulling and tugging and dragging her leaf through the dirt, she didn’t even pause to look up. 

I continued to watch her stumble along until she reached my shoe. If an ant has ever sighed with discouragement, this one did.  My shoe was yet another impossible obstacle in her path.  Again I tried to offer her assistance, but she didn’t notice. She was too occupied with her great big burden.

Many times I am carrying a big burden: my past, my sins, my sorrows. I struggle through this dirty world trying to carry something twice my size. It is heavy, and I stumble and trip and fall. It is hard. Yet all the while God is calling to me, “Little child! Little child, can I help you? I can take your load. I’m really big and it would be easy for me to carry it for you. See, here’s my hand. I could even pick you up and carry you where you want to go.” Sadly, I often am too busy trying to carry my load on my own to notice Him trying to help me.  Many times I come to something huge and think it is just another discouraging obstacle when really it is God’s shoe. If I were to just raise my eyes I would see God smiling down at me and offering me His hand.

“ Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-31 KJV)

Senior Mission Trip!

Hi all!
Right now it is 11:40 am. At noon I'll have lunch, at 1:00pm I'll load the bus, at 11:50pm I'll board a plane that will take me from Seattle to Houston, and tomorrow I'll fly to Honduras. W00T!
My class and I are going to be building school buildings, putting on a Week of Prayer, running a music clinic, and working at an orphanage for the next 2 1/2 weeks. I can't believe it. I've seen other senior classes do the mission thing, but now it's my turn. May the Lord keep us safe, smart, and surrendered. Thanks so much to all who have helped make this trip possible. From class officers to donors, may the Lord bless you as we share the love of God with the people in Honduras.
Honduras, here I come!
Katie ; )
P.S. I'm not bringing my computer to Honduras, so the likelihood of me posting on here for the next couple weeks is about zilch. ttyl (when I get back)

Psalm 39

I said, “I will guard my ways,
Lest I sin with my tongue;
I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle,
While the wicked are before me.”
² I was mute with silence,
I held my peace even from good;
And my sorrow was stirred up.
³ My heart was hot within me;
While I was musing, the fire burned.
Then I spoke with my tongue:

⁴ “Lord, make me to know my end,
And what is the measure of my days,
That I may know how frail I am.
⁵ Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths,
And my age is as nothing before You;
Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor. Selah
⁶ Surely every man walks about like a shadow;
Surely they busy themselves in vain;
He heaps up riches,
And does not know who will gather them.

⁷ “And now, Lord, what do I wait for?
My hope is in You.
⁸ Deliver me from all my transgressions;
Do not make me the reproach of the foolish.
⁹ I was mute, I did not open my mouth,
Because it was You who did it.
¹⁰ Remove Your plague from me;
I am consumed by the blow of Your hand.
¹¹ When with rebukes You correct man for iniquity,
You make his beauty melt away like a moth;
Surely every man is vapor. Selah

¹² “Hear my prayer, O Lord,
And give ear to my cry;
Do not be silent at my tears;
For I am a stranger with You,
A sojourner, as all my fathers were.
¹³ Remove Your gaze from me, that I may regain strength,
Before I go away and am no more.”

Friends...

Just some random quotes that made me think....

It is important to our friends to believe that we are unreservedly frank with them, and important to friendship that we are not.
Mignon McLaughlin

Fear makes strangers of people who would be friends.
Shirley MacLaine

If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.
George MacDonald

There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.
Thomas Aquinas

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.
Thomas Jefferson

Saying and Doing

“But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went. Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go (Matt 21:28-30).”

Often times I find myself acting like the second son in this parable. Continually I tell the Lord how much I love Him and want to serve Him, and yet I never actually do anything for Him. In my heart I sincerely believe that I am doing what God wants, but in reality, I am simply living my life my way and talking about living it God’s way. The second son in the parable tried to make it look like he was faithful and obedient; but time proved that his profession was not real. The only love he showed his father was in his words, and he really didn’t mean them. God has called me to be a co-worker with Him in blessing the world; but no matter how many times I tell Him “I’ll go where you want me to go,” or, ”Here I am Lord,” I am still being disobedient if my actions don’t match my words.

The problem behind this isn’t that I don’t love God at all, or that I don’t want to do what’s right, on the contrary, I think I love God very much, and doing what is right is important to me. The problem is that in my actions, I love myself more than I love God. When doing what God wants makes sense to me, I gladly fulfill His requirements, but when the path God chooses looks rough, hard, or unnecessary in my human eyes, I trust my own, easier rout rather than the straight and narrow. At first I may recognize this failure to trust God’s leading as what it is - sin - but with time, the lines that divide my reasoning from God’s commands get blurred, and choosing my way above God’s way no longer looks bad. It becomes a habit. I may hear God’s voice and see His leading, but my ability to recognize and obey His Spirit is dulled.

No longer do I see my self-righteousness as filthy rags, and I no longer feel a need for Christ’s righteousness to cover me. I think I’m doing what’s right. I claim to follow Christ, but I don’t have the love of God in my heart that would cause my actions to reflect my words. I become content with only saying, “I go, sir.” Idly watching other workers for Christ, I claim to support them as a fellow child of God, but through my life and character I deny that relationship. My life is a lie.

Sitting around and making sure that I don’t do anything bad is not serving God. Unless I am actively serving Him, I am working against Him. Unless I am part of the solution, I am part of the problem. When I fail to do the work God has appointed, not only am I counteracting my own salvation, I am allowing souls that I could have won to Christ drift into the grasp of Satan.

Christ does not want us to take this downward path. He calls us to "Go work today in My vineyard." He tells us how to care for the garden of our mind, to grow a character that is more than words. “By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love (2 Peter 1:4-7).” Work today in His vineyard. Cultivate your relationship with your Father. Teach others to do the Lord’s work, and in the end, when we bring in the harvest, you will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant…enter thou into the joy of thy Lord (Matt. 25:23).”

Morning Devotions...Weekly Reflections

And so I insist—and God backs me up on this—that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd. They've refused for so long to deal with God that they've lost touch not only with God but with reality itself. They can't think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in lustful obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.

But that's no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It's rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.

What this adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretenses. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ's body we're all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.

Go ahead and be righteously angry. You do well to be angry—but don't use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don't stay angry. Don't go to bed angry. Don't give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life.

Did you use to make ends meet by stealing? Well, no more! Get an honest job so that you can help others who can't work.

Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.

Don't grieve God. Don't break his heart. His Holy Spirit, moving and breathing in you, is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for Himself. Don't take such a gift for granted.

Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.

Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. All God does is love you. Keep company with Him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of Himself to us. Love like that.

- Ephesians 4:17 – 5:1 (The Message, edited by Katie A)

This passage really touched me this morning. It stems from and sums up a lot of the concepts that we learned and studied in this last week. Pastor Nathan Renner and his family were visiting here at Fountainview while Pastor Renner lead our week of prayer. His simple, biblical worships were refreshing, and I learned a lot from his approach of the writings of Paul. What impacted me the most, however, was the Christ-like example of the Renner family as a whole. Listening to an evangelist preach his heart out is generally edifying and often even inspiring, but when you find an evangelist who not only lives what he says but whose family also believes and lives what he preaches, that is eternally beautiful. I saw this beauty in the Renner family; in the attentiveness of the children as they listened to their daddy speak, in the support and cheerfulness of a mother whose life was obviously dedicated to the ministry of her husband and the destiny of her children, and in the care and leadership of a father who recognized his primary calling to his family as priority over his secondary calling to ministry.

How do they do it? How have they succeed in reflecting Jesus where so many others fall pitifully below the standard? All the loveliness that was shown to me through the Renner family is because of God's work in their lives, because they have followed the advise of Paul in Ephesians 5:1, "Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. All God does is love you. Keep company with Him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of Himself to us. Love like that." May His love be the signature of my life as well.

To Amaris

In a glance we’ve connected –

Kindred spirits and joint minds.

No words are said or needed –

A telepathy that binds.

Heart to heart we share struggles,

Holding close we empathize.

Schoolwork, family, stress, troubles,

Yet each trial closer ties.

Both can say, “I’ve got your back.”

We look out for each other.

One makes up the other’s lack,

Life would be death without her.

Homework, hiking, music, more,

We each other motivate.

Mountains high we will explore,

Adventures we will create.

Our lives grow on, intertwined,

Together we walk life’s trail.

It’s good she can read my mind,

Too much to say, my words fail.

I’ll love you always, my friend,

I’ll come whenever you call,

Together until the end,

I’ll help you up when you fall.

Thank you for being my friend.