One of the things that had taken me long to accept and put on practice, is that the Lord has required from me –all this time, to sow my feelings in His presence even though this would mean to die every day, that’s exactly His point. He wants me to trust Him even though for me it seems that anyways it will not be of much use since I think for me is too late. But He expects from me to listen to Him and obey.
I’ve heard so many messages about sowing and reaping, and never quite understood what i understand now! What other teachers and pastors would teach is that if you sow you will reap more that what you sow and i think that most of the ‘prosperity theology’ nowadays based itself in this verse that doesn’t really mean that you will have more.
For me it’s not about quantity, it speaks about quality. So when you sow, the seeds have to fall underground, then you cover them as burying them, and then they die, they must die so something will start growing from it, that’s the way the Lord designed it to be, that is what also the Lord Jesus came to do here on earth, and He is the one who sowed the good seed in the earth, in our hearts, but as he had to die, and we are called to follow His steps, we must also die to our own desires, to our own flesh. Then when we die, his life starts growing in us and it’s more wonderful than what we were before.
This is the process, i believe, that each one of us has to go through, also with our desires, like i was sharing with you before about finally accepting what God required from me in regards to my emotions and desires. He knows me, and knows how i feel, and He wants to fulfil His will in my life. Sometimes i will have a clear answer, and sometimes i won’t, but the response that the Lord wants is ‘Wait in Me’. No matter how long, no matter if that waiting comes with disappointments or disillusions, i must wait. I will certainly still feel, and that will be my strongest struggle; if the feelings are still there, it doesn’t mean i’m failing in trusting the Lord. I fail when i respond to them and try to do things in my own strength.
This is so true in this area and in every area of our life. We will be tempted to act against the will of God, but we have the promise that if we resist the devil and his temptations, he will flee from us, and the Lord will be our strength. Our struggles are God’s call: ‘Come to me’ –says Elizabeth Elliot in her book Quest for Love, and it's so true. The Lord wants to love us, He never called us to look for the things in this world that we wanted, to search satisfactions and pursue our dreams, but to seek Him, to become like Him following His steps, and His steps are far away from this world of lust and pleasure of the flesh. So once more i want to pledge my life to Him, my feelings and desires, acknowledging that my time and seasons are in His hands and that i don't want anything in my life out of His will.
May the Lord give to us His strength to endure temptation to fall from His will and embrace ours. Lord help us to follow you and seek you every day.
I want to share with you some excerpts from Elizabeth Elliot’s book, Quest for Love, which has been of great blessing in my life. I encourage you to read it!
· If I set myself to pursue the wise and loving and holy will of my Heavenly Father, i’ll find that happiness comes –quietly, in unexpected ways, and, surprisingly often, as the by-product of sacrifice.
· Desire for marriage tests deeply my understanding of the cross. The cross of Christ means sacrifice.
· Helpful principle to remember in times of distress:
'I was bought by a price. I do not belong to myself. I don’t have to listen to my emotional cries, my offended ego. I cannot do anything to keep my ego from bleeding, but I can ignore it and follow Christ.'
· It is on God that we should wait, as a waiter ‘waits’ –not for but on the customer, alert, watchful, attentive, with no agenda of his own, ready to do whatever is wanted.
· One of the signs of the end times is that the people will be lovers of themselves without self-control.
· Honor the Lord with your body. (I Corinthians 6:9-20). Until Jesus Christ is Lord of the sex life He is not Lord of one’s life.
· “We instructed you to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honourable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God.”
(I Thessalonians 4: 1-5)
· “I wish Thy way
But when in me myself would rise
And long for something otherwise,
Then, Holy One, take sword and spear
And slay.”
(stanza of a poem by Amy Carmichael)
· “Because the Sovereign LORD helps me,
I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set
my face like flint, and I will not be put to shame.”
(Isaiah 50:7)
· “Those who sow in tears
Will reap with songs of joy.”
(Psalm 126:5)
· The surrender of the heart’s deepest longing is perhaps as close as we come to an understanding of the cross.
· When we have committed desire to Christ the desire does not necessarily fade, but it no longer dominates. Commitment is a deliberated conveying to another, the control of that desire.
· We need the lessons loneliness brings. It is good for us, for that hidden sanctification. (Also applied to the feelings of wrestling, impatience).
· The longing for human love is powerful, but there is a more powerful one. It is for God, although few identify it correctly until they have tried many other springs.
“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
(Jeremiah 2:13)
· ‘I fight on the front lines of desire and longings... I pull myself away, with the head lowered and heart aching for the power to believe –that in giving up all of these games, I will not lose a step (as HE withholds no good thing).’
· ‘We both know that seeking to save one’s own life is the very thing Jesus warned us not to do. Christ has never told us to seek what we want; He has told us to seek only Himself! I’m finding that this war will rage, I suspect, until my dying day, but I hold onto hope that it brings me nearer, dearer, closer to Him.’
· Offer up your feelings to the Lord, put them in the altar. Lift up your heart. Trust that God took seriously your offering and rest in the knowledge that nothing but trust is required of you at this moment.
· One cannot always control feelings, but one can choose not to walk into temptation.
