With All Your Heart

Preparing for Rain PART TWO. It is my intent to share my daily life as a word of testimony.
A short introduction would be : I and my daughter are in need . For more clarification of what our need/needs are you may want to read past blogs.

My words of encouragement today came from two stories in the Bible and one in the 20th century. Naomi and Ruth . Jonah. Miss E .

Miss E. told me of a story in her life. At the time I really wondered at her telling me it. The point seemed to be "that God does not always help. " Now I see it in a whole new light. The point is , "to obey God is more important than any other thing."

She was an Agape Land worker. Do you remember those "Bullfrogs and Butterflies" songs years ago ? Well , those people really had a zeal for doing God's will that I admire. ( There are things about every church movement that I could not admire, but why waste time on that ? )

It was made known unto this elderly saint that she was to move to another location. Now she was not only elderly but she suffered from a crippling arthritic condition so she needed help to pack. The way this saint lived her life was to do what ever God told her to do , and if she needed help she asked . She needed transportation to the new site , so she asked. It was worked out that a family was planning on taking a trip to her new location. They were leaving on a certain day and she could ride with them. Next she needed help to pack her belongings. Her hope was to take them to a bus station and have them shipped to her new destination.

Once again , she asked for help and two or three young people agreed to come and pack her belongings for her and take them to the bus station. On the designated day for them to come for some reason they did not. At the designated time for her ride to come , they did arrive.

She went with them.

She left all her stuff !

I know , maybe you are thinking that she hoped they would come later on and pack her stuff and send it. As I understood the story , she knew that wasn't going to happen. She left any way !

"But why ?" I said . "Because it was more important to me to do God's will ," was her reply.

Was she down in the dumps about losing her stuff ? I don't know. It seemed to me that she was just stating a fact. She now needed more stuff to replace her old stuff to live. What was constant was , whether she got the stuff to make her life comfortable or not , it was okay , she was going to do God's will regardless.

The other two Bible stories encouraged me today because in each one there were people who did God's will. One did what God wanted her to do but had less than a right spirit about it. One had a totally right attitude, ready to give up all to follow the true and living God. One wasn't going to do God's will , was kind of forced into it but still God was able to use him in a mighty way. It was his own attitude that made it not a joy for him.

Something else about Naomi's story stood out to me.
I think Naomi sensed that she had been chastised by God and did not like it. However, if He wanted her to go back to Bethlehem , well , okay she would go. I think she had decided more than just to go back and do God's will. I think she had decided that He would be her only God. The comfort of having two daughter in-laws she was willing to give up. Having someone love you is pretty comforting , being willing to give that up to do God's will says something about her character. Maybe suffering had produced the good character in her that we read of in Romans 5.

It wasn't until Ruth convinced her that her God would be her God also , and her only God. Then Naomi was willing to receive the comfort Ruth would bring her. She was willing to go it alone if need be , just somehow get back to where she belonged.

I have a love for the people around me , especially those who love me . Yet my God has got to be first . That simply means that I can not hang on to the comfort of getting along with people who love me , rather than do what I feel God wants me to do.
It is hard to do because I know they could be hurt .
They also enjoy the comfort of my love but unless they are like Ruth and willing to put God first in their lives , we will be taking separate roads at some point and time.

Now I have been speaking metaphorically but I also have a daughter who is arriving at the age to be on her own. Just because she moves to a separate dwelling than I, doesn't necessarily mean that she has chosen not to put God first. It may be that for God to be first in her life , she needs to be on her own.

Metaphorically I travel along the road of those whose desire is to worship God and serve Him only. I can be useful there as an encourager and builder up of the body of Christ. If they are not on that road I can let the light of the glory of Christ shine through me and hope they will desire to leave all behind. It is worth the cost, as we who live under the blood of the Lamb , and give a word of testimony and are learning to love not our lives even unto death, know.