“Calling”

Carolyn

Have you noticed lately all the articles online, conferences, and books being published on the subject of “calling” for women?

I ran across an article on my Facebook news feed a month or so ago about this subject of calling. One click leads to another, and I then found the conference where this talk had originally been delivered.

Before I knew it, I was reading all sorts of blogs and online discussions, seeing other conferences taking shape around similar topics, and I found myself wanting to engage with these ideas to better understand what was being said. Over the Christmas break, I read several books, including a couple of memoirs, and I am now reading a Bible study on purpose and calling.

I suppose in my small corner of the internet, I want to add my own reflections to this conversation as I digest much of this material in what seems be a movement among Christian women. Over the next several days, I’ll be posting on this subject of “calling.”

A New Year’s Resolution

Carolyn

The new year. A time to begin again. New hopes, new goals, new plans.

Yesterday, I turned the last page and closed the book it took me a year to read. The Bible.

I used the NIV One Year Chronological Bible. It was the first time I had ever read the Bible in a year, the completion of a goal I set for 2013. It was a blessing to see the full scope of God’s Word, how it all ties together. I encourage anyone to do this and take time to see what God has spoken to us through the Bible.

For those of us craving to hear from God, this is the place we find Him speaking. It’s worth the time to daily read, reflect, and pray.

I could come up with a whole list of goals and resolutions for 2014 (i.e., exercise, eat right, limit distractions such as social media, etc.). Perhaps like last year, though, I should pick one main thing and find joy at year’s end when it’s achieved. Instead of many resolutions that end up broken, I name one that is attainable and that can produce growth through that one action. And then commit it to the Lord, asking for His strength to do it, dedicating the new year to Him.

What are you resolving to do this year?

The Patience of God

Carolyn

My high school friend Terri hosts an Advent reflection group on Facebook each year, and she asked me to write something for one of the days. This was what I submitted.

In this season of Advent, we wait with expectation for the coming of Christ at Christmas. We reflect again on his coming to earth in the form of a baby to live life as a man (fully God, fully man), die for our sins, and be raised again. During Advent, we prepare our hearts to make room for Christ (“Let every heart prepare him room” as Isaac Watts penned in “Joy to the World”). We turn away from the things – even good things – that would draw us away from Christ in this season, and we focus on Him. We ponder the true Gift Giver, God Himself, and the gift of salvation (and much more!) that is ours in Christ.

We also remember that there is a second coming of Christ, one to come, and we consider how we are preparing for that coming. (“Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps lit.” Luke 12:35)

We wait. We wait for our King’s arrival! We wait for His return!

In this season of our waiting, I began to reflect on a God who waits. Is there evidence in Scripture that God waits for us?

Look at these verses:

“Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you….” (Isaiah 30:18)

“Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4)

“…God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared,…” (1 Peter 3:20)

“The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

“And count the patience of our Lord as salvation…” (2 Peter 3:15)

christmas oldMy husband and I are part of a couples’ “small group” in our church. We meet every month, rotating homes, to fellowship and study the Bible together. Several years ago, while we were at our small group in a time of animated discussion, I was listening to everyone share and fully engaged in the conversation. While we were talking about whatever our study was that week, several words flew across my mind, interrupting my thoughts: “I waited for you.”

It’s hard to explain as this kind of thing has only happened a couple of times in my life and perhaps it sounds odd. But while my attention had been fully focused elsewhere, not trying to imagine something God might say, those words cut right through the conversation and spoke (though not audibly) to my heart: “I waited for you.”

I remembered that when I was a little girl, there was a verse in the Bible that said something about God being patient so that many would come to salvation as He did not want people to perish. And in my young mind, I had wondered about that, thinking, “Yes, Lord, but the longer you wait, the more people are born, and so the more people are probably actually going to be lost because there are so many more people!”

After our small group, my husband went out to the movies with the guys, and I went home and got down on the floor with my Bible and prayed, asking God about this. “Where is that verse?” “And are you speaking about that verse to me?”

As I prayed and flipped through my Bible, I found the verse in 2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”  (2 Peter 3:9)

face to faceI asked the Lord if He would keep showing me this verse and teaching me through it if this was truly from Him. Three days of that next week, God brought me this verse through various devotionals and books. One had come in the mail that week from a conference I had attended, and the devotional was about 2 Peter 3:9. I also occasionally work through the book Face to Face (it guides your prayer with Scripture), and 2 Peter 3:9 was listed as one of the verses for the day. Then there was a third source, as well, another day. All three unseen beforehand, placed and timed perfectly that week to show me this truth.

The thought was quite powerful. God had waited for me. Before I had believed Christ and trusted Him with my life and for the forgiveness of my sins, He had been waiting for me. Once it became personal, I suddenly threw out all of the mental mathematical work on that verse that I had done as a child! God had waited for me. I ponder each of those words. Our God, the Creator of the universe, the Savior of the world – waiting – for me, small though I am, sinful, unworthy, yet even for me, He waited.

Do you know this King that is coming? The One who has come and will come again? Can you imagine that He might be waiting for you? If you haven’t trusted Jesus for your sins, why not do so this very day, this Christmas season, and experience a rebirth even as we celebrate His birth.

The Bible tells us that if we confess with our mouths the Lord Jesus and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved (Romans 10:9-10). I pray you know this Jesus as your Savior and Lord, and the abundant, eternal life He wants you to have. And may we celebrate with joy a God who is so personal, who loves us so dearly, that He would send His Son into our brokenness and sin to suffer in our place so that we might know His righteousness and be reconciled to God. What a gift! What a Savior! What a King! Praise the Lord!

Happy Thanksgiving

Carolyn

It’s been a quieter Thanksgiving. We were in Florida for a family wedding two weekends ago, and my sister and her kids came back through for an eight-day visit. We enjoyed being with them; it’s far too infrequent. They left on Tuesday, and after a busy last couple of weeks, we had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving with my mom. We went to church last night for the annual Thanksgiving Eve service, and that’s always a favorite service during the year to be encouraged by testimony of God’s faithfulness in many lives.

There are so many things to be thankful for on this day and every day. We are told in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

A week ago today my son and I were involved in a car wreck. While waiting at a red light, on a dark and rainy evening, two cars had a wreck in the intersection, each trying to beat a yellow light, one turning, and once they collided, the wreck came flying into our sitting car. I had my son and his friend in the car, coming home from his driver’s ed class, of all places! I have no doubt we were intended to be right in that place, right at that time, for that very moment.

I had just been praising the Lord that morning for such a fun time in Florida with my extended family and for the many good gifts from his hand. And I was wondering would I respond with praise when things aren’t as good. Would I love Him and recognize His goodness to me in all things. I’ve been reading through the gospels in my daily Bible readings and seeing how Jesus told his disciples to watch and pray that they might not fall into temptation. They needed to be prepared.

Before the wreck, unrelated to it, as we had headed to the intersection where we were waiting at the red light, a car had come speeding by us on the left, illegally, and raced past to turn in front of us. His cutting me off made me miss the previous light. As I sat at that intersection, the first car in line, waiting for the next green light, I wondered about how that car was on down the road in my place, and I was sitting in his place. I thought, wouldn’t that be weird if I find him down the road in a wreck and he ended up taking my wreck. But moments later, I was in a wreck, in his place.

Of course, I was right where God intended. And would I praise Him even in this? I do praise and thank the Lord for that. Could it be, in God’s good design, my son, who just took to the road today to drive for the first time, is now more sobered by the responsibility of driving, aware that we really aren’t in control, recognizing firsthand that cars can be really dangerous? This will definitely cause him to always wear his seat belt, if he ever wanted to be lazy about it!

But whether I can find good in it or not, I know it was for good purposes, and I know that God is good.

And I thank Him this Thanksgiving, among other things, for His protection over us. And I thank Him for our family and friends. Perhaps not being with many of them today reminds me all the more of what a gift they are. I thank Him for the many good gifts from His hand (James 1:17), and most of all, for His salvation. I thank Jesus for taking my sin, bearing my shame, suffering for me, taking my place, the punishment for sin that I deserved, and giving His life for me, so that I could live, and know Him, my Creator and Lord and King. He is good, and I praise and thank Him.