Not to fix, but to be faithful

God has not called me to fix things (my life, or my child), but to be faithful.
We must preach, but only He can save.
We plant and water, but He must make it grow.

Only He can fix the brokenness in my life.  The means He uses might well be my faithfulness in it, but the results are His domain, not mine.

I will always be discouraged if I am feeling responsibility for that which only God can do.

"What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth." (1Corinthians 3:5-7)

Help for the discouraged

Psalm 77 (excerpt)

    In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord;
        in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying;
        my soul refuses to be comforted...
    You hold my eyelids open;
        I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
    I consider the days of old,
        the years long ago...
        Then my spirit made a diligent search:
    “Will the Lord spurn forever,
        and never again be favorable?
    Has his steadfast love forever ceased?
        Are his promises at an end for all time?
    Has God forgotten to be gracious?
        Has he in anger shut up his compassion?”...
    I will remember the deeds of the LORD;
        yes, I will remember your wonders of old.
    I will ponder all your work,
        and meditate on your mighty deeds.
    Your way, O God, is holy.
        What god is great like our God?
    You are the God who works wonders;
        you have made known your might among the peoples.
    You with your arm redeemed your people,
        the children of Jacob and Joseph...
    The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind;
        your lightnings lighted up the world;
        the earth trembled and shook.
    Your way was through the sea,
        your path through the great waters;
        yet your footprints were unseen.
    You led your people like a flock
        by the hand of Moses and Aaron.


Here is someone in trials. They are troubled.  They seek God but do not see him answer.  They have prayed and prayed, but nothing seems to change.  They question whether perhaps for them, in their situation, God no longer is gracious, loving, or compassionate. God's promises do not apply to them here.

Their answer is
- to remember the LORD's character.  To ask the question is to answer it: if my God is God, he cannot cease to be who He is: loving, gracious, compassionate, faithful to His promises.

- to remember the LORD's deeds and wonders in the past.  His deeds remind the psalmist of God's holiness and might. Of His control over nature and weather.  Of His redeeming of an unworthy people and His dealings with them through the years in grace and mercy.  And of the fact that God's ways often cannot be detected; His "footprints were unseen".  Yet He is acting, even if we cannot see it or do not understand.

This is our answer in despair and depression: turn your mind to think about God's character.  If he has changed, then he is no longer God.  Therefore we can affirm that God is who He says He is, even if we do not feel it, even if our circumstances make us wonder. Our faith is not to rest on our feelings, but on the Word of God and who it reveals God to be.  God cannot change!  He will always be faithful and gracious to His people.

And we can focus our mind on what God has done in the past.  He is "the God who works wonders"! We can look at His faithfulness to people in the Bible, to His people in modern times, and to us personally.  We cannot discern the future, and sometimes in the present we do not see how God is working graciously.  But we can remember what He has done already, and be comforted that He has shown His faithfulness through many trials in the past.  He will prove faithful now and in the future as well!

Sorrow will turn to joy

For the Christian, God always designs your sorrow to end in joy - if not here, then in eternity!
Lk.1:5-25. (Zachariah and Elizabeth)

He carries me

Jesus carries me. It is not that I have done the right things to keep my head above water, but that he has had his arms under me. Not just "God helps me" but "without Me you can do nothing."

We are busy.
The older 3 children do schoolwork (yes, we are still homeschooling).
David works from home (no, he did not end up getting a new job earlier this year).
We have a lot to build a house on now, but no house plan. (You mean a ranch house with 4 bedrooms and an office, handicap-accessible, is not a stock floor plan?)
Peter has 4-5 therapists of different sorts coming to our house every week till he turns 3.
A small army of church friends comes and serves us at various times in various ways - an enormous blessing!
I drink kefir smoothies every day and attempt to oversee schoolwork, carry out therapy, plan meals, be a wife, and get some amount of sleep (more often than not, praying for energy while running on too little sleep, and seeing God provide it).

God is good.

God is my helper

"Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life... I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good. For he has delivered me from every trouble..." (Psalms 54:4,6-7)

Escaping responsibility

I have often had those thoughts that no one is supposed to have, or wants to admit. I am guessing lots of parents, especially of special needs children, have felt the same.  Thoughts like "at least if he died, I would have relief" or the temptation of just abandoning him to someone else. Feeling your child to be a burden, one you did not ask for. Resenting his demands on your life, time, and energy. Wishing him gone by some means.  And all the while knowing, this is not a good thing to be thinking, yet the thoughts occur to you.

The Lord has kindly freed me from that mentality, hopefully in a lasting way, by showing me the natural outworking of it. "If you were to abandon your child, what then?" Then I could never face Him in peace again. I would have been saying, "I am not willing to submit to You in this. I am not willing to accept what comes from Your hand. Your strength and grace are not enough for this trial. I choose to abdicate my responsibilities rather than to remain Your servant."

I had to choose Jesus, and my trial, or neither of them. They went together.

For any trial in which God does not give us a legitimate way of escape, this must be true. To abandon my God-given duty - to get out of difficulty by some unbiblical means - is to abandon my faith. It is to tell Jesus that although everything I need for life and godliness is found in Him, He does not have sufficient resources to help me in this case.  It is to tell the world that my faith is a fraud, and that my Savior is not really strong enough to bear me through the trials He puts me in.

Being faithful under fire is not optional. If you will have Jesus, you must take everything He gives you. To escape by means He has not appointed will take away your peace and your greatest treasure -  unhindered fellowship with your God.

Be faithful unto death!

Rev.12:11, "And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death."

The purpose of a Christian living yet in this world, is to point people to Jesus - Jesus, their indescribably wonderful Savior and King!  To show others that Jesus is the thing they value above everything else. That He is worth giving up everything else to gain. That He is worth serving with all my being, as a living sacrifice!

How could we possibly do this in a life in which we have no need to give up anything for Jesus' sake? This is why "all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" (2Tim.3:12). If there were no persecution, if there were nothing to sacrifice for His sake, how would we show Jesus to be our treasure above all else?

Our goal here is not, to make everyone think well of us, as though by doing so they would be attracted to Jesus. Our goal is to make much of Christ, to have people think well of HIM, to show them His beauty and glory and love and justice. To be totally His, sold out for Him, known as those who "serve their God continually" like Daniel.

This is why the lot of the Church in this world is not one of dominance, but of being persecuted. It is God's planned way for His worth to be proclaimed, as His people value Him above all else, at great cost to themselves. His word to us is not, "preserve your life at all cost" but rather "Do not fear what you are about to suffer. ... Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life." (Rev.2:10).