Category Archives: Christian service

Recognizing God’s Purpose for Your Life

22 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in anticipation, availability, Bible study, career decisions, Christian service, communication with God, faith, focus, prayer

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For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD (Isaiah 55:8 ESV).

It feels good when we know we are using the gifts God has given. There is a sense of completion in our work. But what about the times we see our service as something here, something there, but no true focus?

I have a friend who has the very strong gift of service. She is the first to respond to any need presented. She does menial things most others would not do. The majority is time-consuming and usually not the least bit convenient. But if she didn’t do them, there would be no one to clear a house of hoarder-like clutter, no one to sit with anxious patients through hours of cancer treatment, no one to carry numerous individuals to doctors’ appointments and pick up groceries and medicine for them.  My friend doesn’t feel like what she does counts for anything. She worries that she isn’t fulfilling God’s purpose for her life. I see her as a chief example of Matthew 25:37-40; that one Jesus says is being His hands and feet.

After retirement, I had some days of wondering what I was to do. I felt without direction and I prayed about what God wanted from me, how He might use me. In time, this is what I heard: Do for every person in your life what you can and with joy. Live in each day’s opportunities. Stop projecting out to new things and stop looking back at what you’ve done in the past. BE. DO. LOVE. Serve in this way.

That wasn’t the answer I had hoped to get. I had wanted some fresh and exciting project. Yet I knew I had heard from God so I set out to do what I could for family, friends, and others I felt God had placed in my pathway. I did eventually receive a new work that I would have never seen on my own; that of tutoring second grade children.

MEGAN_TATUM_AND_JIA_GREENER

Megan and Jia, George and Martha Washington Day 2012, my first reading friends. They are now seventh graders.

Having never considered myself very good with children, this would never have made it to my personal list of possibilities, yet I can tell you that this is one of the three things I’ve done in life that I’ve enjoyed most. It is so important for us to release all struggling to God so that His perfect plans can appear.

God knows what He has put in each of us to be used and if we submit and wait on Him—and follow His nudging—that thing will become clear. And we need always to remember it isn’t about what we do, but how we do it.  Jonah knew exactly what he was to do, but he didn’t want to do it. And when he did do it, it was begrudgingly and with anger. God saved many people through Jonah, yet he was blind to the eternal value. He was seeing the appointment with his eyes and not God’s. Let us not be guilty of that.

Give your questions of purpose completely over to God, then wait and watch. Don’t be afraid of the unfamiliar if your heart says it is of God. The One who created us knows exactly where we are best suited to serve. He has plans for us and those plans will be better than anything we could imagine on our own.

God is not unjust; He will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people and continue to help them (Hebrew 6:10 NIV).

 

Preparing for the Unknown

26 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by in availability, Bible study, Christian service, communication with God, focus, humility, unknown future

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Psalm 78:70-71 — He chose David his servant and took him from the sheep pens; from tending the sheep he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob, of Israel his inheritance. (NIV)

I suspect there were a few during David’s time that imagined themselves to be king material.  They no doubt whispered of their dreams and prepared themselves mentally for opportunity that might come.  Other things might have been neglected as they envisioned personal glory.

But David did what was before him to do.  David tended sheep for his father.  He spent hours in the fields, keeping watch over what was entrusted to him.  David had time in his shepherding to observe the wonders of God, to think about God’s ways, and develop a close walk with the Lord.  David kept focused, and that focus had much to do with preparing him to be king.  Even more, it prepared him to be a man with an intimate relationship with God. Acts 13:22 – I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do. (NIV)

sheep enjoying the view

What a lesson for us.  To do the work at hand, as God has provided for us to do, and to do it with complete focus and to the very best of our ability.  We can look back and see that very often we have been prepared for greater things when we gave ourselves fully to the lesser ones.  When we acted responsibly to what may have seemed not that important, God watched, and then trusted us with a greater service for Him. We can never tell when we are being shaped by His hands for a mighty work yet to come. 

While Waiting in Line

21 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by in Bible study, Christian service, faith, Preachers

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There was a problem at the store’s point of check out. The line of waiting customers stalled and those nearest her were subjected to a loud woman intent on drawing a customer right behind her into conversation. At first I was annoyed by her rudeness and grateful we had this one person between us. But without any way not to hear, I soon became interested in what she was saying—and even more interested in how the beleaguered customer, held captive by her position in line, was reacting.

The loud lady, it seemed, had just moved back to Memphis from New York City. She had discovered that in New York people were much more open to various religious beliefs. She found Memphians were very behind the times, not open at all. She stated emphatically that it really didn’t matter what you believed just as long as you believed in something–a higher power of some kind. I watched as the woman sandwiched between us chose not to respond. The silence provoked the loud lady to try harder.

“I was brought up in a faith where you were encouraged not to read the Bible for yourself and when I finally tried it, I didn’t like the Old Testament so I only read the New Testament– if I read the Bible at all. The Old Testament is filled with things I don’t like to hear. It’s awful.” Finally a response: “It is all the same story and you need to read it all.” The loud lady began again, “I don’t attend church, there’s no need to when there are so many preachers on television. The one I really like is (a well-known pastor) because he talks only about good things; he’s the one who has it right.” The captive lady shook her head. The loud lady said, “What’s wrong with him?” “You are being conned; life doesn’t work that way. He isn’t preaching the whole truth” said the captive. That response provoked the loud lady to defend the “everything is wonderful” pastor, by saying with a quick nod of her head, “I believe he is right and that’s what I’m choosing to believe.” The captive lady softly responded just this once more but she preached a sermon: “And someday life will be over for all of us and some will be surprised to learn that it isn’t okay to believe whatever you choose.”

Thankfully, the register began working again and the loud lady was soon checked out. She turned to the lady behind her and said “Nice talking to you” and received a kind smile.

To hear the testimony from the lady in front of me was worth the wait and the aggravation of a too loud and determined to be heard customer. In a very few words, the lady who was somewhat ambushed had responded kindly and well. She chose her words and times to speak very carefully and there was never an argumentative tone. I want to think that this unhappy-to-be-back-in-Memphis lady is as open as she believes herself to be and will think about what she heard. I hope she will decide to read the Bible searchingly and choose for herself what is truth. It is far too important a decision to allow others to make for you.

A Tribute to Betty Jo

29 Sunday Dec 2013

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I closed my eyes and could see her smiling and filled with joy.  She had made it home and she did it with courage and determination. Betty Jo Spencer Replogle completed her earth’s journey and at God’s perfect moment, He lifted her away from the world’s burdens and into heaven’s triumph.

“Jo” was the youngest of my mother’s seven siblings. Just eight years older than I, she seemed more a sister than aunt. Jo was born after my parents married and Daddy liked to tease her that he had been in the family longer than she had. That never failed to bring on one of her quick, easy laughs.

We all loved the laughter that peppered her conversations.  Jo had a great sense of humor even through tough times—and she had many. Her body knew several serious and unusual diseases, and for the most part, she coped with them as if they were nothing more than a common cold. Certainly, as with all of us, there were other tests in her life, but I believe it was the trials coupled with a faith which steadily grew that gave her the fortitude to cope as she did.

Jim and Dulcie Spencer’s children were, and are, all good people. The steadfast faith of my grandparents was imparted and rooted well in each one of their children. Jo lived out their legacy in her 78 years by remaining true to her own salvation story. She never forgot the way to God’s house and when she and her family were to be there; she never forgot how to trust in the Almighty.  She was a faithful daughter, wife, mother, and grandmother. Her concerns were at all times focused on her family and doing all she could to make their life good.

Thought she seemed too young to leave us, wishing her to stay, as sick as she was, would have been nothing but selfish. The last time I saw her, I knew she was making the transition home. I saw in her the same thing I saw in Mother before she died: she was in an intermediate place. Jo was still in her body, but her spirit had caught sight of heaven and eagerness drew her in that direction. Like Mother, it seemed in those last days when you spoke to Jo, you could call her back for a moment, but you couldn’t hold her for long. She saw Beulah Land. She saw the end of a long and hard struggle and a place where family awaited. She saw a place where Jesus beckoned.

By way of a recording made years ago, her youngest son sang “He Touched Me” at the funeral. The beginning words speak of being “shackled by a heavy burden” and soon declare, “then the hand of Jesus touched me, and now I am no longer the same.”  For Jo, her shackling was a body weighed down and rapidly failing. The hand of Jesus touched her as He drew her into heaven and there placed a crown on her head with the words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” And truly, her life is so longer the same; she has reached Heaven’s glory.

When Papa Jim, Jo’s father and my grandfather, died, Mama Dulcie noted in a journal, “Jim went home to be with Jesus today.” That’s what Betty Jo Spencer Replogle did on December 24, 2013. She went home to be with Jesus.

We thank You, Lord, for her time with us and for her witness to Your presence in her life. BETTY_JO_S_GRADUATION_PICTU

O Beulah land, sweet Beulah land!

As on thy highest mount I stand,

I look away across the sea

Where mansions are prepared for me

And view the shining glory shore

My heaven, my home forever more.

            John R. Sweney (1837–1899)

I Believe in Heaven

20 Sunday Oct 2013

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I am reading a book of near-death experiences, I Believe in Heaven: Real Stories from the Bible, History and Today. Written by Cecil Murphey and Twila Belk, it is a compilation of many people’s stories of going to heaven and returning to tell about it. In each case the individual did not want to return, but did so because there was work still to do.

This is a captivating book and gratitude is due the authors for skillfully summarizing numerous stories on what heaven is like. The similarities are there: the glorious and indescribable beauty of heaven, the sounds of music like we have never heard, the appearances of Jesus, being greeted by family or friends now living in eternity, the total, embracing love of God and joy in being with Him. But it is the reasons for return that give pause to ponder—that work left undone.

One person’s story says the sins he believed most grievous were not what was of concern in heaven; rather, it was the things he should have done and didn’t, the missed opportunities for service. And therein lies something for we who remain earthbound to think about.  Not to discount any sin, but to consider what we are passing by and leaving undone and the potential value of those deeds.

It is a normal thing for individuals to want great things to accomplish. It gives a sense of knowing one’s purpose in living, provides a marker for their existence once gone. However it is important to remember man cannot see great things the way the Lord does, for God sees the beginning and the end of things and all the blessed offshoots along the way. An incident we may see as insignificant could lead to a trickle down effect of tremendous greatness for the kingdom of God.

Colossians 3:17 says Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. We are admonished to regard every action we take as opportunity to touch someone’s life in a positive way, to sow for the harvest of God, and build up personal treasures in heaven. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going (Ecclesiastes 9:10). In other words, a time comes when the door of opportunity is soundly closed.

Holy Spirit, Counselor of God, we implore You to remind us moment by moment that we are the instruments of God. Press upon us the things You would have us do that we might not miss opportunities to do the work of the kingdom before us. Reform our hearts to submission and obedience and remove from us our attempts to determine what is valuable. In the name of the One who alone is worthy, amen.