An Experience in Sharing the Gospel

June 14, 2010

Maria Gospel, Reflections, Uncategorized, Wisdom , , , , Leave a comment

Colossians 4:5-6 Be wise in the way you act with outsiders, make the most of every opportunity.  Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone.

I clobbered my mother-in-law with doctrine.  I wrote her a letter outlining my concerns about her spiritual life.  I shared some basics about sin, repentance, the Good News of what Jesus has done for us and how to grow in the love & knowledge of God.  But I overwhelmed her with my intensity. And I have irrevocably moved our relationship into a new territory where neither of us knows how to maneuver.  All of this – 2 weeks before our youngest son’s wedding when family will gather.

My mother-in-law is 81.  She grew up in the Catholic Church, switched to the Episcopal Church in college, met & married a seminarian and shared the life of an Episcopal priest & bishop for almost 59 years.   Thus has the Episcopal Church been the center of her life.

My concerns for the state of her soul were cumulative over many years as my husband and I were graciously drawn out of the kingdom of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of light.  Looking back on our past, Mike & I recall how we truly THOUGHT we were Christians all the years we were faithful church-goers and served in different ministries.  Indignation and denial most likely would have been our reaction had someone confronted us with the state of our souls.  So I understand how it must seem puzzling to someone living a ‘religious’ life, that it might be possible not even to belong to Christ.  “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.”  Matt 7:21

As we discovered truth and life, we wanted to share this joy and the assurance of salvation with those closest to us.  My mother was a believer, yet died before I was regenerated.  I failed to share the Gospel with my father.  I tried, but was not equipped and backed off many times when he didn’t want to talk.  Out of that experience, my husband and I approached his parents.  Our concerns for their spiritual well-being intensified over the past months as my father-in-law was dying.  We prayed for opportunities to have authentic discussions about the reality of Christian hope.  But we could do no more than skirt the periphery of religiosity.

I don’t understand people’s boundaries.  To my discredit, it is very difficult to imagine or empathize, and therefore yield to limits and walls friends and family erect to protect emotions or comfortable routines of looking at life.  (Why wouldn’t you want to talk about the most important topic in life? – your future after you die?  Don’t you want to know if what you have staked your life on is valid?  Don’t you want to even know WHAT it is you believe?) My grown children and husband consider me intense.  But I can’t see that:  I am what I am.  Is a fish aware that he breathes in through gills?

So returning from my father-in-law’s funeral I wrote my mother-in-law THE letter and launched her on a roller-coaster of emotions of anger, shame, indignation and horror.

Here is what I have learned from this experience:

(1)   – Patience is not something I practice naturally, so just as a pilot must intentionally crab into a wind to keep her flight path straight, so must I wait longer than I think is necessary.  I composed THE letter on a Friday and sent it to two people whose opinion I value.  I received a green light from one, but did not wait long enough to hear back from the other person before mailing it off.  She replied 3 ½ days later and suggested restraint.  But I had already mailed off the letter. To my ‘partial credit’ I had slept on it and prayerfully revised it over a 3-day period.  Yet I should have waited for this second person’s wisdom, since I had explicitly asked for it.

(2)   Offhand remarks I wrote that were not even my main point were received poorly.  This really surprised me.  I should have considered every sentence.  When I closed the letter to my dear mother-in-law with the reassurance that her grandsons would be praying along with me for her, I thought that would encourage her.  Instead she was horrified that I had shared something ‘negative’ and had ‘misrepresented her’ to the boys.  I never would have anticipated that reaction.

(3)   Less is more.  I dumped TOO much on her (14 pagesL).  The quantity had two negative effects: a) she missed some important parts because it was too much to take in all at once and b) she felt bludgeoned by the sheer amount of what I wrote.

I failed to SEASON my written conversation with her; I just dumped out the whole blue container of Morton’s iodized salt.

So, I am trusting God now to work my blundering efforts for her good and for mine.  I am praying that we can sort out a way of relating that is safe and comfortable for her when she arrives next week for the wedding.  I am sorry that she will feel self-conscious around her grandsons and us.  That was not my intention.  But I don’t regret that I initiated the discussion.  I could never have said some of what I wrote face to face.  I will continue to share the Gospel with others when appropriate and will trust the Holy Spirit to let me know His timing and the proper words.

Let’s finish the rest with forthrightness and humility like David

February 3, 2010

Maria 2 Samuel, Wisdom , Leave a comment

2 Sam 24:10  But David’s heart smote him after he had numbered the people.  David said to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I have done.

Unlike his earlier major debacle with Bathsheba when Nathan confronted David with his sin, no human being needs to meet with David this time.  The unseen Holy Spirit, who convicts all believers of sin, communicates directly to David’s heart.  The king has called for a census during a time when his kingdom is not at war, and no conscription is necessary. Joab, his military chief of staff, has strongly advised against it.  But the King’s wishes prevail.  However, after 9 months of counting when David is presented with the data, he immediately comes face to face with the fact of his sin.  He confesses immediately to the Lord and submits to his punishment.  We know that he was correct in his spiritual inventory, because the prophet Gad is directed by God to present to David three choices of punishment.  God implements the 3-day plague that David has chosen as the lesser evil.

A further sign of spiritual growth is when David, appalled at the price his own people have to pay for his sin, attempts to halt the plague’s destruction at the end of the allotted time.  His prophet Gad instructs him to set up an altar and sacrifice.  The intended place is Araunah’s barn.  When the farmer finds out David’s intentions, he offers to supply everything David needs at no cost, including the land, animals and firewood.  David, totally unconscious of any embarrassment, publically renounces the gift by explaining that he will not offer to the Lord something that has not cost him.  David has learned that true worship, where one declares the worth of another, requires giving up of something of personal value.

I’m struck by a parallel thought.  First, the mighty King David, the man after God’s own heart, is still sinning.  I need to prepare myself for the fact that as I mature, I will, from time to time, still settle for less than God’s glory in my choices. I am still a sinner, though redeemed.  But I can always repent and receive forgiveness as long as I am humble.  Second, my sin will cost others, and my repentance will cost me.  But I rather face reality and prepare for it, then live with the illusion that Christian growth leads to an end to sinning.  Not in this life!

Reactions worth emulating, taken from the Life of David

January 27, 2010

Maria 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, Wisdom , 2 Comments

1 Sam 30: 1-6  Now when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day, the Amalekites had made a raid against the Negeb and against Ziklag. They had overcome Ziklag and burned it with fire and taken captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great. They killed no one, but carried them off and went their way. And when David and his men came to the city, they found it burned with fire, and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep. David’s two wives also had been taken captive, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel. And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.

David’s men had every right to be upset over the kidnapping of their families.  The Amalekites were not present to absorb this outrage, so it was directed at their own beloved leader, David. Had they stopped to think rationally, they would have concluded that clearly David was not responsible for this disaster.  After all, he suffered the same loss as his men.

What stuns me is how David did not argue with them or show any fear or start to make plans.  He immediately turned to the Lord for his strength.   What did that look like?   He must have privately poured out his grief over the loss of his wives and sought God’s counsel about how to deal with his men.  Did this last 30 seconds or 2 hours?  Was there much time before his men actually picked up stones?  We don’t know.

But his next step was to consult with the priest and pray publicly to the Lord for a plan.  God answered and David moved into leader-mode and constructed a rescue plan that eventually succeeded.  All family members were saved.  David’s priorities in the face of a leadership and life crisis were vindicated.

**

2 Samuel 5: 9-12

And David lived in the stronghold and called it the city of David. And David built the city all around from the Millo inward.  And David became greater and greater, for the LORD, the God of hosts, was with him.   And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, also carpenters and masons who built David a house.  And David knew that the LORD had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel.

In this passage, David had been anointed King over both Judah and Israel and was enjoying great success.  Scripture tells us the reason was due to God being with him. But what was David’s assessment?  Was his stature and international renown due to his own prowess?  How encouraging it is to follow David’s thought process when foreigners bestow him with gifts.  A lesser man could easily conclude that this good fortune was due to his own greatness.  But David lived with the sovereign intervention of God in his life.  Had his life unfolded as his mom and dad expected, he’d still be a shepherd and last in line to inherit anything. David clearly understood that it was God who had cast him in this leading role and that God was the director and had his own purposes for Israel.

One can read elsewhere how David did not always act righteously, but here, at least, are two examples that offer us patterns to emulate.  In the face of immediate disaster, David turned to God.  In the face of impressive success, David acknowledged God’s agenda and doing.  He was neither too worried about his circumstances, nor too impressed with his own curriculum vitae.  His eyes were on God in either case.  May it be so with us.

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