Beneficence and Pride Dont Mix

For the last two days I have tried to return to work full time. The first day I made it 4.5 hours and the today I made it 5.0 hours before I was so uncomfortable I had to go home. I still have two places in my largest incision that are open and draining. It hurts to sit and unfortunately that is what I do at work, sit and answer the phone. I am going to the doctor in the morning and hoping that I haven't done something to damage or compromise my healing.

It stings my pride to be reminded of my mortality. I don't mean my soul, it belongs to Christ and I trust Him alone to see me into eternity glorifying my God. But here in this between time... this foreign place we are just passing through, I want to be invincible. No, that's not quite what I mean to say because I am invincible in the sense that nothing and no one can revoke my visitor's visa here except God. What I mean to say is that I don't want to be limited by a body that is healing or broken or aging. I don't want my lack of intellectual abilities to keep me from accomplishing something unique and sure as heck don't want to waste my time making bad choices, being wrong or having to depend on someone else who may be equally or more significantly flawed than I am myself! Now there's pride for you. Notice I didn't say that they just might be less significantly flawed?? Telling isn't it. I don't want to depend on anyone because I can live with disappointing myself, I don't want anyone else to do it though. So, no dependency for me! Alas, that is exactly what God has designed for me, for us. We are dependent on Him and our fellow believers, whether or not we delude ourselves otherwise.

I have been so blessed by my church and Christian friends during my illness. I have been waited upon, had meals delivered to me, had my house cleaned, had my garbage taken out and clothes ironed. All things I would never have tolerated before. It has served to open my eyes to how prideful I am and how unwilling I am to share blessings. You see, it is wonderful for me to have these folks love on me like this, but the blessing in giving their time and physical strength to me belongs to them. God always blesses the folks that give sacrificially much more than He blesses the receiver. It is uncomfortable for me to be on the receiving end of all this love, but it is a discomfort that is good for my soul.

Proverbs 22:9 He who is generous will be blessed, for he gives some of his food to the poor.

Proverbs 28:27 He who gives to the poor will never want, but he who shuts his eyes will have many curses.

Matthew 5:42 "Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.

1 Timothy 6:18-19
18 {Instruct them} to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share,
19 storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.
Hebrews 13:16 And do not neglect doing good and sharing; for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

Psalm 37:3-6
3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He will do it.
6 And He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday.

Psalm 40:4 How blessed is the man who has made the LORD his trust, and has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood.

Prov 16:5-7
5 Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; Assuredly, he will not be unpunished.
6 By lovingkindness and truth iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the LORD one keeps away from evil.
7 When a man's ways are pleasing to the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. (NAS)

Character Flaws, Sin and Remediation

I have been thinking about my last post in which I offered to talk about how having a job has shown or magnified my character flaws. Before I do though, I want to distinguish between character flaws and sin. My character flaws predispose me to sin in certain areas more readily than in others. Indulging in my character flaws is sinful. Entertaining the idea of indulging my character flaws is sinful. They are the weaknesses in me where my flesh makes itself known by screaming, "You know you want to!!" Too often I hear Christians lamenting that they "make mistakes" or are victims of their genetic make-up and intimate that they should, therefore, be excused from culpability for being prone to certain activities. Our cultural dependence on a medical model to define our behavior has given many what they see as a plausible excuse for sin. I don't see that caveat in the Word. For Christians, the Word is always our standard. It is the standard by which all will be j

Fear Down, Hope and Peace to Go!

Last night I had the honor and privilege to present some information to the women of my church. I cannot begin to tell you how much I love and appreciate them. The seminar I did was on fear. God is clever and He had me present the information to them because I needed it. It's not that I don't want to study things for my own benefit and growth, but whenever I do a topical study to teach it, I see how badly I needed it and how much more I have to repent of than I realized. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know. That's a topic I want to return to in another post. I want to talk about the ladies for a moment. They are an incredibly loving group of women. Women who seek God and are teachable. They have gone out of their way to include me and love on me, which speaks volumes of their characters because I am not all that lovable. I am not being self-deprecating here. I am a mix of endearing and maddening qualities like anyone else. What I am telling you is

Super Church a song for the Emergent-sy

In the early 70s I was in a youth choir at my church. Our youth pastor was a musician and his way of connecting with us as a group was through the choir and music. Somehow there was an affiliation between him and The Continental Singers, New Hope and Jeremiah People. He was worked with Moishe Rosen of Jews for Jesus too, I think. Are any of these names familiar to you? Though I remember the church fondly I was a profoundly lost and troubled young woman during my years there. That and time have muddled the memories quite a bit. Today I was digging through some old paperwork and one of the books to the musical we did. It's Getting Late For the Great Planet Earth, a folk rock oratorio by Cam Floria. Yes, that's right. Cam Floria put Hal Lindsey to music. There's a lot to laugh about and some to groan about but as I was looking through the songs and remembering, I found this little ditty and I only wish I could sing it for you. Just remember that this is circa 1972 and even th

rambling rosemarie

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