Friday, September 9, 2011

September 9 I am not surprised!!

II Corinthians 11:14 I am not surprised! Even Satan can disguise himself as angel of light.

Funny how we think we cannot be surprised at what life tosses us, but I'm here to tell you, it still happens. I guess I wasn't surprised that we would have flooding this last week; what did surprise me was how deeply I was moved by it. I'm not sure if it is my age, that I have a sense of what it means to be displaced from your home ( we were flooded out years ago), or that I have family affected by it, or that it is so close - my home town, my husband's home town, the town I shop in, are all under water, but the choking pain of it all will not leave me.

And maybe that is the way it should be. Many years ago, I remember sitting in church in Africa, and reading the passage in Matthew 9:36 where the writer talks about Jesus, about how he saw the multitudes and was moved with compassion because of their pain and discouragement, like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus set the model for us; he hurt for them, and we are to feel with the hurting.

The second commandment in the New Testament is to love one another, and it seems to me that you cannot love someone without hurting when they hurt. So, I was surprised by the pain that filled my heart this week. It made me think about the day I noticed I must have grown up - it was Christmas and I was making a list of the gifts I wanted to buy for other people, not one of suggestions of things they could buy me. Is this pain now evidence of the work of the Spirit in my life, love the way it should be - the kind of love that pushes you to do more than say you care about others, but to actually do for others?

I don't know what God is doing in my life, but I want to be a handy and useful tool.

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