I can easily skew that to be for a fallen commrade in arms or make it seem more like a favor or some elderly man I ask if he wants help across the street, so if he says no i'm off the hook and if yes, then it's done quick enough and i can go on with my day. My meditation though off and on since i've been here is this verse "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord, Christ you are serving."...
My labor is for Him. It's a hard thing to put at the forefront everyday when i so keenly feel success and failure. Having been done in with the flu this week brought newer lows of my boss saying my kids didn't learn anything in an entire hour (check) followed the next day by, I'm surprised you didn't call in sick and it's much harder to replace someone during the day (hint/hint) to friday when a fellow teacher plummeted into chills and had to leave, to, don't martyr yourselves. But sick people don't think logically and in my head i'm thinking i'm feeling horrible at home with nothing to do so i might as well go in... to my other illogical thought of well why take one day off when the next day brings no improvement... God entered into the week simply because there was very little of me present in the classes to one night in the shower I remembered the thought that I had gotten used to asking when there was nothing else left- well, Lord, what do you want me to do today? And that simple, it's up to Him to be the better for me, to guide me and help me, even in my improvements and irrational half fevered thoughts- give me that desire, point the way for me and open my eyes. I mean granted i don't want to do horribly, but it's hard to know that even in my weakness just being present is honoring God?... I think.
It was an interesting and quiet shift of relinquishment. When at the last you can say, whatever you want. Bringing the struggle to rest, at least for now, and finding peace in your incompetence. There was a sermon over at bethel that talked about all sorts of inadequate people being put in places and told to do a job- so when i begin to think about it being about me, at least for now i remember, oh, it's something else. This is something else. This is not just provision via paycheck and mental challenges because I'm bored and needed adventure in my life no matter what the cost, but that i was called, and never would've gone if the road hadn't been so plain, to yes, i get up everyday because otherwise whatever the Lord is harvesting and doing will spoil in the fields if i dont go do it like he wants me to.
It's almost more that the examen of conscience goes something like- did i fail gracefully in that? When i completely messed up that one thing was I kind to myself, to my students, was i humble when one student said, bad teacher... or did i imagine backhanding him and stomping on his angryb/rd pencil case?
Anyway, all this talking is wearing me out. Sure I went out with the teachers against reason to a noreabang (aka karaoke room)...last night. i sang Creep and Loser by Radiohead and a couple others that spoke to those hard and negative places. Ifailed at ade/e bcs my voice was too hoarse and gone to do anygood. We drank soju and had dakgalbi and it was a good time listening to the mix of korean rap and pop music and some western standards like zombie by the cranberries or alanis' ironic. And now I'm going to rest the day away. There was only one other thing i was going to tell you- besides cursing the air that i didn't have my camera.
It was that listening to the same sermon yesterday, in part it was very loosely about JohntheBaptist, and i was half paying attention and I suddenly found myself emotionally caught up in the last hours of his life as he sat in prison, and Jesus told his followers to tell him that the blind can see. I was stabbed with a painful part of joy, that comes as overwhelming relief- which is pent up and stuffed in the heart. It was like being quickly and unexpectedly whacked with a stick in the face. His life wasn't wasted. I was moved and overcome in such a brief space that it had to be from God. Everysoften Ifind myself sharing those spaces and I was and am still so curious as to why i was given the insight. Perhaps it speaks to me feeling in a desperate condition myself- to hope that God's purpose outstrips my dreams, and know that you could be sitting in jail about to be executed and God will say, but see John, the blind can see. (thank you for the internet- luke 7). And that Jesus is concerned about the kind of ends we make. Jesus quickly reported the earthshaking fact that Johns entire life was built on the truth of His coming and that there is something to dying (the self, literal or figural) not in a desperate hope but with relief and joy. Don't worry about it John. I'm here.
I suppose the point is that God speaks. The internal churning and wrestling does yield something. It doesn't do anygood to come to a place of detachment and freedom if it's one that dwells in despair right or mmm, dejected futility - but one that hopes in the Lord, and how he redeems the desperate parts of all of us... He answers. Are you Him, the one I hope in? Are you real? Is it all in my head? He hears me and he answers. Yes I am. I am. Follow me.
Anyway, it's undoing me a bit. I wish i could explain it better.
My labor is for Him. It's a hard thing to put at the forefront everyday when i so keenly feel success and failure. Having been done in with the flu this week brought newer lows of my boss saying my kids didn't learn anything in an entire hour (check) followed the next day by, I'm surprised you didn't call in sick and it's much harder to replace someone during the day (hint/hint) to friday when a fellow teacher plummeted into chills and had to leave, to, don't martyr yourselves. But sick people don't think logically and in my head i'm thinking i'm feeling horrible at home with nothing to do so i might as well go in... to my other illogical thought of well why take one day off when the next day brings no improvement... God entered into the week simply because there was very little of me present in the classes to one night in the shower I remembered the thought that I had gotten used to asking when there was nothing else left- well, Lord, what do you want me to do today? And that simple, it's up to Him to be the better for me, to guide me and help me, even in my improvements and irrational half fevered thoughts- give me that desire, point the way for me and open my eyes. I mean granted i don't want to do horribly, but it's hard to know that even in my weakness just being present is honoring God?... I think.
It was an interesting and quiet shift of relinquishment. When at the last you can say, whatever you want. Bringing the struggle to rest, at least for now, and finding peace in your incompetence. There was a sermon over at bethel that talked about all sorts of inadequate people being put in places and told to do a job- so when i begin to think about it being about me, at least for now i remember, oh, it's something else. This is something else. This is not just provision via paycheck and mental challenges because I'm bored and needed adventure in my life no matter what the cost, but that i was called, and never would've gone if the road hadn't been so plain, to yes, i get up everyday because otherwise whatever the Lord is harvesting and doing will spoil in the fields if i dont go do it like he wants me to.
It's almost more that the examen of conscience goes something like- did i fail gracefully in that? When i completely messed up that one thing was I kind to myself, to my students, was i humble when one student said, bad teacher... or did i imagine backhanding him and stomping on his angryb/rd pencil case?
Anyway, all this talking is wearing me out. Sure I went out with the teachers against reason to a noreabang (aka karaoke room)...last night. i sang Creep and Loser by Radiohead and a couple others that spoke to those hard and negative places. Ifailed at ade/e bcs my voice was too hoarse and gone to do anygood. We drank soju and had dakgalbi and it was a good time listening to the mix of korean rap and pop music and some western standards like zombie by the cranberries or alanis' ironic. And now I'm going to rest the day away. There was only one other thing i was going to tell you- besides cursing the air that i didn't have my camera.
It was that listening to the same sermon yesterday, in part it was very loosely about JohntheBaptist, and i was half paying attention and I suddenly found myself emotionally caught up in the last hours of his life as he sat in prison, and Jesus told his followers to tell him that the blind can see. I was stabbed with a painful part of joy, that comes as overwhelming relief- which is pent up and stuffed in the heart. It was like being quickly and unexpectedly whacked with a stick in the face. His life wasn't wasted. I was moved and overcome in such a brief space that it had to be from God. Everysoften Ifind myself sharing those spaces and I was and am still so curious as to why i was given the insight. Perhaps it speaks to me feeling in a desperate condition myself- to hope that God's purpose outstrips my dreams, and know that you could be sitting in jail about to be executed and God will say, but see John, the blind can see. (thank you for the internet- luke 7). And that Jesus is concerned about the kind of ends we make. Jesus quickly reported the earthshaking fact that Johns entire life was built on the truth of His coming and that there is something to dying (the self, literal or figural) not in a desperate hope but with relief and joy. Don't worry about it John. I'm here.
I suppose the point is that God speaks. The internal churning and wrestling does yield something. It doesn't do anygood to come to a place of detachment and freedom if it's one that dwells in despair right or mmm, dejected futility - but one that hopes in the Lord, and how he redeems the desperate parts of all of us... He answers. Are you Him, the one I hope in? Are you real? Is it all in my head? He hears me and he answers. Yes I am. I am. Follow me.
Anyway, it's undoing me a bit. I wish i could explain it better.
1 comment:
It's crazy to me how I didn't see this post until today. Is it that I just stop automatically at the comments for the later item? I love learning about your path.
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