Monday, March 20, 2006
My Character Name
I just finished Pilgrim's Progress. I've often wondered through the reading of it what character name I would be if in the story. Pilgrim's Progress is about the pilgrimmage of a man named Christian to the Celestial City. Along the narrow and rough path he meets people like little-faith, Hopeful, Giant-Heart, Despair, and other such characters. It's brilliant and so amazingly true to the real Christian's life journey. But in some ways it makes me wonder what name I would have because I think I would be given a name like Easily-Swayed, Intimidated, or Sandy-Foundation. Let me explain.
I find that when I pray and God answers with what I asked I am surprised. When I walk up to a big group I am very intimidated and instantly self-conscious. My personality changes with the group of people I'm around, along with my vocabulary and manerisms. My loneliness is based not on the level of God's presence but on the attention and affection received from other people. I relate to Paul in Romans 7 now more than I ever have. I want to love people, to truly care, to be a good listener, but I keep on doing the things I do not want to do, but what I hate doing and being. So what I ask is that you pray that I will have a mind controlled by the Spirit and not myself; that the pangs of loneliness would be longing for more of Jesus and not the affections of humans; that God would be my confidence and my firm foundation and not popularity and talents.
I'm cooking dinner tomorrow night for Seth, David, Katherine, Steph and maybe some others. Country fried steak- comfort food. It'll be so much fun. Katherine is from S. Africa. I got to hang out with her this weekend when we sheep-sheared and hiked around. It was so fun, sheep dogs are amazingly smart and I loved learning from them. They obey the calls of the shepherd and because of that the sheep are moved in the correct direction. I think that's our calling as believers- listen to the directions of the good Shepherd to encourage people to draw close to Him. I learned today in history that NZ is referred to as "God's Own," which I have a hard time grasping because of the Spiritual deadness here. But then in so many ways I think the South is very similar to here, NZ is just more honest about their distance from God. They don't go to church if they don't love Jesus and individuals thrive and are accepted here. It's not a false culture like our "Under God" culture in America. It's a very honest culture so ripe for the harvest that it's unreal, but the true workers are so very few. And although Satan disables most who live in this society, the few faithful will have truly fought the good fight and will learn wisdom few of us will ever glimpse. So maybe your prayer should be that in some way I would take away some of this wisdom and not be disabled by the evil one. But in order to defeat evil we must first learn to not be overcome by man because who can withstand fire that cannot withstand clay?
I find that when I pray and God answers with what I asked I am surprised. When I walk up to a big group I am very intimidated and instantly self-conscious. My personality changes with the group of people I'm around, along with my vocabulary and manerisms. My loneliness is based not on the level of God's presence but on the attention and affection received from other people. I relate to Paul in Romans 7 now more than I ever have. I want to love people, to truly care, to be a good listener, but I keep on doing the things I do not want to do, but what I hate doing and being. So what I ask is that you pray that I will have a mind controlled by the Spirit and not myself; that the pangs of loneliness would be longing for more of Jesus and not the affections of humans; that God would be my confidence and my firm foundation and not popularity and talents.
I'm cooking dinner tomorrow night for Seth, David, Katherine, Steph and maybe some others. Country fried steak- comfort food. It'll be so much fun. Katherine is from S. Africa. I got to hang out with her this weekend when we sheep-sheared and hiked around. It was so fun, sheep dogs are amazingly smart and I loved learning from them. They obey the calls of the shepherd and because of that the sheep are moved in the correct direction. I think that's our calling as believers- listen to the directions of the good Shepherd to encourage people to draw close to Him. I learned today in history that NZ is referred to as "God's Own," which I have a hard time grasping because of the Spiritual deadness here. But then in so many ways I think the South is very similar to here, NZ is just more honest about their distance from God. They don't go to church if they don't love Jesus and individuals thrive and are accepted here. It's not a false culture like our "Under God" culture in America. It's a very honest culture so ripe for the harvest that it's unreal, but the true workers are so very few. And although Satan disables most who live in this society, the few faithful will have truly fought the good fight and will learn wisdom few of us will ever glimpse. So maybe your prayer should be that in some way I would take away some of this wisdom and not be disabled by the evil one. But in order to defeat evil we must first learn to not be overcome by man because who can withstand fire that cannot withstand clay?
