Yesterday was a long day stuck inside...because I don't get out much when it is below 30 degrees and wind chills that make your bones cold. I had gone through periods of productivity, but had also found myself doing a lot of scrolling on facebook, ebay, and other mindless sites on my phone. The evening rolled around and I picked up my phone without even giving it a thought to scroll once more, as if I were a robot programmed to do this every hour. In that moment I really think God snapped his fingers to get me out of my almost hypnotized state. I reflected on truly what I was searching for in all this aimless scrolling and came up with this: I have a desire to track what is going on around me, but I was filling this with other people's pictures and stories. God instantly redirected my thinking to a reflection on what HE was doing in the lives of people around me, and thought, He is comforting close friends of mine that are mourning, He is setting up divine appointments at a coffee shop, He is providing for my Mom, He has blessed my children with talents that they are using for his glory, He answered prayers for protection, He is growing my church family, He "posted" a beautiful image of deer in my icy backyard at sunset, and the list goes on and on and on. My point if I haven't made it yet is to resolve to care more about what God is doing than anything else. May my brain start being more programmed to want to see what God is up to than what anyone else is up to and "My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of you deeds of salvation all the day, for their number is past my knowledge." (Psalm 71:15-16) We need to train our eyes and our minds to seek The Lord and scroll through the endless list of the things he has done and continues to accomplish in the our life and the lives around us.
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Why don't we witness? We walk by lost people everyday. People who do not know that Jesus saves, people who haven't been warned of their fate, or experienced the glory of true faith in things other than what this world has to offer. I was pondering this and came up with excuses such as the daily grind, schedule constraints, bad timing, fear of offending, and so many more. I surrounded myself with Christians, at church, in small groups, at work, all filling the need to feed myself, yet I had lost an urgency to seek and save the lost. I began reflecting on a popular psychological phenomenon called the bystander effect. This theory was brought about because of a young girl's murder, in which almost 40 people were witnesses, yet nobody rendered aid or called for help, because they all assumed someone else was doing it.
Is this same effect plaguing Christianity today? Are we so confident that someone else is sharing the gospel, that we feel "off the hook". Who is dying in their sins, without ever being invited to church, without ever experiencing forgiveness, without knowing a personal relationship with the Savior? Imagine how that young girls fate on the streets of New York could have been different; help rendered, a life saved, justice served. Imagine the effect we would have if we were the one to step up, share a life saving message, and bring reconciliation between sinners and God through Jesus Christ. Life savers, that is what we would be. I would be lying to you and myself if I didn't admit that there are times I have failed completely as a parent. You know, when your kid let’s a cuss word slip that they’ve heard on T.V……not from their parent’s mouths of course. Oh, or that one time when I didn’t believe her when she said her tummy hurt and I found out the truth of that when she vomited all over a restaurant. I mean the list isn’t too long, but there is a list for sure.
However…..there are those trophy moments too. Those times where it’s like your child aces the tests of life, and you feel that pat on your back, that high five, that chest bump in waiting, because you prepared them well. That was the exact feeling I had last Sunday. I was rushing around the house, preparing breakfast and the Sunday School lesson simultaneously, and I heard Sadie yell, “Mom, I’m ready, and I got my dolls ready too.” As I walk by her room, I can’t help but pause as joy fills my heart. She had put two of her dolls in their Sunday best, packed them a bag, and tucked one under each arm. At church, she made them sit quietly, and even the one in the cast seemed to be very still and well behaved. In Sunday School, Sadie had made the dolls some little green dollar bills, and even took one of those and placed it in the offering plate. At the end of the service, Sadie, with her two dolls in hand stood up to worship God. As I observed this motherly instinct within my little girl, I prayed that she too would remember the importance of having her own children in church. That my grandkids one day would learn the lessons of sitting still, even if you are bored, of having reverence for a Holy God, learn how to sit in silence, how to pray, how to worship, and to hear the most important message of all, the message of salvation found only in Jesus. I pray that her kids will one day sing “Jesus Loves Me,”, that they will clap off beat and sing with all their hearts, and that they would carry on, not only the tradition, but more importantly, the faith. Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." A few weeks ago, I went with a friend and our kids to see the new Lion King. The graphics were amazing, but with the realistic animations, combined with the suspenseful story line, I felt the need to cover Sadie's eyes for several scenes. After about the third time of me putting my hands over her eyes, she said, "Mom, stop! I already know this movie has a happy ending." I chuckled and really sat in awe of the bravery and maturity of my little 5 year old. It wasn't until a few days later, her line came back to me; "I already know this has a happy ending". I started thinking about the different scenes of life. Our life movie is full of happiness, joy, pain, suspense, trials, successes, failures, losses, disappointments and so much more. There was a scene in the movie that mirrored the horror and pain in my own heart. As Simba tried to save his father, I couldn't help but flashback to the night that I said goodbye to mine. That scene replays in my head and heart, and continues to bring great pain and grief. However, I pray I tap into the wisdom of my little girl. I pray I can smile and find such joy in the happy segments of life, but in the hard ones, in the ones that are extremely intense and insecure, my hope is that I remember that my movie of life has a happy ending no matter what happens in the middle. And, if I focus on the happy ending of heaven, I won't feel the need to cover my eyes, run from, or be intimidated by the intense scenes. I can face them, walk through them, and have hope because my future is sealed, the finale of my movie has already been written, and it's a happy one. 1 Peter 1:3-6 "Praise be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade--kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials."
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AuthorWritten by Kasey Archives
March 2020
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