For a number of reasons, the above quote, more specifically the word "response" hit close to home this evening. I just attended a worship seminar entitled, Retrieving Biblical Worship at TPM where I was challenged to evaluate my "response" (worship) to God. During the seminar, I realized that my view or understanding of "acceptable" worship unto God was limited despite the wealth of information I have learned over the years.
Yet, God has been requiring an even deeper reflection which entailed my honest evaluation of responses I had during the course of the day. I have to admit I am not pleased but to overcome, it must be done with the "word" of my testimony". You see to be honest I had one of those overwhelming Saturdays; house cleaning, cooking, washing, taking care of Arianna, the list could go on and on, but when I looked back on it all, how effective was I? When I evaluated my response to Arianna's cry for more attention from mommy, I can't say I responded every time with a hug or sit down time with her. My responses to Chris throughout the day was not always forgiving and loving as God requires me to be. In all honesty,I have realized that my responses have not been pleasing to God.
You see it is easy to boast on an admirable response when all is going well. But the real test is when the pressure is high, the circumstances and situations are not comfortable, what then do you see flowing from my life? It is as result of "these" responses that I am forced to evaluate the condition of my heart. I realized that there are still areas in me that need to be submitted to God.
After finally getting Arianna to sleep, I laid this day and all of its demands, failures, disappointments and achievements before the Lord. I admitted to not having it together, not having all the answers and quite frankly realizing that without Him I can do NOTHING. My prayer is that tomorrow, I will be more patient, more loving, more forgiving, and most of all more pleasing to GOD.
It is funny that you are experiencing this because I came to the same conclusion on Sunday morning but in a different way. I read a book by Masaru Emoto (I think the title was messages in water), a scientist who has proven that water reacts to the world around it. In short, basically he performed thousands of experiments in which he exposed plain rain or spring water to various words and terms, then froze it and took pictures of the crystals which were formed. Basically all crystals formed by water exposed to positive words such as love, patience, kindness,and other positive terms formed beautiful crystals (snowflakes). However water that was exposed to direct orders and negative words such as, ugly, satan, "do it", and heavy metal music all formed crystals that were ugly and deformed in some way. This really helped me to see that even nature responds to our words. How carefull we have to be when speaking and even when giving our children a direct order that is negative and can bring a negative response. Like saying "Put you shoes on" when we should say "Are you ready...let's put our shoes on".
ReplyDeleteAll in all this caused me to examine my response to my son as well as the students in my classroom.I realized that I must pray so that God can change my heart and change my reaction to those around me so that I can always respond in a positive and loving way.
Wow, Tiana what you shared from the author Masaru Emoto was profound. I had to read it twice for it to sink in because it shouldn't be one of those things I read and say, "okay, that's interesting" and move on. It has caused me to seriously reflect and make adjustments accordingly.
ReplyDeleteOne of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control and I am realizing that we do have power to control what we say, how we feel, and what we think. My mind doesn't have free reign to go wherever it wants, speaking my mind is not a godly "liberty". Love has to be the basis of my life. Which means, I shouldn't blow up when my darling two-year old refuses to go to bed (even if I have asked her 5 times for the night).
God continues to use my family to teach me how to be more like Him. At times, no matter how hard I want to be good, the result is not always what I hoped it would be. In this God is teaching me to be increasingly dependent upon Him. I place no confidence in my flesh. There is no way, I can be a godly wife, parent, friend, sister without God's enabling power. Thank you for sharing.
Just for the record, I miss you dearly. :)