Over the past month, Jesus has been reminding and challenging Vanessa and I. When we think about the day when we will meet our Loving Savior, we ponder what our hands will do, what our lips will say, and what our minds will think? Then I think about our fleeting lives today, what are my hands doing, what are my lips saying, and what is my mind thinking? These past few months, I have been holding on to things of this world with a worthless grip. I have been constantly thinking about how to improve our apartment, what new music I could own, or other fanciful new things I could buy. New things drove my mind’s passions. As a result, weak and brief prayers have flowed from lips. When I hung around others, I was dwelling on how I could pridefully show off what I bought, rather than how I could encourage someone with the life changing words of Jesus.
Jesus works through our failures and gives us mercy to see where we have led ourselves. One Sunday, Pastor Jim spoke on Psalm 16, reminding me that my confidence should be in our God rather than in the fading things of this life that seem to give security. The Psalmist says, “The Lord is my portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot.” God is the one who provides my every need. He also says, “I have set the Lord continually before me; because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” Am I continually thinking about how I can live my life for Jesus?
The next Saturday, ACTS, our Sunday School group, raised money for missionaries Justin & Amy Culp by putting on a garage sale. That day we made about $200. We made a last minute decision to go ahead and do the sale again on Sunday morning. We prayed and asked Jesus to provide for people to come, then we quickly hung up signs. By the end we raised over $500. Jesus faithfully answered our prayers.
That same day, the Antioch High School Ministry presented to our church their mission trip to Peru. They led worship with grateful hearts lifted to their Savior because of the many wondrous works Jesus performed in their lives and the lives that were touched with their love and the life-transforming gospel. They told the story of how a pastor’s son needed a new wheelchair, but they did not have the money to get him one. The students, by their own initiative, pooled their souvenir money together and raised more than enough to meet the need. The pastor’s eyes filled with tears at the amazement of how Jesus worked through the students hearts to help provide.
After hearing over and over again messages of prayer and dependence on Jesus, Vanessa and I decided to change our life style. We sat down and wrote in my journal how we are to live differently in the area of prayer and dependence.
In the area of prayer:
1. We purposefully spend time thinking about and praying for others. Throughout the day, when someone shares a need, instead of saying we will pray for them and then forget about it later, we pray with or for that person immediately.
2. We pray to Jesus for the little and big things. No matter what time of day it is and no matter how seemingly small and insignificant a matter may be, we are to bring that to God, expecting Him to answer in His timing.
In the area of Dependence:
1. We release our grip on the vanishing stuff that we own, realizing that Jesus is the one who owns everything.
2. We allow the Holy Spirit to show us how we can help those around us in need. A small example is when my mom gave my brother a laptop for his birthday. He said he needed a backpack for the laptop. I just bought a laptop backpack from a garage sale and had sewn the hole on the top of the bag. I had a choice to release the backpack to meet the need or selfishly keep it for myself. Now my brother has a backpack to hold his laptop.
Being able to let go material things and start giving them away, and to pray more often and with a purpose, has helped in many ways: 1. I am starting to feel more at peace with what Jesus has provided for us up to this very moment. Everything I have right now is enough to glorify Jesus. 2. I am starting to feel more in tune with physical and spiritual needs of those around me. 3. I am starting to resist stuffing my day full of useless activities. 4. Instead of thinking about the next material item I can buy, I am starting to think more about how I can encourage others.
Everything that I have mentioned are continual reminders that Jesus will bring to our attention over and over again for the rest of our lives. I pray that one day at a time Jesus will help us to use our hands to release our grip on material things of this life and give them away to those in need; use our lips to pray and encourage others; and to use our minds to best think about how we can glorify His name. I pray that this has been an encouragement to you as you live for Jesus one day at a time.
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