Life is very interesting when you are DEFEATED. It is almost like someone grabs you by both shoulders and rips you out of your daily routine. God has used my failings twice in my life to SIGNIFICANTLY CHANGE my life’s direction, and I pray that He in his mighty wisdom can do the same for you. I pray this for you, not so you have to endure the challenges of failing, but for the opportunity for God to show you something about your life. When we are defeated, feeling inadequate and sad about letting people down, your perspective changes. Your mind shifts away from being closed to being open—and this is exactly when God showed me something very important--something I pray God will keep guarded in my heart FOREVER!
TEACHING
I walked into the eyeglass store looking for help. A nice young lady came up to me and asked me
with a warm smile, “Is there anything I can help you out with today?” I looked over to her and said, “You know,
HELP is exactly what I am looking for.”
As she was helping me with my glasses, she told me she was a
teacher. I told her that I thought TEACHING
was very hard. She asked me if I had
ever tried it before. I told her I had
only tried teaching once in my life and I crashed and burned--it wasn’t
pretty! She smiled as she continued to
work on my glasses for me and that was when I told her, “But God used it for my
good…”
19So
if you ignore the least commandment and teach others to do the same, you will
be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But anyone who obeys God’s laws
and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. (Matthew 5:19,
NLT)
As Christians, we are called to be teachers of God’s
word. Though some people are gifted by
the spirit to be preachers, we ALL are called to teach the good
news of Jesus and point people to The One True God.
DEFEATED
It was my first time teaching in bible study. I was well prepared and had my lesson written
out before me. I was nervous about
teaching for the first time, the fear in my heart was very similar to the fear
I would get before a speech in speech class, but I knew that God had my back. I lead a prayer before we began the lesson but
somehow the words did not seem to come very easy to me. I had been feeling that God wanted me to pray
more in my life and somehow my prayers never seemed to come out quite the way I
wanted them too…
During the lesson, fear continued to work on my
heart. I became lost and everything I
looked at in what I had planned to teach seemed so meaningless and
pointless. Fear wrapped itself around me
and shut me down. Finally I succumbed to
my fear, I stopped in the middle of my lesson--I looked up at the students and
over to my co-leader and said, “I’m sorry guys, I was well prepared to teach
tonight but this just isn’t working.” I
looked over to my co-leader with defeated eyes and asked, “I know that you
hadn’t planned to teach the lesson tonight, but could you help me out?” My co-leader took over teaching and I tried
to stay engaged, but I sat there forlorn as the feelings of failure continued
to steal my spirit.
PRAYER
See
Image Here: http://neounorthodoxy.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/prayer.jpg
Later that night, I took the advice of my awesome wife
Heidi and decided to PRAY. The leaders of my bible study showed me about
getting down on my hands and knees when I pray and this act of SUBMISSION
has a great way of showing God where you put Him in your life. I needed help from above and it wasn’t
something that I could do on my own!
6But
when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your
Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.
(Matthew 6:6, NLT)
God had definitely been pulling at me to pray more, so I FINALLY
got down on my hands and knees and opened up to the One Above. It is very hard for me to get QUIET
before the LORD. My mind likes
to wander and sounds easily distract me--But this time, during the quiet of the
night and as I became still before the LORD I finally let go of myself and
opened up to speak with Him.
I prayed to God to make me a better father, to make me a
better husband, to make me a better worker and to make me a better
teacher. I asked God if my faith was
shallow, was my walk just words that had no substance to them? For the first time in my 12 years of being
saved, I felt INTIMATE and PERSONAL with God. Just as God’s word tells us that when we draw
close to God, he will draw close to us—I actually felt him come close to
me.
My sister in law said that being in God’s presence is
awesome and I couldn’t agree more with her.
My wife put it like this, “God is the master creator of all the
universe. Isn’t it cool that we ALL can talk to him personally and
that he HEARS each and every one of us?”
REVELATION
Later that morning, after having shared on Facebook (see people--Facebook
isn’t ALL that bad), my sister-in-law told me that God can’t come near to us
when we are too prideful. When she said
that word PRIDE, the spirit tugged at me.
My mind and my heart were still open as I was still feeling the effects
of my crash and burn in teaching from the night before. I asked myself, had I been too prideful when
I was teaching? Maybe it was pride that
keep my mind wondering during my prayer, when all I wanted to do is speak to my
King? At that moment, I decided I was
going to start living my life FOR OTHERS and take MY
PRIDE out of the picture.
Don’t
be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as
better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an
interest in others, too. (Philippians 2:3, 4 NLT)
Don’t
be concerned for your own good but for the good of others. (1 Corinthians 10:24
NLT)
LIFE
IS NOT ABOUT YOU. LIFE IS ABOUT
OTHERS. This
is what God showed me. He answered my
prayer. I asked Him that night to make
me a better father, to make me a better husband, to make me a better teacher
and to make me a better worker—and THIS was His answer!
I’ve always had a hard time defining what humility means,
but I don’t think I have heard it explained any better than in Philippians 2:3
– “Being humble is thinking of others as better then yourselves.” Looking back, I think that in a lot of ways
my faith has been SHALLOW. We are told many
times throughout our walk with God to APPLY his truth to our lives, and I
don’t know if I have every really done that until this point. From the very moment I actually starting LIVING
God’s truth in my life, by His unmerited favor, The One Above has
blessed me by transforming each and every relationship in my life. I encourage you to see what God will bless
you with when you seek to apply what He has shown you in his word. I suggest you shut the door, get quiet before
the LORD and pray for Him to show you how you can start to implement His truth in
your life.
I have a homework assignment for you and this is it: Whoever the closest person is to you in your
life, the very next time you meet them, start living your life all about them
and not yourself….and see what happens?
TRYING
TO LIVE LIKE HIM
See
Image Here: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uC2pMSCceKY/Ul3Wy7HoQDI/AAAAAAABIrY/KJBp6-ZJBZw/s1600/Jesus.JPG
48But
you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48,
NLT)
THOUGH
WE WILL FALL, I BELIEVE AS CHRISTIANS WE ARE CALLED TO TRY AND LIVE OUR LIFE
THE WAY JESUS LIVED HIS. We can never live up to the incredibly high
standard of the perfection of God, but I believe as Christians we have to give it
our BEST
EFFORT! Jesus tells us He is the
Good Shepherd whose purpose is to give us a rich and satisfying life—and my
life has never been more rich and satisfying then when I starting living more
humble, being more concerned about others then myself.
SERVING
See
Image Here: http://www.danielim.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/serve.png
Here is a good story about how God has blessed me in living
this way:
It
was a very busy night at the hospital and the strain of stress was weighing
heavy on all of us working.
As I
passed the ER Physician, I smiled at her and said, “This has been a fun one
tonight hasn’t it?”
She
looked back at me with a smug grin shaking her head saying, “I’m so tired.”
I told
her, “You need to take the time to get a cup of coffee and find a little rest
for yourself”.
She
yelled back to me as she was heading into the next patient room, “Who has time
for coffee”!
I
started heading back to my department, when I felt the tug from the Holy Spirit. That tug pulled me out of my routine and had
me take notice. My mind tried to figure
out what God’s Spirit was telling me and then I knew just what I had to do. I turned myself right around and walked into
the room where the ER Physician was. I
asked her if I could get her a cup of coffee.
She nodded yes and looked at me with a very skeptical grin, “Kirk, what
are you trying to get from me?” I just
smiled at her as I was walking away and said, “God showed me something pretty
cool. When you have time I’ll tell you
about it”. As I was walking backwards
heading toward the EMS break room, I was looking back at her with a warm smile
and I nodded. She looked back at me
shaking her head and smiled back saying, “You might have to do that Kirk, you just
might have to do that”.
As I
got to the EMS break room, I realized I forgot to ask her what she took in her
coffee. So I went on back to the patient
room and mouthed the words, “What do you take in your coffee”, as she was in
the middle of speaking with the patient from behind the curtain. She mouthed back, “Cream”. I went into her office and neatly arranged
her coffee for her. I placed the
napkins, spoon and creamers next to the coffee and my heart found peace.
May the peace of Christ be with you.
See
Unspoken’s intimate & personal acoustic video for “Lift my Life up” here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5KmkdWdRQU
