Is the coincidental total of '40 days of treatment' a 'sign' that this is divine preparation for something big? Probably not. And that is the point of this blog update - ponderings about the desire to be useful contrasted with focus on God, the Rock.
The context in which I write is a sense of disappointment in having decided to put off my assignments for the part-time study I'm doing. I really want to get this study done, because I want to make a difference in the world and think it will help. I feel somewhat 'guilty' (irrational though that be) taking life slowly for the duration of this medical venture, achieving very little along the way.
Today I went and sat by the river with a blah coffee. It used to be such a treat, that coffee, but now it tastes like nothing. That's the effect of the chemotherapy I'm told. Strange, isn't it, how a coffee-addict can be turned off coffee within a week? That's okay. The time by the river was inspirational despite the coffee.
I said to God, "40 days, Lord. Do you have some big thing ahead for me? Will you use me to save a whole people group or at the very least to facilitate others to do that? Are you working something special in me for that purpose? That would be very nice, to say the least."
Now let me backtrack ten minutes. As I sat by the river with my blah coffee, I had also just finished my BSF questions based on Deuteronomy 32 and Moses' final speech before his death. I made the description of God as 'rock' the topic of my riverside meditation today. In Deuteronomy 32:4, Moses says:
"He is the Rock, his works are perfect,
and all his ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong,
upright and just is he."
The water flowed over and around the rocks. How long has water flowed over these rocks? What dramas have been acted out in the lives of generations of people from around the world by the banks of this river? Today, I sat there, my white British skin sensibly covered from the Australian sun. Plenty of Chinese tourists fed ducks just up the river. In history, of course, it would have been local Aboriginal people who lived and worked the river here.
God is the Rock. His faithfulness doesn't depend on me. His work doesn't depend on me. I'm just like one of those little yellow flowers that pops up for a brief time. (Psalm 103:15-16)
Don't get me wrong. I'm not being pessimistic about the hoped for success of the 40 days of discomfort. His Word tells me that He uses such experiences to mould us (Romans 5:3-5) I DO still hope that He will use me in some small way in terms of unreached people groups. He certainly used Moses in ways that have reverberated for millenia, though I dare not liken myself to that great saint. Nevertheless, what matters is that He is the Rock and any of us are just like flowers which are here today and gone tomorrow.
Yes, I want to be useful. I dream of being somebody whose legacy goes down in history in terms of gospel outreach. But when I put that in the context of eternity, I realize just how little am. He is the Rock. I'm just a flower.
Yet in His kindness, may this little flower yet make her mark in terms of His work to reach that people group.
No comments:
Post a Comment