Monday, April 09, 2007

What do you want them to say?

WOW, what a busy weekend we had. I'm just flat exhausted today. We had a great Easter and church was just...........wow, amazing. I left there thinking, why can't it be like that every Sunday? Why is it on Easter it seems like everyone is all excited about Christ, shouldn't we be that excited EVERY Sunday? But, what I want to talk about is what I experienced Saturday. I went to a very dear friend of mine's grandfather's funereal. I started thinking, wow, I haven't been to a funereal in a very long time. That really gets you thinking. It was a very sweet and simple service. I was so glad I could be there, but I had no idea what kind of effect this man would have on my weekend.

After the service was over I came home only to find that my house was in COMPLETE disarray. Everyone was crying and Kris looked like he was going to blow up. So what got me thinking, is, my goodness if this is what it's like when I'm gone for two hours..........what would it be like if I was gone forever? My friend's grandfather, left one common message with everyone he knew.........Everlasting Love. And I started to think, what would be the message I would leave if I left this world? Would it be the message that I don't know what to do with all of my laundry, since I have baskets full everywhere? Would it be that my house looks clean on the surface but dig down deep and it's really a mess? Would it be that my girls have to look like cutie pies every Sunday? Would my husband hold the love I truly have for him or would the criticism fill his heart? Would people know how much I loved them or would they question what their relationship really meant to me?

Then Sunday morning it all got put together for me. This world isn't about us anyways, It's all about God's plan, not ours. We are such a small, small piece of the whole puzzle. And the final piece is Him, Jesus, not us. We can do great things in our lives, we can have thousands of people attend our funerals, but the truth is, the world will carry on without us. We have the ability to leave an impact and change lives but do we? Do I make the most of every opportunity Christ has laid before me or do I say, well it doesn't really matter unless it's something "big"?

So, when God speaks you know he confirms his words.........listen to what I've experienced this morning in John. I'm in 4:27-42. This is right after the Samaritan woman has met Christ and he tells her all of those ugly things about her. He has now rejoined the disciples and they are eating. Meanwhile the woman has rushed off to tell anyone she could to come and meet the Christ, she now believes! The disciples were very surprised to see Jesus talking with this Samaritan woman, but they never questioned Jesus. So they are trying to get Jesus to sit and eat with them but you know how Jesus is ALWAYS trying to find a life lesson through everything! Read what he said with me, v.34 "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, Four months more and then the harvest? I tell you open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying One sows and another reaps, is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Other have done the hard word, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."

You see, the fields are full of people who have never experienced, "Everlasting Love". It's not something we leave with people, it's something they have to experience. But what I believe my friend's grandfather meant was that he had experienced that "Everlasting Love", and he wanted his whole family and many other to experience it too. I can sit here all day and tell you how much I love Christ, and how much he loves me, but unless you have experienced that love, you can't understand it. So as Christians we are walking daily in fields, where others may have poured their whole life into people, where we may be able to show them one act of kindness, or one act of grace and their lives may be changed forever, at that time we may be the reaper, but I believe more times than not, we are the sowers.

So when I leave this world, I want to be known as a sower. A person who did little things each day to change lives around them. To leave little seeds of "everlasting love" everywhere I go. Not just always the big stuff, like leading someone to the Lord. Of course I rejoice at opportunities to do that, but I also need to be content with sometimes just laying the foundation! Oh how I just want each day to be full of Christ, so full that He's just popping out of me! If that makes sense! =) And I realize that so many of my struggles are just because I don't let him, I don't let myself be full of him. For fear of others rejecting me or thinking I'm strange. Or maybe putting myself in a situation where I'm not comfortable. I'm not saying I want to stand on the streets and shout it out like so many radicals do, but I do want to be different.

I end with this verse this morning, Isaiah 55:8, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord." My prayer is always that God's heart would be my heat and my heart would be God's heart! So today my prayer is that I would see the world the way God does, and I would do things the way He would! And that I would leave little seeds of Everlasting Love, everywhere I go............

Have a very blessed Monday morning!

So back to my question for you..........what do you want them to say about you when you're gone? Please post your comments! I LOVE comments!!! =)

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