Daily Bread

It is Christmas time, and I have been reading about the birth of Jesus. I think that my favorite passage to read, is in the Gospel according to Luke. It is here, in this account, that we read of Jesus' mom's prayer of praise called, "Mary's Song." Lately I have been meditating on being a bond-slave of the Lord's. It has been the topic of many conversations lately. And through out this year, the Lord has brought this topic to mind, and has been dealing with me about it. The other day as I was reading in Luke, my attention was caught, as I read these words of Mary's, and of her cousin, Martha:

Luke 1:45–48

⁴⁵ Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.” ⁴⁶ And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord, ⁴⁷ And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. ⁴⁸ For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.

I realize that the wording here is different, maidservant as opposed to bond-servant, but the meaning is the same.......Mary chose to give her whole life over to the Father! She chose to bear the Son of God, knowing that her life would drastically change, and that it would never be the same, that she would never be the same. Mary committed all to the Lord.
When I contemplate being a "A Handmaid of the Lord," please know that I do not equate myself with Mary, or with any other person mentioned in the Bible for that matter. The only thing that I share with these men and women of old, is the desire to serve my Lord wholly, and unreservedly.
The Lord has been teaching me what it means to be a "Maidservant" of His. He has been faithful to bring about many changes in my heart and in my life.
I now know what true freedom is. Freedom you say? Yes, freedom, for the Bible teaches us that there is true freedom in giving our lives away.
One of the ways that I have experienced freedom is in my service to the Lord, what we call, ministry. I think that being a pastor's wife, and serving go hand in hand, you cannot separate the two. What I have discovered though, is that God does not require of us, something that we can not give. And can we give without His help? No. You see, where God guides, He provides.
I can remember so many times that I was faced with a choice to "do something" for God, or for others; like teach a Sunday school class,or make a meal for a needy family, or I was asked to babysit a friend's children, or have company over, or clean the church building, and I would just respond with, "yes." Sometimes, I would enjoy the time of service, I would be able to give of my time, and of myself, with gladness....but so often the opposite was true. I would find myself giving in a grudging manner,or giving because I felt like I had to, or giving because I felt guilty, and I would even be angry at times! I did not find a lot of joy in serving, and rightly so!
God was so faithful to me during this time in my life. He knew that this attitude of mine would destroy me if left unchecked; and it would destroy others too.
May I digress a bit here? Through out my walk with God, He seems to deal with me about a certain issue all year long. One year it was about prayer, another was about being careful of my mouth, and this year (2011) has been, (again!) about being a bond-servant. Each morning, during my quiet time, as I read the Word, passages about being a bond-servant keep "appearing." And why do I say, "again?" To explain I must go back to the year, 2002.
I had been a pastor's wife for 6 years, and a Christian for 14 years. I got a hold of a book titled, Having A Mary Heart In A Martha World, and God used it to change my life. Through this book, the Lord made me to see that my attitude in, and about serving, was sinful. God began to show me things from His word about what it means to serve Him joyfully, and unreservedly.
One of the things that He taught me was, service has to come from a pure heart, and with pure motives. Well, how can I, a sinner, do this? The only way to have purity in my heart, was to empty me of me, and to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And the only way to have pure motives, was to involve the Lord in my decision making process. Therefore, I must go to God when faced with an opportunity to serve.
At this time of my life, I was involved in many areas of service at my church, and I came to see that most of them I had not asked the Lord about, I had not asked Him if I should even being doing them!
On the day that this realization came to me, I knew that I needed to do something about it this, and so I did. I took a blank sheet of paper and began to write down all of the things that I did on a daily basis, and not just in the area of church, but my whole life. What I saw blew me away! I was so busy and my days were so filled up, it was no wonder that I felt overwhelmed and joyless!
That very day, I began to pray about each item on my list, even about being a wife!
One of the first things that God spoke to me about was my attitude towards my husband. He showed me that I wasn't putting Mitch in the proper place in my heart, I was not acting like Mitch was my "head." So, the first thing that I needed to change was to be asking Mitch, before I committed to doing anything. I have to say that I still struggle with this one today. As I shared with him about what the Lord was leading me to do, we came up with a "plan." I would not commit to anything without talking to Mitch first. This helped in a two-fold way;
number one, it allowed Mitch to asked me if I had talked to God about it, and number two, it placed Mitch in the proper place in our marriage, as my head. Practicing these two things has literally changed my life in regards to service. One of the things that changed for me was not feeling guilty if I had to say no to someone, or in not doing something, and the other way was that I found joy in my service. And finally, involving God in my decisions has given me the ability to know that if I am in His will, I have what I need to do the task! Without involving the Lord, the works that I might do, are just that-works; and works produce death, but when I involve the Lord in my service to Him, fruit is produce, and that means life! As I wrote the last sentence it seems so clear to me, that of course, I should have involved the Lord in my service to Him, but I didn't, and there in lay the problem........I was not treating the Lord as my Master.
What I have learned is that if I am a bond-slave of Jesus', and I am, then He is the one who gets to plan my day, and He is the one who tells me what to do. And because He knows that I can not serve Him without help, He mercifully gives it!
I have found that without involving God in my day to day decisions, I quit literally am on my own so to speak; for God will not bless my waywardness!
But, I don't always choose to remember, and apply this lesson.
Here recently, the Lord led me to the passage about Christian's being judged for their works. The Lord says that He will try our works in the refining fire, and they will either be burned up, or they will last into eternity. Now I don't know about you, but my life is very busy! I am on the go, all of the time. So, I don't want what I spend my time doing to "burn up." I want what I do to be precious "gold" that will last. I want what I do to mean something! I don't want to be wasting what little time that I have here on the earth, doing something that God does not want me to do. And so, the only way that I can guarantee that my time won't be wasted, is to involve the Lord in.....well, my time! So, as you can see I still struggle with this whole service thing! That is why this year has been the year that God has been reminding me that I am His maidservant, I belong to Him.
I actually pierced my left ear as a way to help me remember that I have willing chosen to be a bond-servant of the Lord's. Each day, as I place an earring in my ear lobe, I re-commit myself to Jesus, and I ask Him to use the day for His kingdom, and for His glory. I look to God's hand for my daily bread.
And so for today, I repeat Mary's words.......
"Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word." ( Luke 1:38)