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The mud
One of the questions I spent my life trying to answer was, why am I here? I felt so insignificant. It wasn’t just the family I was brought up in, but also the way I was living my life, too. I knew when I became an adult I was no long able to blame my family for my inactivity in my own life. Because I was not an active participant in my own life, I was buried in the lives of others, my friends, then my man and then my kids.
What I did not know, until I knew Jesus, was although I was wallowing in the mud, I am not an ameba in the mud. My life has purpose just as your life has purpose, otherwise we would not ask the question. We are here at this time in history for a reason despite what the evolutionist believes. Do not believe that we are the result of a destructive explosion the actually created life in some million year old mud puddle. We are not meant to dwell in the mud while waiting for death. We are meant to see and know the purpose of our life and move toward it.
I am pondering the future therefore I must ponder the past. I ponder it with amusement and amazement. I laugh at how invisible I thought I was and how invisible I must be in the future. My purpose has brought me full circle in my thinking. I believed that I was invisible in the past and it hurt me, but I know that I must be invisible in the future to glorify Christ which excites me. My past was painful, but my future is hopeful. How does one reconcile this phenomenon?
This very morning it came to me. In the past I was invisible because I was in mud. I believed that you looked at me, but you did not see me because of the mud (life’s mistakes, worldly views of beauty, you know that MUCK) I was covered in. I was sinking quick in this mud and had no way of pulling myself out. I knew one thing though, you could not pull me out because you were human too. At one point in my life I would love for you to join me in the mud but time in the mud made me empathetic toward everyone in the mud.
I needed spiritual strength to get out of the mud, eternal strength. Earthly strength was not going to do it, it couldn’t. Eternal strength was the power I needed to understand what chosen invisibility should look like. The eternal strength I have is Jesus. I am in Him (I am invisible) and He is the strength I need to do anything He has anointed me to do. I become invisible because I want you to see Him. My purpose was given to me by Him to glorify Him. When He is glorified, souls are saved. The most important part of being a Christian.
If you are in the mud today, know that you must come out. You are not meant to wallow in the mud but be invisible while you learn from your anointing. My time and effort as a Christian is to show you the way out. I am annointed to do that therefore I too learn from my anointing. That is why I live. Jesus will be found, and He will be glorified whether you follow His purpose or not BUT what wonders you will behold if you do. COME OUT OF THE MUD.
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Invisible Rewards
Invisible is She!
Leola is gifted with administration, which is causing her quite a bit of heartache because she sees issues with planning others just don’t see. Not only is this an issue for her in church but at work too. She needs to learn how to train herself to say what needs to be said then and not say more. She needs to understand what needs to be done when it absolutely needs to be done and not more. She also needs to learn to allow time for the people to catch up in their own mind without the “I told you so” stance. It is not about pride for Leola, at least in this situation, it is about not being listened too by leaders or people in authority. This plays right into her insecurities so she walks out of meetings or conversation with another crack in her heart. Leola has felt invisible all of her life. Each part of her life has brought a new season of feeling as if no one sees or hears her. Maybe it is this gift of administration from the Lord or maybe it is just her? She does know one thing – it is a horrible feeling not to be seen and she doesn’t like it very much!
When Leola feels invisible she ramps up her actions toward noticeability ultimately inflating her anger because she is getting nowhere. What she hadn’t noticed before is she is attempting to get rewarded by man! The premise of getting our reward from man is complicated and stealthy. At work she understands she is looking for the recognition of capability and at home she is looking for ignorant compliance to her demands. This is simple ten years later to understand, but at the time it was a struggle to work it all out. For as long as Leola can remember she has been one step ahead of most people with insight into the issues facing them. It has never been something she bragged about but it has always been a burden for her. She couldn’t understand why man could not see what she was seeing. It was simple to her! Maybe it was her! Maybe folks just didn’t see her. Oh, they saw her long enough to call her ugly but not long enough to take advice; long enough to tell her what to do but not long enough to listen. On her knees bawling like a baby, God would teach her He sees her and a lot more.
Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 6:1) This verse we read but don’t see it for what it really means to us on a daily basis! Our deep feelings of insecurity come from the rewards we are attempting to get from man and do not receive. Men, of all kinds, are trying to get rewards from men and it is highly promoted. Gifted leaders are rewarded by man with leadership but it goes to their head and they begin to accept the reward from man rather than Jesus. Gifted musicians take reward from man then fall prey to pride and start singing worship to the devil. People cross the line every day under the guise of getting rewards from men. We see it happening daily from the world and the church including people who love Jesus. We are just a little more subtle about it. We tell people how much money we gave, who we helped, what we do for others and the like. The minute we open our mouth we have our reward!
He Sees Her!
Leola, still on her knees, cried out to God telling Him everything she feels. She told God, people don’t see her and she isn’t sure He doesn’t see her either. He has removed everything important to her and here she was alone in her ‘Jesus Room’ with nothing left to lose. Her heart was broken beyond repair from being invisible all of her life. She couldn’t stop crying and her emotions were running the gamete. When she stopped crying there was no lightning bolt to knock her out of her chair. There was no angel standing in front of her to tell her face to face God sees her. She just felt relief from the tirade because she actually understood herself why she was so disappointed with God. She expected God to take from her because she had known no different. She expected God to be blind to her because she felt no other feeling. Leola placed a human standard on God. Up to that point there was no male figure in her life she could say had any favourable impact in her life and God, to her, had been no different. She loved Him dearly but she also wasn’t expecting much from Him either. She didn’t expect Him to meet her needs, meet her expectation or to meet any of His promises in her life. The year following this outburst was enlightening to say the very least. God transformed the way she saw Him but more over He transformed the way she saw herself. She loved Jesus with all of her heart and did everything possible to obey His every command but her invisibility had engulf her whole life even into her Spiritual life. It had permeated so deep she was even invisible to herself. God raised her from the dead and changed how she looked at herself through learning more about rewards from the Bible. Leola now understands the difference between the rewards from Heaven and the rewards from man! She works fervently for the rewards from Heaven knowing God sees her and is the rewarder of those who seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). They are invisible rewards!
We are made to want reward but not from people from God! He knew we would need this to be driven. He gifts us to be driven in specific directions yet He also knew that same gift is used in the world to make money to live on. There are poor Christians and there are filthy rich Christians and everything in between. Our reward is not the money, the accolades or the power because God can take all of that away in a minute. Our reward is the treasures we are storing up in Heaven where moth and rust do not destroy (Matthew 6:20). This week think about why you work so hard and for whom!
Meditation Verses this week: Matthew 6:1; Hebrews 11:6; Matthew 6:20
