Sweet Sisters:
In a month I will be 64 years old. When Paul and I were much younger, the Beatles sang a song that was very popular. Part of it went, “Will you still love me, will you still feed me, when’ I’m 64?” We would laugh and think how very old 64 years was. Today it doesn’t seem old at all.
As I think back over the journey that has brought me to this point, questions haunt me. Have I made a difference in the Lord’s Kingdom? Should my focus have been different? Is God pleased with what I have done with the life He has given me, with the choices I have made?
My mind travels back to a time when I was a young preacher’s wife with three little girls under four years old. Life was a blur. My days were filled with picking up toys over and over again. Dirty dishes were stacked all over the kitchen. Toilets were filled with dirty diapers (yes, these were the pre-Pampers Days), and all the clean ones were drying on the clothes line.
Sundays were chaotic and crazy. I sat on one end of a pew and my darling, Aunt Billie, sat at the other end. In between us we corralled the same three little girls who scattered books, toys and Cherrios the entire length of the pew and loudly made inappropriate comments at inappropriate times.
Afterwards, at lunch, my preacher husband would anxiously ask, “What did you think of my sermon?” I would look at him, while mopping up a glass of juice and handing the baby a fresh sipper cup and say, “You preached?”
The years passed. The little girls grew. Circumstances changed, but the chaos and the craziness remained. There seemed to always be something that needed to be done. There was always somewhere I needed to be. There were always responsibilities at home as a wife, a mother and the “Keeper of the Castle.” And there were responsibilities at church as the wife of one of the preachers.
Does my story sound familiar? Many of you worked full time jobs outside your family commitments as well. Did you ever feel like you were in a small pond with a school of piranhas?
Deep in our hearts we desperately wanted to spend quiet time with God, do more mission work, take food to the sick, call and visit with the elderly…. But somehow, all the good intentions kept falling through the cracks of life.
Today I want to share a couple of passages that comfort me and reassure me that my journey has been pleasing to God.
The first passage is at the end of the 15th chapter of I Corinthians verses 57 and verse 58:
57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
Paul starts off verse 58 with the word “therefore.” We could also translate it “so”. Why did he say this? Because in the last part of verse 57 he says, God “has given us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Because the battle has already been won, then we are fully capable of doing what Paul tells us to do in verse 58. He says:
1) Stand strong
2) Don’t change
3) Devote yourselves fully to the work of the Lord
Sweet Sisters, the next part is my favorite part of the verse.
“…know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”
No matter how small or insignificant the task we are doing is, if we are doing it to honor God it is not wasted. Praise God!!!
The next passage is Colossians 3:23 – 24:
23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
This passage is written to slaves, but the word “servants” or “employee” can also be used.
We learn in these verses that when we work with all our hearts for those we serve, God sees that work as our way of serving Him and He will reward us.
Colossians 3:17 is next: And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
I know that according to my “Biblical Rule” it should have been second, but today I am putting these passages in order of how they spoke to my heart.
At the end of verse 11 of this chapter, Paul says that Christ is all, and is in all. He then goes on to tell us that because we are God’s chosen people how we should live. In verse 17 he sums it all up by saying whatever you do, do it in the name of the Lord.
Sweet Sisters, as I enter the autumn of my life and I am haunted by the questions I began this lesson with. I can be confident in the knowledge that God has indeed been pleased with the life I have led and the choices I have made on my journey so far. Yes, the journey has been chaotic and crazy or dark and uncertain at times. I’ve made bad choices and suffered the consequences. I’ve stood in awe and marveled at the beauty God has brought from a “word or deed” that I felt was insignificant.
Through it all, my deepest desire has been to please Him the best way I can according to the gifts He has given me.
Let’s close with Micah 6:8. It sums up very well the point of today’s lesson.
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
Debbie