I'm Not That Awesome

I was in the staff room this morning, getting ready for work, when one of the staff members came upstairs for her break. She's not exactly my favourite staff member. I said hello, and continued reading my book.

Well, she decided to start talking to me. And she began saying how I was such a wonderful person, and just being around me made her feel happy, because I was always so happy and so kind and so patient etc etc etc. And I'm there thinking "Um, is this actually me we're talking about."

She then asked me if I had any friends like that. I said that most of my friends, especially ones from church, are very positive people who really make everything seem nicer. I then added that I didn't think I would have gotten through the past two years without God and His church.

She asked if we did things like praying for each other, and I explained how we had a time in every church service where you could stand up for prayer, or ask the people around you to pray for you.

She mentioned how important it was to pray and send out positive thoughts.

I said how I didn't regard them to be the exact same thing. I said that several of my prayers were not "positive" prayers, but angry prayers where you want to demand justice, or peace, or the ceasing of pain etc. "Even at work when a child is just crying all the time, I feel really impatient, and my prayers at that time are not happy prayers. Neither for that matter are many of the psalms. But when I feel that way I try to take my feelings to God."

We then started talking about the problem of theodicy (no, we did not call it that). I mentioned that God does everything for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). I said that it meant that I could find purpose in even the hardest of things because they were God's tools to teach me something I would need later.

I stressed to her I am just not that awesome, I am a very mean person at times, but that because God was working in me and for me, I was able to act in a "nicer" manner.

Praise God for that conversation! Please pray for this work collegue, that she will be led to the truth and will come to be one of those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

More Thoughts From My Quiet Time

The thing that struck me about this passage (Jeremiah 25:1-14) was the servanthood of Nebuchadnezzer. He is a pagan king (and you didn't get much more pagan than that in those days) and yet he serves the LORD.

The truth of the matter is that everyone serves God, willingly or unwillingly. They all give Him glory, either for His mercy or for His justice, depending upon whether or not they accept Christ. Everyone serves God - they either do so with joy, willingly, knowingly, or unwittingly and unwillingly.

This means that everyone around me, Christian and non-Christian alike, are serving God, and are doing His will, even in my life. The crying child is giving me a lesson on patience. The lazy co-worker gives me a lesson on self-control especially over my anger and controlling my tongue. The non-Christian antagonist helps me to be able to explain the faith to the lost.

LORD, thank You for all this!

Thoughts From my Quiet Time

"...let the one who has my word speak it faithfully..." (from Jeremiah 23:28)

It is so important that our conversations about God are based on God's Word. So often we can use our own human arguments and reasons as to why God is real. We rely on our testimonies, on our stories, on our experiences. And while they are important examples, they cannot take the place of the Word of God when speaking to others (especially non-Christians).

For this to happen we need to actually HAVE the Word. So few Christians in the West have a knowledge of the Scriptures. I remember being horrified when I once read that the average Western Christian has memorised 7 verses. How can we explain the faith if all we know is John 3:16 and Jeremiah 29:11? (I'm not dissing those verses - they are some of the first ones I memorised; I'm just saying that there is a whole lot more in the Bible than just those.)

Recently my reading and memorising of Scripture has fallen off. I so often get distracted by worldly concerns. Yet there is nothing more important than my relationship with God, which must be founded on a true knowledge of Him and His Word.

Giveaway

Jasmine of Joyfully At Home is having a Giveaway! She is giving away a What He Must Be (If He Wants to Marry My Daughter)Conference DVD. For those of you who don't know, Jasmine is the said daughter.

Voddie Baucham's books and sermons are always very thought provoking and focused on Scripture. So, jump over to Jasmine's blog and enter!

Adela M Curtis

If you have a negative feeling (worry, fear, anxiety, depression, hate, resentment, etc) and it does not go away when you meditate, you must take immeditate action... Instead of sitting down in front of that mood to wrestle with it by denials, do an heroic thing, a thing quite against your natural instincts; make yourself act quickly upon the opposite of that state... It is easy enough to act kindly if you feel kindly, the thing is to act by what you know to be right, no matter what you feel... The moment you feel any hate or fear or pride, think of the opposite and act upon it quickly. If you do thins you will find that you overcome the feeling in a wonderful way and you will have more power over the next mood. If you will make one single action you will find the whole thing has begun to change.- Adela M Curtis, The Way of Silence

The Baby Conference

Adoption from Douglas Phillips on Vimeo.

All On One Level

Last week a new team leader and 2IC started (2nd in charge). She's in my room, and I'm far from impressed. She's basically useless, and I'm doing even more than I was before, except now I don't have any time to do it in and I have to fix all of her mistakes. So yeah, not impressed.

But I think the thing that really annoyed me was one of her statements on Thursday. "We're all on one level - even me. I treat everyone like they're all on one level." She then went on about how all the different relief staff loved her because she treated them nicely.

Now, it's important to trea relief staff like they are human, and I've seen plenty of people doing otherwise. But we are NOT all on one level. And incidentally, the other useless teamleader said (and probably still says) the same thing.

At work we are NOT all on one level, and we SHOULDN'T be. When I was acting as Team Leader I was straight up front about this. "I'm the boss. I'll be leting you know what to do, run things by me, and DON'T PUT ON KIDS MUSIC." The others all loved this. They knew what they needed to do, because I'd let them know if anything wasn't being done. I wasn't mean (though I still limited kids music), and both Maryam and Ilanit have told me how much they preferred it when I was, as Maryam termed it, "The Boss."

Being a leader of anything is not about the position. I know a lot of people make it about the position. (And incidentally, both these "equallity minded" team leaders are happy to use their position to do what they want to do.) Being a leader is about taking the responsibility. The buck stops with you. You may delegate, even a lot, but when things go wrong it's your fault, and you fix it, even when it isn't your actual fault. As a result, you do the most work.

These two team-leaders want the position without the responsibility. As a result, there are big problems now, which are only going to get bigger as time goes on.