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One of my goals for growth in 2013 is to consume as much fiction as I do non-fiction. I recently finished an excellent biography about Ruth Bell Graham called, A Time for Remembering. I found this little treasure tucked away in our church library, the binding glue disintegrating in my hands as yellow pages came loose in the reading.
Reading about someone
who has walked the road of faith before me and succeeded gives me hope that God
can use me as well. It also reminds me
that no matter what trials I face, someone else has faced more of them! Life
is busy with an upcoming move, busy ministry and the never-ending but always
rewarding job of parenting 3 little men.
After reading about Ruth’s life I am inspired by her resolve and courage
to take on the challenges of life with a positive attitude.
Ruth’s early years growing up in China as a missionaries’
daughter was full of hardship and loss, even bombings! But these were all accepted as part of the
deal and not paid much heed. This is a
provoking view of ministry to me in my cushy life at home in the States.
And later in her
married years with a husband who was absent 6 months of the year she could have
easily become bitter or depressed or both!
Yet she never wavered in her commitment to her marriage and family. She
simply adapted and pressed on.
Wanna know the secret to her success? I know I did. She kept her Bible open all the
time and her children often found her early in the morning and late at night
pouring over His Words to her.
Her children never heard her complain about Billy’s absences, and the
moment he left they would begin to look forward to his return. She immediately got busy with some project to
pass the time and she spent many hours every day soaking up God’s words of love
for her.
This challenges me on so many levels. When life is difficult I want to complain,
sulk and pamper myself with distracting entertainment – like a good 6 hour
marathon of Pride and Prejudice! There is nothing wrong with P and P, mind you
(and a lot of things right about it!), and my husband actually thanks me for
watching it WITHOUT him. But if that is
what I turn to for my solace over my Lord than my heart will be temporarily
distracted but just as empty as when I began.
Ruth reminded me of something I already knew but need to keep
working at – nothing satisfies like Him.
Movies and other distractions can
entertain but they do not fill and they always come to an end. God’s Word fills, never changes and never
ends.
Jeremiah has a few thoughts on this subject, “my people…have
forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for
themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”(2:13) When I look to
something or someone else to fill me before my Creator, I’m hewing out my own
broken cisterns. Compare that to Jesus’ promise to us, “whoever
drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water I will give him will become in him
a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13,14) I know it might sound crazy if you haven’t
experienced it yourself, but God’s Word truly does satisfy my heart and fill it
like nothing else can.
Reading about Ruth’s life and parenting years leaves me
asking myself where is my life pointing my kids? If my kids rise early or waken in the night
where will they find me? On FB or
watching t.v.? Again, don’t get me
wrong, those things are okay and have their place. But where do I want them to find me more
often than not? Is my life pointing them to God? Or to media, Words with
Friends or other entertainment? It is a
continual dance of adjusting, starts and stops, but I am slowly making progress. I hope that like Ruth, my life will point
them to Jesus, the only One Who will satisfy and meet our every need.
