Faithfulness

I hated being pregnant. I was not one of those woman who glow – oh no! A better description of me would be; I grumped my way through pregnancy. I had terrible morning sickness with them all and then for the remaining months every part of my body seemed to hurt and I was so ridiculously tired a late night was 8:30pm. In my opinion pregnancy pretty much sucked (I know you are all thinking, “why on earth did she do it four times then?!”) There was however one part of the pregnancy months I did enjoy – the chance to choose my baby’s name. I loved finding names, sounding them out, adding middle names and even changing my mind.

Our name is so much part of our identity. It’s how people know us and call us. Our name is something very special to who we uniquely are.

I love the story of Zacchaeus in the bible found in Luke 19:1-9. Zacchaeus was a very influential and apparently very short man. The bible doesn’t specify how short but when he was standing in a crowd he couldn’t see a thing.

Zacchaeus desperately wanted to see Jesus – just see him. He must have heard a lot about this man called Jesus and wanted to know what all the fuss was about. So one day he joined the crowd in the street who had all come out because Jesus was in town. I imagine the scene something like Queen Street in Auckland at the Christmas parade – too many people to possibly move with ease and often you are on your tip toes swaying one side to the other trying to see over the people in front with little success.

Zacchaeus too was stuck behind a whole bunch of people and unable to see a thing. But undeterred the bible says “he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree.”

How many influential men do you know that would climb a tree to have a look at someone let alone run to do it, in his curiosity he threw aside all inhibitions and pretense and did exactly that, run and climb a tree – just so he could see this Jesus.

As Jesus walked by he stopped at the tree, “looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name, “Zacchaeus!”

CALLED HIM BY NAME!

Astonishing! Of all the people Jesus could have noticed that day, he noticed the man up a tree. But not only did he notice him – he called him by name.

It’s the same with you. Jesus notices you and he knows your name. He is calling you.

He is calling you to come to know him better.

He is calling you and saying, “I love you!”

He is calling you and saying, “Let me have your life and watch what amazing things I will do.”

He is calling you to give all your worries to him.

He is calling you by name because he knows your name.

You are not a faceless being in a crowd of millions. You are known, you are loved and you are called by the King of Kings, and Saviour of the world – Jesus.

Why don’t you say Yes to him today?

I am a planner – always have been and most probably always will be. I believe this is a godly attribute as God himself is a planner 🙂

I do life happily by having something to aim towards – some of my goals are little and some are ridiculously huge.

As a couple this was how Mark and I worked as well. We got married with the plan to do missions. When we were out on the mission field we were always planning the next tour, the next gig, the next adventure.

When Mark got sick and we were told it was cancer and he was going to die I continued with my planning. This time it was not happy planning but planning for a future that involved Mark getting sicker, dying, a funeral and then life after as a young widow with four small girls. It might seem morbid – but I had a plan.

As most of you know life doesn’t often go to our plan and of course life didn’t with Marks illness taking a very unexpected turn with the diagnosis of brain damage caused by the radiation treatment. When this happened we found ourselves in no man’s land. There was no plan! And what was worse there could be no plan! The neurologist, the oncologist and we ourselves had no idea how this illness could evolve.

I was lost! This among other things caused me to cope very badly with Marks illness (I won’t elaborate because it is in my book). I had to let go of my natural instinct to plan and have a goal and instead blindly trust that God, my heavenly Father, had a plan and he had it all under control despite the fact I didn’t.

Yes I learnt a lot of things through that, and yes I did learn to trust in God.

So why am I bringing this up? Well I had a plan – yep I had a plan for how I was going to do the next few years of life while I still had one daughter left at school. I thought my plan was in line with what I felt God was leading me into and so thought it was all sorted.

But last Sunday after some time spent alone with God asking him about some issues that needed to be sorted out to keep my plan working, God said, “Drop it, this is not my will for you to continue to pursue this. It is useless to me and therefore useless to you. Let it go.”

If there is one thing I have learnt to be good at it’s obedience to God’s voice. I knew he had said it and it actually confirmed what I had started to figure out because what I was pursuing was simply not working out.

So here I am with no plan. I have no idea what I am supposed to do next. I am trying to learn about marketing my book because God told me to write it so I figure I better work at selling it. But other than that – there is nothing!

All I want to do with my life and my days is tell others about Jesus. I want God to use me to encourage people to know God or know him better. That was the vision statement behind the book.

I am very blessed in my job to work at a Christian Medical Centre and I get to talk to people about Jesus, pray for them and try as much as I can to show God’s love in between the very busy phone and the administration required to run a doctors clinic.

But I know God is getting me ready for a change but I have no clue what that is.

God says in the well-known verse in Jeremiah 29:11

So even though I don’t have a plan – I can trust that my Saviour does, but there is a condition to me knowing that plan and it is found in the following verses in Jeremiah 29 Verses 12-14

So at present this is what I am doing. I am calling on God, I am praying to God and I am seeking God, both to draw closer to him but also to discover his plan for my future and what he wants me to do next. I am trying not to get frustrated (which is my natural tendency) and I am trying not to force anything. And I am waiting.

God has a wonderful plan for EVERY single person’s life. A plan that you can’t possibly imagine, and it will fulfil all the desires that are in your heart. But the condition to finding this plan and living it is like the scripture said, it’s calling on God, praying to him and seeking for him. When you discover God, which he has promised you will if you ask, then you will also discover the plan and the steps to that plan. Sometimes you will have to wait and trust for the next step, like I am at the moment, but it will come if you just keep following Jesus.

And so I wait in eager anticipation for the plans and the next steps he has for me. I’ll keep you posted!