I got a new car on Friday; well, it's new to me and it allows me some freedom of movement that I haven't had for a while. One of the things that it has allowed me is the freedom to attend a fellowship of God's people. The pastor has a real heart for the people not unlike many other pastor's do and he speaks in a very practical and straight forward way. So, yesterday afternoon, I went to the 5:30 pm service to sing, to worship, to contemplate and to listen to God's word for me. Rusty's message was " How do I know I am pleasing God?".
Now, there's a question...My immediate thoughts were of my own father and the struggle in my own life for his acceptance and approval. I think it is only natural to want those things...the assurance of God's love for us is sometimes hard to handle when the assurance of our earthly father's love is not so sure. And that pleasing thing is another story entirely. The acceptance and the resting in God's love has brought to me over time the knowledge that I am pleasing to my Father.
My struggle with this in my own father's eyes is not unlike that of others. I did things over the years that were displeasing to him and that displeasure was evident. I even tried in ways to get him to see that there were the things that he did wrong and how they affected me. In my haste to get my acknowledgement, I probably neglected to give him the props that he was due for his struggles to put a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. In the years since my father's passing, I have reconciled his love and acceptance of me. He did better for me, than his own dad did for him, I did better for mine than he did for me, and mine will do better for their children. Why, because we hope to learn from the shortcomings and attempt to be better and we take what was good and continue to pass that on.
The thing about God is that He is described as a generous God, who, if we ask Him, will give to us wisdom. The point of the message to me was that when I doubt, that is okay. When I need wisdom, then I just ask of God and He will give me that wisdom. I must place that trust in Him alone and not be unstable. It is hard to walk in stability in the world today, there are so many voices and opinions tugging and pulling us. I needed to be reminded of God's love and guidance yesterday. I needed to have reinforced that His Word, His Spirit and His People are the ways that He guides us. Sometimes we tend to really complicate things with our musings and our ideas.
I think what made yesterday special to me was that before I could answer the question "do I want to please God, I needed to know, again, that He Loved me. And He does, always has, always will....You see, it just comes down to love....God did for us what we could not do for ourselves and He did it through His love.
