John the disciple (as apposed to John the Baptist) =)
He is characterized as having zeal, ambition, aggressive, and at times behaves in a volatile and brash manner. He was one of the inner three disciples who were closest to Jesus as He lived on earth.
As I read about John this week, the Lord started teaching me far more about the wisdom I need for this stage of life. See John had a zeal for truth. This zeal made him a pretty black and white type of guy. He generally thought in absolutes. Either you loved God and followed him or you didn’t. If you loved God, you spoke truth. If you lied, you didn’t have Christ in you. Black and white. This zeal for truth was good, but a little out of balance. However, after 3 years of walking with Christ, love for others began to balance his zeal for the truth.
In his infancy stage of Christianity, his potential virtues were so out of balance that they became sins. Most of the disciples, and us, are wired this way. Our greatest strengths become our weaknesses when taken to an extreme. John MacArthur states ” But three years with Jesus began to transform a self-centered fanatic into a mature man of balance. Three years with Jesus moved this Son of Thunder toward becoming an apostle of love…’
The point…yes I have one!
I’ve entered a personally uncharted season of life. God has called Brent and I to do something that requires me to be a single mom quite a bit, but I’m not sure how to do this yet. In fact, I’ve wasted a lot of time thinking about how to live this new role I’ve found myself in. How do you go from single mom back to family back to single mom and back again? This week as I’ve been studying John and praying through the whole idea of balance, God has really spoken to me about the transition I am attempting to make.
What if life wasn’t broken up into “weeks where Brent is gone” and “weeks where Brent is here“. What if I didn’t try to live the extreme of trying to plan fun things and be gone and make the time pass while Brent is gone and then go back to strict schedule and family stuff the weeks he’s here? What if I allowed Christ to keep my life balanced in him regardless of the circumstances around me?
I don’t have any answers yet, but God is teaching me how to rely on Him for the answers instead of picking up the phone and just having my hubby tell me the answers =) There was a pastor visiting our church who said something to the effect of that Christians need to learn how to live with Christ as the head. We tend to live like a chicken with its head cut off. The body running around the yard saying “what do you want me to do, where should I go, what should I do next.” But the body will just keep jerking in all sorts of directions because there is no head. If Christ is our head, we just go where the head tells us and do what the head tells us. Its not hard. We just need to listen and obey and expect direction.
That image of submitting to the Head has stayed in my mind for the past few months. Balance definitely comes, like it came to John, as I walk as the body of Christ with Christ as the head instead of always living in one extreme or the next.
Balance…
Goals:
- Read Same Kind of Different as Me this week. I couldn’t put it down! Needless to say, the other books I was reading didn’t get much read out of them. But I finished Same Kind of Different as Me so I’ll pick back up the others this week too. I’m hoping to finish Twelve Ordinary Men this week.
- So I have one friend who said she would teach me to sew. I just have to call her and get started…We’ll see if I’m any good =)
- I will work out this week, I will work out this week, I will work out this week! For some reason, if I don’t get up early and work out, I’m not getting them in. When Brent is gone, I can’t leave early to work out because of the kids and then when he’s home, I just want to be home in the morning with him in stead of leaving to work out. Ahhhhhhh. But I truly believe God calls us to take care of ourselves and our body so the workouts must be fit back in. Running twice a week isn’t cutting it =)
- I’m planning on staying home a lot this week. My two older kids are currently going stupid and must be whipped back into shape. That should be a project in and of itself. So isolation is the answer so that there will be many opportunities for me to lovingly correct and discipline inappropriate behavior =) Its hard to discipline in public =)
