“As we bring every bit of our bodily life into harmony with the new life which God has put in us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus.” (Chambers)
I write.
I work hard. No matter what the task I am focus and obsessed with the end results.
I hold those few people I truly love and won’t let go.
I try no to disappoint.
I encourage others.
I empathize with others.
I pray for others.
…in my own strength
…the best I can.
I am never as good as I think I should be, as Jesus was. But I am only human. I am doing the best I can under the circumstances.
How does that make me different from those who either don’t know or disregard Jesus? The best person outside the Christian sphere is doing the best they can under the circumstances.
“Watch how God will wither up your confidence in natural virtues after sanctification, and in any power you have, until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus.” (Chambers)
Does that mean to not try, to just let life go on happening waiting for Him to fill my mouth with the right words, my hands and feet with the right actions, my heart with the right emotions? If that is what it means to wait and trust, I would give up under the circumstances. But wouldn’t that be the only way that I would be someone different than the average non follower or non believer on the street?
The new job title was out of my control. The general manager had asked me a question that I had answered honestly, “It’s working alone on Sundays that I can’t stand anymore. It’s too much work for just one person.” Without asking me, she made the decision to exchange all my days for a new schedule at a new property. That was certainly not what I had in mind. I didn’t see it coming. Now I would have to explain to my co workers why I would be soon gone.
Some employees had already heard.
My supervisor walked past me all morning, looking at me, mumbling “They want me to apologies. Well I just won’t.” Because her actions the previous two Sundays had prompted me to speak my ill pleasure at the job. I was sure she was mumbling about me just loud enough for me to hear her displeasure. And I was sure she was talking about me.
I wanted to say something to her, to explain. Yet I stood working repeating to myself “Wait and trust.”
Five times she passed my table mumbling. Five times I kept silent. Miserably silent.
Then she stopped. “Want a break?” she asked slapping her pack of Marlboros in front of me.
“Yea sure.” I shrugged, figuring…here it comes.
We went out to the garage so she could smoke.
“The nerve of this kid.” she began. “I told her what to do. She complained. Then she called my boss. Now my boss wants me to apologize to her. Well I won’t. I just won’t!”
I had spent all that morning worrying about something that had nothing to do with me.
“Wait and trust.” like Jesus.
“God does not build up our natural virtues and transfigure them, because our natural virtues can never come anywhere near what Jesus Christ wants. No natural love, no natural patience, no natural purity can ever some up to His demands.” (Chanmbers)
I don’t know how to fling my old self out the window and put on this new man. But I am slowly learning how to listen to ways that are much better than my own. Maybe I will remember the lessons so I won’t have to keep relearning them through hard knocks and experience over and over again.