On the eve of Thanksgiving Misty received this letter from a friend serving here in South East Asia. This letter was given to her as well from a source that thought that she too, would need its encouragement and honesty. I have to admit that even as I read it (a man), it also has given me great encouragement and much needed perspective. I pray that it is a blessing to you as it was to us.
The Letter From a Female Believer Here:
I have recently begun to feel the acute pangs of missing home: I think it began with my sister going into labor and me being so far away in a tiny village when I received the news. I felt so far away and felt a growing sadness in not experiencing that moment with my family and a growing array of thoughts about having missed such a joyous family moment. I also delight in my daughter; she is a constant joy in my life...and sometimes I ache with the desire for her grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles to experience life as I do daily. But they don't, and when they see her again this stage will be gone. These thoughts have grown, linked themselves to other such thoughts about familiarity of America, and as such thoughts often do, spiraled to a place where this...no longer seemed worth it. My head knew why it was worth it, buy my heart came to no such compliance. If I could only have some such assurance as to when we should be finished, then I could set my mind towards knowing there “ is a light at the end of the tunnel.” But even with that thought my heart leapt more at the thought of returning home to family that at the absolute delight I should feel at just that: this work being done and a people group offering a new praise unto our Father. Today while reading “Candles in the Dark” by Amy Carmichael I read an excerpt of a letter to a dear friend in which she quoted Deuteronomy 18:2, “The Lord is their inheritance as He hath said unto them.” Amy then followed by writing the following:
"I thought then as I think now of the lovely inheritance you might have had. But He is your Inheritance instead of that lovely earthly joy. Throughout all eternity that word will be opening up it treasures."
At this point I couldn't remember exactly what the context was for this verse, so I looked up Deut. 18:1-2. God, in giving instruction to the Israelites before they enter the Promised Land, lays down what should be the inheritance rights for the Levites, those God-chosen servants who devoted their lives to worshipful service in the temple. My heart sunk as I read:
"The priest, who are Levites-indeed the whole tribe of Levi- are to have no allotment of inheritance with Israel. They shall live on the offerings made to the LORD by fire, for that is their inheritance. They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them."
Tears burned my eyes as the Lord spoke these words directly and deeply to my heart. I thought of the other eleven tribes who received- as their right- a share in the goodness of the land. I then thought of my family, in their homes, enjoying the blessings, those “lovely earthly joys” God has freely given them. And I heard my Lord Most Dear whisper in my heart, “ but that is not to be your place. Your inheritance is different.” Tears again burned my eyes soaking this in and whispering back to Him, “this is a hard word”. My desires to have my daughter grow up around her grandparents and family and an eventual life of pleasant familiarity in America crumbled around me and I again heard God whisper, “This is not your inheritance. Your inheritance is Me.” How true this is, indeed, for my life- even that I live on the offerings made to the Lord by brothers and sisters having received a very different inheritance. As I closed my Bible my eyes again went to Amy Carmichael's letter:
"You will never regret your choice. It is wonderful to be free to pour out all, every drop of one's life;and that is what you have done and are doing. No you will never regret it never."
And there in my mind's eye I knelt beside the road of my spiritual journey, dug a small hole and buried, hopefully deep enough- my desires for a different inheritance. He is enough! My heart still feels weighted with mourning the death of a desire; however my heart is secure in knowing that He is enough. I must, in faith, cling to this promise. He is my inheritance- my eternal inheritance...just as he promised.
1 comment:
Hi Misty, God has just been teaching me all this too.
Have you heard the true story of the man in prison in Europe who was tortured for being a christian? Every day, at the end of his torture sessions, he would go back to his lonely dark cell and wrap himself in his warm blanket... the only earthy comfort he had at the end of a painful horrid day. But ....one day he returned to his cell after another session of torture to find someone else there, wrapped up in his blanket. He fell to the ground and cried in his miserey as the blanket was now in another man's possession...Suddenly the man in the blanket stood up and turned to face him and said "Am I not enough for thee". This man in the blanket then vanished. Well..... the tortured man rejoiced and danced around and yelled out praises to God for what he had learned and seen. The next day the guards released him because they thought that he had lost his mind!
What a powerful statement...He is enough for me! Oh that the Lord bring us all to this point. Grace be with you always!
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