That I Might Win Some

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with a man these days.  :-) His name is Paul.  I like spending time with him because we have a lot in common and we have great conversations.  He stimulates me spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and many times we don’t agree, especially when he says “this is just My opinion”.  I thank him for making that stipulation every time he does for then he liberates me to respond the same way.  :-) We have a healthy relationship now, but it was not always this way.

For a long time, even though I liked spending time with him, I hated some of the things he would say, and I would ignore him whenever he brought up certain topics, for we just did not see I-2-I neither eye-to-eye.  Hmmm.  Anyhoooo, I would just reject those conversations and move on to doing something else.  Then I experienced some deep life-changing encounters with life and the Lord Jesus Christ which broke me and the mold of my opinions and I could no longer ignore those topics I ignored before.  These encounters changed (and continue to change) my way of dealing with things (and people) that I either don’t like, or just don’t agree with, which have been enriching to say the least.

Lately the phrase “that I might win some” has been sticking to me like a fly following the food on my fork. ;-)  Thus I could not ignore it.  I took a long gander at I Corinthians 9 (you can read it for yourself of course) and this part of his discourse begins at verse 19, but the very words themselves are nestled in verse 22b “I have [in short] become all things to all men, that I might by all means (at all costs and in any and every way) save some [by winning them to faith in Jesus Christ].” Amplified Bible. Now I don’t like taking verses out of their contexts for doing so leaves them open for intentional and non-intentional misinterpretation and misapplication.  However, if you read the verses surrounding verse 22 you will see that my friend Paul is very clear about the meaning of this verse.

He is not saying that we become murderers to reach murderers, neither lawless to reach the lawless, evil to reach evil people, etc. but he’s teaching us one of the reasons why God calls and chooses His own to “suffer” in this life even though we have “everything we need” in Jesus Christ Who resides inside of us, and "in Whom we live and move and have our being"; And why some of us will be rich in this life and suffer “differently”; Why we are teleported to other continents to live among the natives ‘there’, all with Jesus Christ residing inside of us.  It is that we may “win some” for they will be able to observe our lives as we endure the same “difficulties” as they do, but holding onto Jesus Christ and being held by Jesus Christ.  Our going THROUGH difficulties and sometimes coming out on the other side victorious victims, and other times victorious victors, but always triumphant because of Jesus Christ who is able to keep us in the fire – before, during and after. 

Paul is teaching us that being a Christian does not exempt us from the difficulties of life that all people on the globe experience, but Christ is the PreservaTOR (spell check doesn’t like that word, but “preservative” is not for human designation/application, and it doesn’t mean the same thing in French.) keeping us from the inside from being annihilated by the difficulties we encounter.  “We BEcome that we may win some.”

What are you becoming?  What have you become because of all you have endured in life thus far?  Everything, and according to Romans 8:28 God means EVERYthing, has been an important ingredient of the beautiful ______ (you fill in the blank) you have become, and what you will be, for life is an evolution, not from apes and monkeys, but from the you of yesterday through the you of today, to the you of tomorrow.  Eternity.

Where were you when God created the heavens and the earth?  This is a question God asked Job when he had much to say about the tests and trials he endured up to the very skin on his body.  Where was I?  Only in the mind of God.  I had nothing to do with my parents coming together, but God did.  He saw everything, the good, the bad and the ugly.  And the impossible.  And still He continued.  God has designed for our lives to touch one another, to touch the lives of others, some we may meet face-to-face while others just through Facebook, etc.  But yet, because you were here and you cooperated with God for becoming who and what He thought of you (Jeremiah 29:11) becoming and doing in the earth, other people are being inspired to be all they can be, that which God designed for them to be.  So they may BEcome and thus win some. 

“He that winneth souls is wise” is the King James Version translation of this verse in Proverbs 11:30.  The soul is made up of the thoughts, affections, emotions, will, intentions, intellect, and intelligence and anyone who is a psychologist and psychiatrist, or a minister who counsels like a pastor, knows the challenge of trying to convince someone of thinking differently for positive change; one must use wisdom and patience to pass through all the hoops of the soul to help others “see the light”.  Heck, to see the light yourself.  LOL!!  But we all know the power of “show and tell” right?  It’s not enough to tell someone about how good the coconut cake tastes, but if you gave them a slice I’m sure you would win them over to it.  Thus the reason for what you are going through today, that you may win some.

The challenge for me has been that which I saw myself as, according to the models around me, and also my understanding and interpretation of what I “heard” and “saw” in my heart and imagination that I would be, and do – does not fit the original thoughts of God for me.  I’m just being honest.  Thus life has been a series of evolutions (going around in circles and cycles, but never being the same after each rotation) for the winning of my soul to the picture of God’s thoughts for my life.  Wonder Woman does it best for me. :-) My SHEro.  She finds an inconspicuous place and looks left and right to make sure no one can see her, and then she turns and turns and turns until she becomes the powerful woman she was born to be when on that “island” of women, before she took her first flight in that invisible plane to the land of uncivilized men.  LOL!!  And so God has brought me to a “remote” place like John’s Isle of Patmos where I turn, and turn, and turn (He turns me on the Potter’s wheel) until I become the one God has created me to be.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Life is a series of evolutions and revolutions from beginning to end.  Sometimes you have to revolt against sin, sometimes against the satan, sometimes against the pull of others, and sometimes against yourself.  But that’s fodder for another meal. :-)

  

I was created to “BEcome that I might win some” – to become what God designed for me to become.  Life is about discovering why the Lord created us and then cooperating with Him daily for the fulfillment of our purpose on earth; An adventure, a neverending story.  Many times we will have to cry out “uncle!” to the Lord depending on what He has created us to be and do, and whom He has created us to win and where, because many of us were not born where we will bloom, prosper, operate and die; for we do not belong to ourselves.  My friend Paul said it twice, and it was more than just his opinion:  “You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for, made His own].  So then, honor God and bring glory to Him in your body.” I Corinthians 6:20.  And 7:23 “You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for by Christ]; then do not yield yourselves up to become [in your own estimation] slaves to men (including yourself) [but consider yourselves slaves to Christ].  Amplified Bible.  (Parentheses mine.)

I added “including yourself” to this second verse because I was a slave to my own purposes, desires, understanding, and will for myself.  I was a slave to my own emotions and dreams for my life, and I drove myself to pursue them as fast as I could because I knew how short life is, and can be.  I thanked God for breath and such, but I had a lot to do, in His name of course, yet I thought it was all on me.  I did not mind helping others along the way, and sometimes I lived to do just that, but I did not realize that I was created to BEcome what HE designed me to be for HIS glory, and thus it was up to Him, not me, HOW I would BEcome, WHERE, and WHO I would “win”.  But the first soul that I needed to win was my own.  I am not my own but I’ve been bought with a price, to make a positive difference in and for somebody else’s life.  But the first soul I must win, before this all ends, is my own.  

Peace.

Patiently Waiting, or Wasting Time?

While waiting for a 2 minute video to download on my mobile phone I decided to patiently wait and give it time.  But when the downloading time was longer than the video itself I decided to stop trying and just delete the message from my phone and maybe later watch it on my computer.  Another time about four years ago when I moved to my new apartment I had to catch a bus to the train station.  The bus stop is only a 2 minute walk from my building and I arrived a few minutes early before the arrival of the next bus.  It was late, yet I waited.

Well it never came and it was time for the next bus, and the temperature was cold and wet.  The second bus was late too (and there was no transportation strike – ‘greve’ en Francais, for if there had been, I could have investigated the times on the internet or possibly walked to the “gare” – station – a 30 minute walk), and I didn’t know what to do.  What if I walked away and the bus arrived, and I would be too far away to run back to it? (That has happened to me too.)  How late would the buses be? Was it normal for this bus line and company to be unusually late?  Was this a sign of what I had to look forward to and expect living in this new city?  I continued to wait.  After 35 minutes in the cold, the bus finally came.  By this time I was no longer waiting alone, but I had waited the longest.

So how do we decide when waiting is profitable and when it is a complete waste of time?  I’m sincerely asking this question because I don’t know.  For instance, if you’re waiting for someone to meet you and they are late, and you don’t hear from them, how long should you wait?  How can you decide whether to wait or to leave?  What if you call them but they don’t respond to your phone calls?  You don’t know if they’ve lost their phone, or if it was stolen, or if the battery died, or if they had an accident and cannot respond.  So how long do you wait, and how do you decide when you’re being patient and when you’re wasting time?  That’s just a few possible scenarios.

In our American culture, or at least my family culture in America, we did not wait too long for things to happen to and for us.  We were taught that idle hands were the devil’s workshop and we needed to be “doing” something at all times.  So we, or at least I sought jobs to make money that I may acquire what I needed and wanted thus not having to wait and depend upon others.  Even God, because being invisible He’s slower than anyone I’ve ever met.  At least concerning me.

One of the things I hate most in life is waste, and wasting time has to be the number one on my list of “things I hate most”.  I like for every moment to be filled with something constructive and productive; I like for every moment to count.  This doesn’t mean (anymore at least) that I have to be “kill-myself busy” but it does mean that I should be able to answer the question “why are you doing that”? with an answer of productivity “because . . .”

In the Bible, in the book of Genesis, Abraham and Sarah had to wait a long time to receive, or to catch the bus they were promised, by God, would come.   He never told them when the bus would arrive, at least not for 24 years He didn’t.  Can you imagine waiting for the bus for 24 years and it never comes, or the one you need to catch never comes, or the one you do catch turns out to be the wrong one and it takes you a route far away (Shrek II) and out of the way of your destination, and you have to spend time and energy (bus tickets and money, and you have to go to the bathroom – this is not America, and you’re hungry because 4+ hours have passed since your last meal, and you’re already late for your rendezvous, and your feet hurt from fatigue from standing on and off the bus because it was packed like sardines so it didn’t matter that you wore your Reebok orthopedic walking shoes.  You now need to invest in standing shoes.)?  Humph.

Anyhoooo, another couple (in the New Testament) had prayed for years for a bus to come their way, and they never received a promise or indication that their prayers would be answered according to their request.  No one answered their telephone calls.  The phone just rang and rang.  It would have been better if an operator had answered and said “this number is not in service.” :-)  So they finally “let it go”.  Then one day in their old age, while they were minding their own business and doing their daily and civic and religious duties, the hubby received an unscheduled visit from a representative of the bus company.  Zachariah was told that a bus line was going to be created through his neighborhood stopping right in front of his house, so he would never have to miss it because the driver would blow the horn upon arriving and would wait for him and/or his wife to descend.  It was a “special services” bus line.  Hmmmm.  His waiting paid off?! You might ask or exclaim, but really, what choice did he have?  He was trapped by his “job” (and lineage assignment) – the priesthood, so he was not able to take a second wife while his wife was living, or a concubine to fill in the “missing children” blanks of their life.  He lived in a perpetual state of waiting, never knowing if his heart’s desire would be fulfilled.

In our “do it yourself” society and “create your own destiny” world, and “your destiny is in your hands” existence, we believe it is ludicrous to wait that long and pray without a sign to an invisible Being Who is not only NOT hearing and listening, but Who might not answer the prayer according to the desire.  We live in a “why wait, when and if you have the resources to make things happen for yourself?” society.  We no longer believe it’s necessary to believe in invisible resources when we’re surrounded by so much man-made amenities.  We don’t really need God like that anymore, do we?  Even those of us in Christendom have problems believing and waiting on God.  I should know.  That’s why I can write this article with sincerity.

So what do you/we do?  I don’t know.  I cannot tell anyone what to do for his/her life because I don’t know what your tomorrow holds.  I don’t know what my own tomorrow holds. :-)  I don’t know God’s purpose for creating you and what He will, and will not allow to happen in, with, to and for you.  I am not one of those to make blanket statements using Bible verses to make people believe God will or will not do certain things for them, without seeing the bigger picture concerning His purpose for their lives.  I’ve done that for years and it has not worked for me.  Some of us get to choose and some of us don’t.   I’m having my own challenges dealing with learning my own purpose for being on this earth, and thus why I have to be so different from everyone else.

If you’re a true believer in Jesus Christ then you have to do what your beliefs in Christ will govern you to do according to His written and revealed will.  If you’re not a believer in Christ - and what I mean by ‘believer’ is: one who not only has asked Jesus to come into his/her heart as Savior, but who is everyday surrendering themselves to God’s will and choices for his/her life, allowing the Lord to be the governor even against one’s own desires and drives.  (It is not easy if you are one full of dreams like I have been.)  So if this description does not fit you - then you can knock yourself out doing your life the way you want.  Nevertheless, there are consequences on both sides of the fence.

The Christian life is simple and not complicated, but it is not easy because we have to daily choose Someone else’s will for our lives over our own will.  When we are finally consumed by His love and sacrifice for us, and we agree with Him – saying what He says and learning to think as He thinks, then choosing His will won’t be hard at all (for we will be one with Him in our heart), and waiting won’t be, or won’t feel like a waste of time.  So how do we know if we’re patiently waiting or if we’re wasting time? 

Well, unless we have a schedule to guide us, or some other form of specific communication, all we can do is wait and see.  When you’ve done all you can do to “rectify” the situation, investigate and educate yourself; when you’ve gone as far as your resources will allow you to go, all you are left with is waiting.  In Abraham and Sarah’s day, and Zachariah and Elizabeth’s time, when it came to wanting to have children, they did not have clinics to help them.  (And they had the financial resources to cover all the bases if those clinics had existed.)  Abraham’s culture allowed him to have multiple wives and concubines and maids to have children, but doing so did not fulfill the promise God gave him and his wife.  God told him that his own wife, Sarah by name, would have his promised child.  So all he could do was wait for the right bus to come and take them to their destination, no matter how long he would have to wait.
 

If you have a promise from a credible source, then your waiting won’t be in vain, and it won’t be a waste of time if you use it constructively.  Even if they’re a little bit late, either they will eventually show up, or they will “contact” you, somehow, some way.  Waiting is only a waste of time if you come away from it having learned nothing new that you can use for living.  “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.  They shall mount up with wings like eagles.  They shall run and not be weary.  They shall walk and not faint.”  Isaiah 40:31 [NKJV]

Peace.