People
who are health care professionals or fireman have jobs where they are still the
good Samaritan on call if there is a car accident, they will stop and help a
person. Evangelism is similar to a job where when all is said is done we
say that we are “unprofitable servants.” But then there is something that
goes beyond being an unprofitable servant and that is what I will call:
“Going
above and beyond the call of duty.”
There
have been times in my life, I went beyond the job. I was working a temp
job and I was the only one that showed up during horrible snow storms, that
happened twice. Once in Tulsa, Oklahoma where I could not get my car out
of the garage, so I walked a mile to catch a city bus and got to work.
Not many employees showed up that day and I was only a temp. It’s because
I was financially supporting my family. Same with my current job as far
as being sick during critical times, but there was no one to cover for an
orientation of graduate students for a dinner of 75 people. Another time
I had periodontal surgery and my mouth swelled up the size of a baseball, but I
had to work on a brochure and take it to the printers for a faculty retreat while
I was taking Vicodin. It’s going beyond our physical or mental abilities
to get a job done. A mother’s job is like that, we keep going even when
we are sick to take care of our children.
So you also, when you have done
everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only
done our duty.'" Luke 17:10
I
did something different being widowed than when I went through a divorce.
When I went through a divorce, I focused on raising children and meeting a new
spouse about l-l/2 after a divorce to help me with the task. I dropped
out of ministry. With a death of husband, this time I did not drop out of
ministering to others. I dated l-l/2 years after I lost my husband, but
realized I was putting the face of my husband on every man I met. I
was not seeing clearly the person in front of me.
I
read a while back that is what both men and women do – they put their fantasy
image of the perfect man on each man or woman they date, than when reality sets
in of who that person really is, it’s hard to accept the real person in
life. For me, my fantasy man was my husband that it took 15 years to
build a relationship with him.
I
decided to build God’s wall first like in Nehemiah. God was upset,
because the men were building their homes and they were not repairing the wall
around Jerusalem. To me rebuilding the wall has been working with
divorced women to encourage them that God can give them a good relationship
like he did for me after a divorce. Christian marriage and the definition of
marriage is becoming an age-old foundation (a thing of the past). When I
was divorced, I did not do ministry to other women.
"Those from among you will rebuild
the ancient ruins; You will raise up the age-old foundations; And you will be called
the repairer of the breach, The restorer of the streets in which to dwell.
Isaiah 58:13
So we rebuilt the wall till all of it
reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart. Nehemiah
4:6
I
did not see a packed funeral as the time for to pull out of the race, or 19
college students in my senior class when I was making a senior computer
graphics college project on “How I Met My (Christian) Husband” to drop out of
that class.
I
had a student come up to me at the graduation dinner to tell me she appreciated
my staying in class no matter how hard it was, and she stayed in her classes
when her mother had cancer. She said that it was a blessing that she got
to take care of her mother the last three years of her life. She told me
that everyone in my class knew how much I loved my husband. Another
student sent me an email that a song I picked as a dedication to my husband for
the project, “We Touched the Sun” – the student said he almost lost it in class
because his fiancé died in a house fire and the musician I chose ministered to
him since Gary Allan’s wife committed suicide.
I
finished up my college senior graphics classes and than I’ve deferred a
Trigonometry class I need to take. One reason I decided to defer
the class is because for a long time, I’ve put college above God in my life and
I felt like it was becoming an idol in my life, but today I heard something on
the radio on K-Love. The song was talking about whatever we are doing if we are
going on the mission field, if we are taking a Math class, if we are
working at an office, if we are feeding poor, if we are taking care of children
at home, whatever we do we are doing, do it for the glory of God.
So whether you eat or drink or whatever
you do, do it all for the glory of God. 1 Cor. 10:31
And whatever you do, whether in word or
deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the
Father through him. Colossians 3:17
Whatever you do, work at it with all
your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, Col. 3:23
It
goes along with what the Lord spoke to me recently that sometimes he calls us
beyond the call of duty, he has me take it a step farther. Two
years after I lost my husband I was having several attacks on my life, just
trying to move on be happy with my life. Just what can be wrong with
being happy?
I
broke my ankle running down my stairs when I missed the last step and I had
never broken a bone in my body in my life, but I heard this voice say, “You
have not put fun on the altar.” So I said, “Okay God I had not thought
that fun was an idol, but I lay my fun/pleasure on the altar.” I liked to
please a husband and I did that for 15 years, and it’s something I miss is
being in a happy relationship and pleasing a spouse, but I put my own desires
for man and all my current pleasures on the altar. Instead of looking to
delight myself again in a man, I’ll delight myself in you.
Take delight in the Lord, and he will
give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4
When
I was single in a Christian evangelistic ministry, I spent time in prayer and
fasting and that is what I’ve come back is more prayer and fasting.
Fasting is not just food, but it can be from our own pleasure like it says in
Isaiah 58:13-14:
If
thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy
day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own
ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own
words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high
places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father:
for the mouth of the Lord hath
spoken it.
Being
single is a fast from companionship and sex. Even the Bible talks about a
married couples fast sex to pray (for a short time).
Do not deprive each other except perhaps
by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to
prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of
your lack of self-control. 1 Cor. 7:5
The
main thing I have found in life is that things go better with prayer. The
Lord gave me this scripture recently on how he wants me to be a faithful prayer
warrior:
Be joyful in hope, patient in
affliction, faithful in prayer. Romans 12:12
If
I am going to rule in life as a king, than I can’t let every happenstance in
life control me. I’m claiming that scripture, “The God of peace will soon
crush Satan under our feet.” The greater one lives on the inside of
me.
The God of peace will soon crush Satan
under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. Romans 16:20
if we endure, we will also reign with
him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; 2 Tim. 2:12
Whenever
we become doers of the word, and not just hearers only it makes Satan
nuts. Noticed the Bible does not tell us to pray for widows, orphans,
those in the hospital and prisons, it says to “visit” them. When we visit
them we are ministering to the Lord. I had signed up with my daughter
and friend to back into the girl’s prison ministry when the volunteer
coordinator had a sudden heart attack at 42 years old and left four children,
and then my husband had a sudden heart attack two months later.
Religion that is pure and undefiled
before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and
widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. James
1:27
Do not merely listen to the word, and so
deceive yourselves. Do what it says. James 1:22
Then they also will answer, saying,
‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or
in prison, and did not minister to you?’ "Then He will
answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to
one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' Matthew
25:44-45
I
fellowship Jesus when I support missionaries in the field, I fellowship Jesus
when I give tithes and offerings to the ministry, I fellowship Jesus when I
read the Bible, I fellowship Jesus when I pray, I fellowship Jesus when I go
visit the sick, those in prison, and feed and clothe the poor.
I
prayed about the attacks on my life and the Lord showed me the verse that he
gave John the Baptist when John got discouraged in prison, “Blessed are you
when you are not offended at me.’ Not to be offended that the attacks
have come when I’m out ministering and helping people.
And tell him, 'God blesses those who do
not turn away because of me.'" Luke 7:23
I
look at all these attacks on the Body of Christ is that there is a move of the
Holy Spirit coming and the enemy is trying to hinder it. I see it as a
challenge for more prayer to break through in the spiritual birth of
people. Someone shared on Facebook a dream of having eight babies and
that the babies were sitting up as soon as they were born and she named them
all. I believe it is a dream to show us how we are going to birth people
in Christ and that they are going to be moving at a more powerful pace in life.
Before she goes into labor, she gives
birth; before the pains come upon her, she delivers a son. Isaiah 66:7
Since
Satan hindered me in going back into the Juvenile Correctional
Facility in 2007 and in 2009 they moved to Madison, Indiana away from my
house, I’m praying about going into the woman’s prison ministry which is a lot
different type ministry which has replaced the juvenile center. It would
be a “very” different ministry for me and a step of faith because I was a troubled
teen and became a Christian at 17 years old, never a hard core addict. Also,
some of these women have killed their children whereas the type of girls I was
ministering to stole cars. It would be beyond and above a call of
duty.
For we wanted to come to you--certainly
I, Paul, did, again and again--but Satan blocked our way. 1 Thess 2:18
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