Window or Bug?

My sister (in Christ) and I have been doing alot of "communicating" this past month. She has been sharing what she is learning, and I realize more every day that we are learning the same thing. Two different people, two different lives, two very different circumnstances-yet the same lesson. How do I live my life according to God's plan for me and help those God has put in my path? How do I do both without compromising who I am in Christ? As Beth Moore puts it: "People can help us but they can't heal us. They can lift us but they can't carry us."

Beth Moore is using the story of Joseph and his brothers to illustrate this point. They lowered him into the pit-he is there not because of his choosing, and they also lift him out-but only to place him in bondage. If people are our savior than we live in bondage. No one person can be our deliverer. Hence, we can't be a deliverer, a savior, or the all in all in anyone's life. We need each other, but as a help to keep us pointed in the right direction and accountable. We can be Jesus' hands and feet without carrying what He is supposed to be carrying.

That is one of the areas I have struggled with. As the oldest in a dysfunctional family, I have been trying for years to keep it all together. Call when someone has an issue. Send cards. Go out of my way to be involved in their lives and the lives of their children. I have tried to "carry" a responsibility that wasn't soley mine, and I felt the weight of it-HEAVILY. I have also done that in my immediate family-feeling like the relationships were my responsibility to maintain. What could I be doing or not doing? The last time Tonia and I were together I was overwhelmed with what I was carrying. I felt used. I felt taken advantage of. I felt unappreciated. I felt like I had to keep it together-until those moments when I just couldn't.

Freedom in Christ is liberating. One of the conversations we have been having is whether we are the window or the bug. That phrase has seriously caught on and will certainly become one that defines our choices. Am I going to live my life in such a way that I spend it squashed, defeated, hindered and in pain? Am I going to compromise myself to meet someone else's demands on me? I have lived that way...in an attempt...to carry the weight of something that was God's responsibility, not mine. The irony of a life people centered instead of God centered is that the demands can never be met. There will always be someone who want you to be someone you can't be or want something you can't give. It is impossible to get victory that way. It is a never ending cycle. We are either loved and accepted where we are and love and accept others where they are or we live as the bug.

Today (confession: got behind last week and had to catch up these past two days on my 40 day-God allows us to start over every day. YAY!) the lesson was on "Impacting a Life in the Pit." She gives 5 areas we can impact:
1. Live by example so that others know it is possible to live in victory according to God's way.
2. Pray
3. Encourage
4. Direct them towards Jesus
5. As God allows, give counsel and advice.

The key in my own life is PRAY: pray that I am able to live the life God plans for me in such a way that I am impacting others. Pray for those who need God to intervene in their lives, for wisdom for them, and strength, open hearts to hear His Word and the change that needs to happen in their own hearts. Widsom in my own life to be an encourager and share His Word when He allows and directs me to do so. Prayer changes things in me and everyone else. It empowers. It also lays the burdens at Jesus' feet, taking them off of my shoulders!

"And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works..." Hebrews 10:24a
"But enxhort one another daily, while it is called today..." Hebrews 3:13a