What Size Do You Wear?

I’ve been dealing with a friend of mine who is in the transition phase of being born again and it’s been driving me batty and then God reminds me of the mess I was when I first came to the Lord and I have to laugh – not at my friend but at myself for getting all high and mighty. How soon we forget who we really are when we don’t have the Lord helping us with the power of the Holy Spirit. I’ve seen it in church, people acting like they’re all righteous and holy when I know the party life they lived made mine look tame. People who gossip and call it “praying for” someone, meanwhile they’re just airing someone else’s dirty laundry. But I didn’t realize I was in danger of getting on that same path of self-righteousness until I started complaining to the Lord about this friend and asking why I had to deal with such a hot mess. The answer came back, “Because you know what it’s like. You’ve been there.” And He’s absolutely right. God uses people to help people, and I’m the best person for this job because I know exactly what it’s like because I have been there, even though I’d like to forget just how hot a mess I was.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, God has a terrific sense of humor. We don’t always get His jokes until a little while after the punch line, but that’s because we’re just a bit slower on the uptake than He is. The bigger the mess and the more resistant we are, the more we end up being out loud and proud for Jesus, carrying our Bibles wherever we go, quoting scripture like it’s a natural thing for us and telling everyone we meet what Jesus did in our lives and what He can do for them. We become Evangelists and Preachers and Pastors and Teachers and Prophets. We will talk about the love of God and His transforming power to anyone and everyone we meet. We know what He’s done in our lives and we know He’s a miracle worker. We also know that there was no earthly reason for Him to take the time with us at all, because we know what and who we were before He came into our lives.

I can’t wait to see what the Lord is going to do in my friend’s life. I really love this friend even though what’s going on is driving me nuts at times – when the Lord puts someone on your heart there’s no way to get them out unless you decide that you’re not going to love the Lord any more. I actually tried to ask the Lord if He could find someone else to do this job – maybe someone who has more patience – and then I asked Him if He could just do it Himself and let me off the hook. That went on for a day and I actually felt really sorrowful – much more unhappy than my friend ever makes me with all the crazy stuff that’s going on. I couldn’t figure out why I was so sad – I’d decided to let someone go out of my life who was in a big mess – big deal, right? Someone else – maybe God – could deal with it and I wouldn’t have to. But then it hit me that not standing with this friend in faith for what God was going to do meant that I wasn’t believing in God and what He had spoken over this friend’s life. And He had spoken it to and through me, so if I’m not believing in that word that He spoke to me, then I’m not believing in anything else He’s said either.

So now I’m back to standing in faith, trusting in His word, knowing that He can do anything and that He loves to do the impossible. Yesterday morning, after I had decided the night before that I'd had enough of dealing with this friend, He gave me the story of the rich young ruler, the young man who asks Jesus, “Good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And when Jesus tells him to sell everything and give his money to the poor, he walks away sadly. Right after that, Jesus says, “How hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” His disciples ask Him, “Who then can be saved?” and Jesus answers, “With people it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

That story is found in three of the Gospels, Matthew 19:16-30, Mark 10:17-31, and Luke 18:18-30. There are stories that are found in one or two of the Gospels, but to find one story in three, it has to be an even more important one. There’s a lot that goes on in that story. The Rich Young Ruler recognizes who Jesus is – that He is one with God. He also knows His scripture and follows the scriptural laws and has for his whole life. And yet when it comes down to giving up his possessions and his wealth, and we have to think that societally that meant any kind of social standing that he had, he walked away sadly. But Jesus doesn’t say it will be impossible for him to inherit eternal life, He just says how hard it is for people who have much in the way of property, money and possessions – and again, we also may infer here that social standing was a part of that wealthy lifestyle. But Jesus does not say it’s impossible because He knows that with God all things are possible.

When I came to the Lord I had lost everything, and that is the story for some of us. But for some it is not losing everything, it is just coming to a realization that what we have is nothing or that we're tired of the big old mess of our life we live in or that in spite of all we have, we know that He has something much greater to offer us. However we come to know the Lord, it is always in a way that is personal and unique to us. He doesn’t look at us like one size fits all salvation. He knows everything about us, and He loves us deeply, and the way He begins to speak to us is in the way that we can hear Him best.

I can’t wait to see what He will do in my friend’s life – I can’t wait to hear the testimony. Most of all I can’t wait until I see my friend being even more in love with Jesus than I am, quoting scripture more than I do, carrying a bigger Bible and evangelizing and preaching wherever he goes. Because that’s the greatest gift we can ever have and it's a gift that keeps on giving.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan