Hello everyone! I want to take a little time today to encourage you.
On Easter Sunday, I learned that some ministry work/social justice work made a difference to the people in the neighborhood I was working with at the time. A dear friend told me it warmed her heart to see us work with the children in her neighborhood whose parents did not know how to love them or parent them. Many of these parents were doing the best they could. I had moved on from that work into some other things the Lord had for me but I never forgot my time there. In fact, I felt it was the beginning of many other areas and opportunities God has placed in front of me. I believe there God started to train me for the things to come with other inner city ministry. He also started changing my heart toward the disenfranchised, the poor, the fatherless, the abused, and the single mother. Don’t get me wrong, I had never had a personal problem with anyone I just mentioned. However, I had not gone out of my way before to see them how the Father sees them either. I might give a little money here or a little money there, but I never invested in getting to know them or love them. I had not given them a second thought in my relatively comfortable life. Jesus changed all that.
The Lord has brought me step by step to where I am today. He has broadened my horizon and in turn, shown me His heart for others who have a different life experience than me. My heart has grown in so many ways. I had to let go of some things so I could let it grow as well. I had to let go of old mindsets and some people. I have seen both the good and the questionable sides of both ministry and social justice in the last five years. Jesus has refined me through it all. He has also set a specific passion in my heart to see men, women, and children suffering from any form of abuse come to know him and be healed. I did not have such a passion 5 years ago. I was recovering from an abusive marriage and had lost all of my passion for anything. But Jesus. Jesus has restored so many things for me, including passion - only now they are His passions for His people and for those who are lost.
Step by step. It’s a process to get our hearts to reflect His heart. He has to put us in “slow cooker” mode so to speak. He has to do heart work. He has to heal a lot of pain. This process has not always been pleasant but I can say it has been totally worth it. Am I still learning and growing? Yes. Do I have some things I’d still like to change? Yes. Did I always get it right? No and we will never get it right 100% of the time. We are human and we will make mistakes in our decisions and relationships. Jesus can redeem anything we give to Him. I have given him many things to redeem – I am still giving Him things to redeem that I messed up or had wrong thought patterns about in the past. Forget about a perfect process, it won’t be perfect. You will have ups, downs, and times of “holding patterns” if you will. Don’t give up on what Jesus is doing in you! Let Him finish what he started in you! He is faithful to do so!
I will leave you with some questions for your personal reflection as you walk this out step by step:
1) What process are you walking out?
2) What is Jesus showing you in the day to day walk of your process?
3) What are you learning about you? What is He healing for you?
4) What thought patterns is He changing?
5) Is there anything, anyone, or any situation you are afraid of that you haven’t given to Him (these are hard ones to deal with but well worth it)? As always I would love to engage you in discussion! I can’t wait to hear about what Jesus is doing in you! If you don’t know Jesus and would like to get to know Him, feel free to contact me via my blog or FB book page and we can pray together and I can tell you more about Him. Love,
Elizabeth