I'm tired, what now?

by Ivan Venter
(South-Africa)

About me...
I am doing my practical year to become a full time pastor in South-Africa. I am married and love God with all my heart.

Date of Entry:14 May 2008

Scriptures:
1Kings.19:10-15 and Luke 18: 17

My thoughts...
I'm tired, what now?

Sometimes it will happen that children of God feel that they are not making a real difference in their friends, families and communities lives. To put it another way, it can be challenging to be a light in this world. The sad and heart wrenching thing about this is that not many will speak up when they start feeling this way. The problem then arises that these unfortunate souls will start pulling away from the crowd and ultimately vanish.

That being said, its my meaning that we have to learn to be children! To understand this we have to look at 1Kings 19: 10 -15. The passage speaks about Elijah and how he too was feeling run down by the constant reluctance of the people to do God's will. We see that Elijah instead of falling through the cracks of life decides to go to God with his problem. God's reaction however gives us insight into God's awesome love and compassion with man.

God tells Elijah to go to the mountain to meet with Him and receive His answer to this problem. This is however where some strange things start to happen, firstly a gush of wind takes hold of the mountain that damages it. Secondly an earthquake shakes and rips through the mountain, but this is still not the end. After the quake comes a fire that rages on the mountain. But in all this turmoil and magnificent events we do not find God's presence. Its only in the stillness that followed that God begins to utter Himself in a whisper.

And it is in this whisper that we find the intimate and deep relationship that God desires with man. God does not wish to meet in the loud hustle and bustle of life but rather He desires to spend time in the stillness of a whisper.

God is in other words busy painting this picture of the relationship between a Father and his child, constructed on the Father's terms and not on the child's terms. Jesus paints the same picture in Luke 18: 17 with the following words: “Truly I say to you, Whoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no way enter into it.” We are then required to take a breath become still and like a child pour out our hearts to God.

When we look at being a child our gaze is pulled to the utter dependence upon God that His children should have. And it is this dependence that is most fragile when we try to be a light in this world. We sometimes become so busy that we forget to be dependent and try to go on relying on ourselves for energy and guidance. We have to however keep reminding our selves that we are children lost without the guidance of the Father.

If we look at being a light in this way we see that to be light we first have to become children that worship and adore the Father! After doing this we will become the shining light that shows the love of the Father to the lost world.



Questions it brought to my mind...
We have to ask ourselves if we are being children of God or a struggling light that flickers on and off, desperately trying to shine.



My closing prayer...
God please help each one of us to be your children, spending time and sharing what You have given us.