Due to various technical issues, I am now blogging at Know-Love-Obey God’s new location:

http://monicasharman.wordpress.com

I continue to welcome you here; perhaps you’d like to browse the archives. Please be aware, though, that new posts will be at the new place. Hope to see you there!

Monica Sharman

I’ve found that the deepest joy is borne by obedience.

Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept the Father’s commandments, and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

This is My commandment, that you love one another.

(John 15:9-12)

Jesus said things for the purpose of His disciples’ joy! He wants me to have joy, and in these words He very simply spells out the way, like jotting one-line directions on a scrap of paper:

To get to Joy:
Obey My commandments. (No turning right or left.)

This way of thinking about obedience—it’s a little unexpected, isn’t it? I once asked a group of women, “Quick, just off the top of your head, what words and images come to mind when you think of OBEDIENCE?” What do you associate with obedience?

Some of their responses:

Following directions.
“Yes, sir. Yes, ma’am.”
A tuxedo-clad, stone-faced butler.
Soldiers obeying orders.

No one mentioned “joy,” yet Jesus made a direct link between obedience and joy. Maybe we don’t typically make the obedience-joy connection because the joy that follows obedience, follows it stealthily. Maybe when I’m obeying God, the joy is not immediately apparent because it’s sneaking up on me.

Now it shall be, if you will diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the Lord your God.

(Deuteronomy 28:1-2)

Listen to that! The blessings will come upon you. They will overtake you.

“Come upon” you! “Overtake” you! What a scene that puts in my head! Here I am, walking in obedience. I simply hear the Lord’s words and obey, keeping my eyes forward. Behind me, yet undetected, are the blessings. They are like someone suppressing a giggle, playfully sneaking up on me, catching up to me, coming upon me. And then . . .

Gotcha! The blessings have caught up! They come upon me! Now, instead of the stealth and silence, I hear out-loud laughter. Ha! Got you! And I am overtaken. The blessing is so great, it is overwhelming. I was unaware that the blessings were back there, following me, pursuing me. Now, the blessings have not only caught up to me but passed me up. They have gone beyond me and I am overtaken, as if I were a goal to be achieved, a prize to be won.

I have known this kind of blessing that overwhelms. I am so blessed my heart and soul are near bursting. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me . . .

I didn’t even know that the blessings were back there, following me. I simply walked in obedience, waiting on the Lord in surrender and in trust. Before I was aware of them, it was a painful road, lonely and desperate. But I kept walking. Then (!) the blessings came, and they got me. I have known it. Yes, I know it.

Lord, I know this kind of blessing and joy. I will remember, and the memory will keep me walking on the road of obedience.

(Part of the above was originally posted on April 16, 2009.)

I was in college when our friend Walter helped me understand this. My husband and I were talking with Walter outside by the bookstore and Winnett Lounge when Walter turned my view of confidence inside-out.

Walter had studied Latin and explained that the English word, confidence, comes from the Latin, con fide. This is not pronounced with two syllables and a long-I sound but with three syllables—”con – FEE – deh”—and in Latin it means: with faith.

Confidence does not mean self-confidence. Confidence means God-confidence. It is operating not in my own strength but with full faith in God’s strength.

Bonnie asked, “How is God calling you to be more confident or bold?” God called me to confidence by showing me what the word really means!

Then he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts.

- Zechariah 4:6

Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God…

2 Corinthians 3:5

These dunes are really a horde of orphans,
every grain of sand abandoned, dropped off here
by its mother, wind, who only carried it
as far as the mountain she wanted to climb.

Like an out-of-place sidekick of the Rockies,
these dunes make a landlocked beach
nestled by Sangre de Cristo majesty,
these dunes like a child sitting
at the feet of Him whose blood named
these mountains.

I hike these dunes only in the early morning
before the sun turns helpless sand into flames
that can cover and cook my bare feet.

I step up the slope, but this is sand, after all,
and I slide down though the step I took
was up (it really was). I’d rather hike
a firm mountain trail where, on solid earth,
one step forward really is.

But now I’m on sand, this unsupportive ground
always shifting under me.
Is there a trick to getting over
the discouragement of dune-hiking?
I hope that with every one step forward,
it’s less than one step back.

At least I know, when I’m on my way back,
the sand that slowed my dune-hiking
will make soft landings for the downhill
dune-jumping thrills, and the return trip
will be smooth and speedy.

I ask (#1) God for many, many things.

I ask for pruning. (“Lord, purge anything that You don’t want in me.”) I ask for death to self. (“Lord, may it truly be not I, but Christ in me who lives.”) I ask for guidance, as Moses did in Exodus 33:15, desiring and determined to go only where He wants me to go: “If Your presence does not go with us, do not send us out from here.” I ask for wisdom. I ask for many, many things.

When I asked (#1) God how He wants me to change, He said, “Ask” (#2).

“I filed for divorce,” she said.

It was her answer to my “. . . and how can I pray for you?”

Clueless, I felt like she opened a book to give me page 700 of her story, so I asked her out to coffee. I wanted to know what happened on pages 1 to 699.

It’s a shame. What kind of person can know a woman for five years and be completely ignorant that, for the past five years, this woman has been separated from her husband who moved out and left her?

I am that kind of person. (But I pray that, by God’s power, I can now say that in the past tense: I was that kind of person.) I was oblivious of a friend’s deepest wounds and pains for five whole years.

In a sobering answer to my daily prayers, God showed me that my lack of heart-involvement and genuine interest in this woman’s life was such that I had no clue. I thought she was happily married. The truth was, I never asked.

I remember my junior high days. Everyone in my little group of friends knew everything about everyone else. I felt they were pushy, nosy gluttons for gossip and information. They didn’t think twice about asking the most probing and personal questions. I wasn’t like that and determined not to become like that. I never probed; I asked no questions. If someone wanted to tell me something personal, I’d let her tell me on her own initiative.

But I grew into someone who has taken that too far. I do need to ask people questions about themselves, not like a meddling gossip but by way of invitation: I’m interested in your life. Won’t you tell me about it?

One of God’s new directions for me is grace—not the receiving of it (I seem to have no problem with that) but the giving of it. I want gracious friendliness, compassion, heart-involvement, selfless love, and genuine interest in the deep and important things of another’s life.

. . . practice kindness and compassion each to his brother.

- Zechariah 7:9

Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

- Philippians 2:4

Father, help me grow in this. Thank you for hearing my prayers about dying to self and for helping me realize that death to self is not only about my relationship with You but also my relationships with the people around me, the people You love and want me to love. Please, give me Your compassion. Grow in me a genuine and eager interest in others so that I hear their answers with attentive and truly listening ears and heart. Help me learn to gently ask questions, inviting others to open their stories to me. Help me observe those who are strong in this area, that I may emulate their examples.

Thank You for bringing this lack to my attention instead of leaving me where I was.

This poem originally posted in March 2010, reposted because last week I ran with the snow again. This time I realized I was running with Laura’s cousin.

It can be good
to look back,
analyze,
wonder why,
learn.

But after seeking
the explanation or cause,
I turn to look
forward and ask,
“Father, how
do You want me
to respond?”

After the Why, Lord?
comes the What now?

(For the One Word Carnival on “Reflection” hosted by Peter Pollock. Visit Peter’s place on Dec. 28 to read more posts on Reflection!)

I had spent the past decade or so—more than 25% of my life and about 50% of my Christian life—immersed in music ministry (or “worship team”). Worshipping God with voice and instrument had been my driving passion, not only on Sunday mornings with the congregation but all the time.

I sang worship at Wednesday night rehearsals. I played worship behind the piano or guitar at home. I woke up in the mornings with a choir song in my head. I went to Sovereign Grace Ministries to download free lead sheets like Steve and Vikki Cook’s “I Come by the Blood.” I learned LilyPond so I could print out the songs I wrote. I learned a new instrument, and then another, and another. In the car I played CDs or tuned in to the Christian radio stations at high volume. Worship music was my life.

So when I heard they were hosting a women’s conference on worship, of course I went! On the first morning of the conference I prayed, “Father, if I have any inaccurate understandings about worship, please correct them—and if incomplete, please fill them in.”

God answered, for as I sat in my seat almost in the back row, I heard these words:

“Bowing your will is the deepest act of worship.”

- Linda Dillow

Bowing . . . worship. Surrender . . . worship. “Not my will but Yours, God” . . . worship.

Yes, my understanding of worship had been incomplete. Worship is not limited to speaking or singing God’s praises. To truly worship (the deepest form, according to Mrs. Dillow), I must bow my will to God’s.

Worship is not just singing. Worship is surrender.

When I sing in a church service, microphone or drum sticks in hand, it is worship. Hands are raised in praise, or they come together, clapping the rhythm.

But this, too, is worship, and even more so:
When I want something very, very much but know that it’s not what God wants for me, and I say, “Yes, Father, I surrender to Your will,” it is worship.

And this:
When I want to avoid something very, very much but know that it is what God wants for me, and I say, “Father, I surrender to Your will and step that scary path,” it is worship.

A few days after this worship conference I sat at the lunch table, having had a good meal—just enough. But I made pumpkin cream cheese. Cream cheese being among my top five favorite things to eat, and gluttony being among my five biggest sin problems, I was in a trouble spot. I considered loading another piece of toast with a layer of cream cheese thicker than the toast that carried it—but remembered the words: Bowing your will is the deepest act of worship.

As I picked up the cream cheese lid and snapped it over the tub, I said aloud, “Lord, with this act, I worship you.”

This morning, I look ahead to a path He wants me to walk, a path unknown and a bit frightening. But if I am to worship, I will joyfully turn my feet firmly onto that path and take strides of faith. Those steps are the notes and rhythms of the deepest worship song.

The image of worship in my mind used to be that of people singing in rich harmonies, hands upraised, speaking Hallelujahs. Now another image of worship comes first: a surrendered soul bowing down—not only the knee but the soul and will completely bowed down.

Father, I worship You.

Our unknown home calls to us continually, sending impassioned messages full of clues and yearnings . . . Sometimes it happens at sunset. Or it may come, unexpectedly, as you hear a combination of musical notes or read some phrase that contains a wondrous kernel of truth. However it comes, the call is a silvery shaft of sunlight bestowed on you through a door slightly ajar, a faint echo of a conversation originating in eternity.

- Jean Fleming, The Homesick Heart, pp. 22, 23

While cleaning, I found six stray Geofix squares and put them aside to bring them down to the basement. The six-year-old found them before I put them away, though, and began to play. It was the first time he (being the youngest) had ever played with our Geofix. He was fascinated.

“See, Mommy? Look at this. It doesn’t look like anything now, but . . .”

Grinning in anticipation of my amazed response, he clicked the squares together. The translucent neon-green squares made little tik…tik, tik noises as he constructed. Then came his announcement. Voila!

“See? See what it is now?” Byron held up his discovery. When the squares lie flat, they can make a cross shape. When they come together in 3-D, they become a cube! A box, like a gift.

The gift box is open, vulnerable, empty. Like me. I am like an empty box made from a cross; having been crucified with Christ, I am now empty of me, a gift-box given to the Slain Lamb.

In our home, we make a BIG deal about birthdays, and Christmas is Jesus’ birthday party. What shall my gift to Him be?

Take my will and make it Thine.
It shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is Thine own.
It shall be Thy royal throne.

Take my love, my Lord, I pour
at Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be
ever, only, all for Thee.

(from the hymn, “Take My Life and Let It Be”)

Read the rest of the hymn lyrics here.

Addendum 12/16/10: I posted this yesterday morning, and by yesterday evening I failed already, like giving God this gift and snatching it right back. I’m still too full of self, fearing man more than God.

Father, forgive me, and give me courage to do what You want, no matter how scary it is. Help, Father…

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