Effort part 5
Good things take effort. And they take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, right? And this seems like a good time to point out that rest is NOT inactivity. Rest is not being a Spiritual couch potato. Rest is not doing nothing because you're waiting for God to do something. If you're waiting for a move of God... guys... God moved 2,000 years ago on the cross. Jesus did the work SO THAT we can rest. Now we get to enjoy the fruit of His labor. His labor of love. Which produced the fruit of the Spirit. Which is love. Jesus gave maximum effort on the cross. And now, because of HIS effort, we CAN put in that same effort BY resting. By letting Jesus live HIS abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life in us, and through us, and as us. Remember the New Commandment? Love one another AS Jesus has loved you. Receive it and release it. Let God love the hell out of you, and then turn around and love the hell out of the people you come into contact with. And, quite honestly, sometimes the receiving it takes more effort than the releasing it. Because a lot of times we seem to be able to--quite easily--talk ourselves out of the gift of God. We know all the "bad" stuff we've done--because we were right there doing it--and we disqualify ourselves. We think we're not good enough to be loved. And so we settle for less than. We look for love in all the wrong places, and we decide we'd rather have SOMETHING than nothing at all. In my experience nothing is better than the wrong thing. But the right thing is best of all. So when you're trying to decide if the juice is worth the squeeze... if you're trying to decide whether its worth it to spend your three t's (time, talent, and treasure)... you have to count the cost. And you can't be impatient. Because, like I said, good things take time. When I started my job working with children with autism I was paired up with one kindergarten boy quite a bit. And he was immediately my favorite because he was the only one who walks as slowly as I do. But that boy was HARD to move from one thing to the next. Transitions, we call it. He was not a fan of transitions. But it was my job to make sure he was where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there. And my mom's words of wisdom were stuck in my head (my heart). She told me, "If they like you... they'll listen to you." So what I did was, for like the first two weeks of my job, I just played with him. I joked around with him. Read books to him. Built a relationship. And, of course, we struggled every time it was time to transition. But, slowly but surely, he started to trust me. To the point that by the end of the year all I had to do was say his name and he would follow me without question. It took a lot of effort. And it didn't come quickly, or easily, but the effort I put into it was love. I didn't bang my head against the wall trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole. I used my effort to build something. I think its easy to tear things down. To tear ourselves down. But when you train up a child in the way he SHOULD go... when you BUILD something... when you pour yourself into PEOPLE... I think that's where the effort is most effective. Most powerful. Love.