some thoughts from my buddy Oswald...

Last night after work I was reading that day's devotional in My Utmost for His Highest (by Oswald Chambers) and it was just so fitting for the people I'm working with now. Sometimes I struggle with really showing love to them, with being patient with them as I know I should. I wish they could do things "correctly" (according to my definition or desire), or faster or better. Sometimes I wish I could just do it for them so it'd be faster and I wouldn't have to wait around, but of course that's not the point. I have to try to help them learn to do it themselves. There's a fine line though between letting them do something to learn it and knowing when they genuinely need help with something! (Especially because some of them ask for help when I know they can do it.)

So here's what I was reading, based on Matthew 5:48's "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect."

"...show to the other man what God has shown to you; and God will give us ample opportunities in actual life to prove whether we are perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. To be a disciple means that we deliberately identify ourselves with God's interests in other people. 'That ye love one another; as I have loved you....'

The expression of Christian character is not good doing, but God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit Divine characteristics in your life, not good human characteristics. God's life in us expresses itself as God's life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian is that the supernatural is made natural in him by the grace of God...."
(bold mine)

WOW.... The first part is what struck me most about work - trying to be perfect in loving those I work with, actually loving them as God loves them, as God loves me! I know I fail in that a lot. Yet God is giving me many opportunities to learn to be perfect as He is! Pray that I would actually identify with God's interests for them... that sounds so hard. Not my interests or wishes, but God's, how HE would treat them were He in my place. I need to love unconditionally and unselfishly.

And the next part: I think we most often are humans trying to be godly, trying to do the right thing, to be good. But here Os says that true Christians will be displaying Divine qualities because it'll be God showing or living through us. My life should totally reflect God. I'll leave you with that today... are you a human trying to be godly or has God transformed you so that He is living through you? (see Galations 2:20 - "I no longer live but Christ lives in me.")