It is Sunday night and I am slightly dreading heading into the week ahead. But I am thankful for the many good things that happened this weekend.
On Friday, I met up with two sisters for dinner. I don't meet up with them all that often, but over the last three years, they are the two people with whom I have met the most regularly. They are older than me by five years and eight years, and I have learned so much about patience, grace, humility, and wisdom from their words and lives. I love that we are able to talk about everyday things easily, but that most often we just dive right into discussions about the hard, gritty, conflict-driven parts of life and the difficult parts of our individual journeys of faith. On Friday in particular, I shared about some of my sinful and judgmental tendencies which have (I believe) adversely affected some of my relationships with brothers and sisters in the church. My own self-righteous views on spending and finances have driven me to look down from my little self-built perch, tsking away at the behaviors of certain others. This should not be so. And it's a messy, ugly, nasty business to look at those gross parts of my soul and share about them. But with these sisters, it was not so difficult... it was unpleasant, but it was helpful to talk through them, hear my own thoughts expressed out loud, and come to an even greater understanding of how sinful my thoughts really are. In a way, I was going through the process of confession, revealing the darkness in my heart and laying it out, finally acknowledging that only God can help drive out that darkness. Hard, but good conversation.
On Saturday, I met up with a sister who used to attend our church, but graduated from college and left to do long-term missions in China. She's an amazing sister who always impressed me with her mature faith. She grew up in China with her parents, who immigrated to the United States when she was eight or nine. Through their friendship with another Chinese family here in the States, her entire family came to know Christ. How incredible! She has a deep sense of the importance of the Gospel and bringing it to families in China who do not have the good fortune of immigrating to the United States, so she intends to devote the bulk of her life to long-term missions in her homeland. (Notably, she became a U.S. citizen just months before she left for her first year of missions work!) It has been a blessing to receive her updates by newsletter this past year, and an utter privilege to spend a couple hours with her over pizza and gelato on Saturday. I was able to ask all of my burning questions: How do you build relationships with your students? Is it true that China is hungry for the Gospel? Does the Chinese government know what you're doing? Do you face any persecution? Where do you worship? What are your students like? Tell me some of their stories. Hearing about what God is doing in China is amazing. We worship a loving and all-powerful Lord who is bringing His Word to all ends of the earth, who is reaching far and deep into the hearts of many even in an oppressed land such as China, and who is able to turn hearts to Himself despite incredible odds. So awesome!
I spent the rest of Saturday billing about six hours of work, mostly due to my pro bono case. It's easier to work on weekends when it's for my Superstorm Sandy client. But even then... I don't like working until 9:30pm on any day of the week...
On Sunday, our little group of Brooklyn Heights + 1/3 of Williamsburg (Dan and Jess & fam) went to Sunset Park (Brooklyn Chinatown) for dim sum. Mr. Squire and I have always been very disappointed in New York dim sum, but...now we know that's because we've only ever been to Manhattan Chinatown. Brooklyn Chinatown was amazing! And guess what: eight adults and three children who ate their fill until they could burst only cost... $76 + tip. What the--?? Unbelievable!
Missions meeting and prayer meeting were followed by a guest speaker at church, who lost me for the first ten minutes, but then quickly got my attention. He preached on Colossians 3:22-24, which reads:
22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
Major points from this passage that I took away:
- Reinforcement of the exhortation to work as unto the Lord, and not as unto man. This is something I struggle with all the time, which is probably why God has been using various people to remind me of that very thing several times over the last few months. When things are overwhelmingly busy at work, I must remember to pray for the Spirit to give me the mind of Christ and take peace in that. If a partner is overly demanding or ungrateful or unreasonable, I should work with sincerity to the LORD, trying my very best in every endeavor not to please my partner, but to honor God.
- Instead of pining for a different project, a different job, a different workplace (not that I always am doing these things, but when I am...), I should stop, and realize that I am in the right place. This is where God has called me to be this day. And so my call is to do the best that I can in that day, where He has placed me. At first when Rick said this (the bolded part), my mind immediately protested: Well, what if you're in the wrong place? What if He's calling you to move? But then I thought about it, and realized Rick was right: in every day, we are exactly where God has called us to be that day. It doesn't mean that later in the day or week or life, He may lead us to go elsewhere. But wherever we are at a given moment is not by mistake. God is well aware of where we are and what we are doing. If we are in the wrong place, He can and will move us. And if we are in place X at any given time, it's because God allowed it. This is...comforting, in a way.
So...good things to kick off the week. I hope I can sleep well when I go to bed in two hours. And I hope the lessons from the weekend stick with me!
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