Honest Confessions of a Discipler...

So Jesus tells me in his two-part "Great Commission" in Mt. 28:18-20 that I am to 'teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded.' To do that is to be a discipler (teaching someone to be a follower of Someone).

I never cease to be amazed at how God takes a vessel of clay like me and brings me hard things to break me of myself, then uses that same vessel even during the lifelong process of 'being changed from glory to glory'. That's a mystery.

I know me. I know how many days I feel the waves of the past lapping at my feet, threatening to suck me into a black abyss of unknown depths. I know the trauma from my past and I know the sinfulness that I am capable of outside of Jesus, and every single day, there is an enemy mocking me and trying his very best to pull me back into the horrible pit that God brough me out of when He set my feet on the Solid Rock.

I marvel at how God brings peace and grace in a flood beyond comprehension over my life every day that I choose to tend the broken, despite my own undoneness and my own need of mending. I am constantly amazed at how, even when I feel I have no resources when a need arises that God calls me to tend to, He is there with all the resources and equips me for that which He calls me to do.

I keenly feel the truth of Jesus' words, "The fields are white unto harvest but the laborers are few." All around me are sleeping Christians, or half-sick ones who have never walked honestly through their 'stuff' and found the King of kings to truly be their Lord of all. I encounter Christians who are weak because they are cumbered about with many things of earth and don't seem to realize that heaven is their home. There is a revolving door on my house and often I wish to share the load with others who could be just as capable if they would choose to let God break them of their other loves that take them away from being white hot with His Holy Spirit fire. I weep...in loneliness and longing to put my shoulder against the shoulders of others and together labor in the fields. (Oh, I am so deeply grateful for ALL the wonderful reapers I do encounter, tho. Don't get me wrong. I simply say here that they seem far and few between, and I understand from Scripture that this is reality in anyone's life who is a laborer in God's vineyard)

There are days that I go into my room and weep before God at the staggering needs around me...my children as they ask heart searching questions and walk thru temptations I cannot shield them from...the young man who is lonely and has been rejected by many and needs love and guidance...the young woman who was sexually abused and needs someone to walk with her thru that broken place and find God to be her everything...the young woman whose father is facing a prison sentence who needs help to find the loving God who is over her life and always has been...the wife and mother who say on my porch with me and poured out her burdens and longings...the young people who are disillusioned at the religious pride of their parents and church leaders, who would throw in the towel and say they don't want church when really they do want 'church' (Christ's true body) and are simply rejecting the Jesus they known from the false christ they have been shown...the couple whose marriage is on rocky ground who cry out for some real answers...the needs are great. The hearts are crying for God.


I confess that at times I find myself infuriated with the ones whom God called to be at a certain post but they come up unfaithful in one way or another, causing these little ones to stumble. But I turn my heart toward compassion and grief for those sinners as well, longing to meet with them and restore them to their children, who sit with me in deep heart break over the sins of their 'fathers'. I long to see them reconciled and being witnesses that Jesus lives. You see, I still 'believe that the Christ who was slain on the Cross has the power to change lives today/For He changed me completely, a new life is mine/That is why, by the Cross I will stay...' I believe that and I truly long for all the sinners to come home and be changed by the Savior who changed me. "I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see" is not only true in my life but it can be in anyone's life and I choose to allow God to press that on my heart instead of bitterness and anger.

I confess that I lose sleep at times over this harvesting job. I see in my dreams different people who God brings thru my doors and my life and I toss on my bed at night as their sorrow becomes mine. I sometimes weep for my own broken places, the places I cannot fix and that depend on other people's cooperation to be truly 'fixed'...I lose sleep, but not in worry so much as in prayerful concern. It feels like a great privilege to me to be awakened in order to care and pray and weep over someone's heartache and need.

I am humbled that the God of heaven chose vessels of clay through which to do some of his work. I know who I am outside of Jesus Christ and who He still needs to make me. But I am willing to be his servant and I feel privileged to minister life to others. I can love much because I have been loved much. I can show grace because He has shown me much grace. Much is required of me because I have been given much. I know that I can never repay Him the debt I owe, but I give him my life.

Jesus came to serve, not be served. This I am reminded of over and over again in those days when I feel I'm tending but 'who is tending my heart?' I am made of dust and sometimes the feelings are real and I just want to be the 'tended'. God is amazing. He makes sure every single need of mine is taken care of. Not always in the way I would have thot He should, but whatever He does, He does well. Focusing on surrender and not insisting on being 'tended my way in my timing' helps greatly. And the words of Isaiah 58 are true...when we turn our hearts to God and to tending the broken, we are quickly healed. It amazes me over and over again how the rewards for obedience are many and quick to arrive.

Will you join me? Will you let God break you of all that you would pridefully cling to of yourself so that you can mature and go forth into the fields that are white unto harvest? Will you join me in weeping and praying? Will you love God with your all so that you can love your neighbor as yourself?