Update

Just a quick update, my boss has offered to pay €160 of the total cost, which is €560. I am still waiting to hear from the landlord and I'm hoping I can pay it in €50 installments. Thanks for praying.

Sorry for shamelessly posting a prayer request on my blog, but why not. The more people praying the better, right?

Here's the background. In April, I looked after my boss's cats and stayed at her flat. She was on a business trip. Everything was fine when I left, but when she came back, there was a crack in her ceramic stove top and it gradually became so bad that it cracked all the way across the stove top. As it wasn't damaged before she left and I didn't take a photo of the stove top before I left, it looks like I did it and therefore I am liable to pay for the damage and repair costs.

My boss has tried to use her third party liability insurance and her home contents insurance, but neither of these has agreed to cover the costs and so it is up to me. My stance has been that I am willing to pay, but the problem is that I am not in a position to pay the whole amount at once. Right now, work is very slow - I'm freelance, so I get paid only when there is work - and I have just about enough money for all my regular costs and not much extra.

My boss has given my email address to her landlord and I am hoping to negotiate a repayment plan. Please pray that we will be able to come to an agreement that I can afford and if not, that I will trust that God knows all about this and that He will provide for me. I'd really appreciate your prayers, as I really don't know where the extra money will come from. Thanks! :)

Two posts in one day!! Well, I wanted this to be an encouragement - since it encouraged me. Please go on and read the 'Joy in Suffering' post first and come back to this version of Charlotte Elliot's hymn "Just as I am".

Just as I am without one plea

But that thy blood was shed for me

And that thou bidst me come to thee

Oh Lamb of God I come! I come!

Just as I am and waiting not

To rid my soul of one dark blot

To thee whose blood can cleanse each spot

Oh Lamb of God I come! I come!

I come broken to be mended

I come wounded to be healed

I come desperate to be rescued

I come empty to be filled

I come guilty to be pardoned

By the blood of Christ the Lamb

And I'm welcomed with open arms

Praise God! Just as I am

Just as I am I would be lost

But mercy and grace my freedom bought

And now to glory in your cross

Oh Lamb of God I come! I come!

How great to have a God who loves us just as we are and where we're at and will lovingly cleanse us from all sin and deliver us from our trials if we come to Him in prayer and surrender our lives to Him. :)

Joy in Suffering

So, I've been listening to Mark Driscoll's sermons on Phillipians and this one - the third in the series - is amazing. Well, his teaching is generally good. But I wanted to share some things that he said because they really encouraged me.

I'll only be sharing extracts, so they may not be so coherent. To listen to the whole sermon - or in fact, the whole series - go to marshill.com The series is entitled "The Rebel's Guide to Joy".

"...in large part, to be alive means that you will suffer; that you will suffer physically, and emotionally, and spiritually, and mentally, and relationally. And the Bible is so replete with suffering that roughly one third of the Psalms, which are songs and Psalms sung of God’s people in praise and gratitude to God, one third of those or more include Psalms of lament, where God’s people are groaning, and struggling, and wrestling, in a lamenting fashion with the difficulty of sin."

"And human suffering is so real, and so raw, and so replete throughout Scripture that there are, occasionally, those in Scripture who, despite their great love of God, question why they were even born, cursed the day of their own birth. Perhaps, you can identify with them. Perhaps, you have or are suffering to such a degree that you wake up and, occasionally, look in the mirror and ask, “Why, God, was I ever born? It seems like it is nothing but sorrow, and shame, and suffering, and why in the world would I be brought into an existence that is marked by this level of pain?

If so, then Job and Jeremiah would echo your sentiment. Those two men in the Bible asked the question of God, “Why was I born? Why did I leave my mother’s womb to see nothing but sorrow, and shame, and strife, and suffering, all the days of my life?”"

"You and I can only handle seeing so much suffering, and hearing so much suffering, and we reach a point where we simply cannot continue to see it or hear of it. And I want you to, for a moment, consider with me what it must be like that we are incapable of fully experiencing this; what it must be like to be God. The Bible tells us that God sees everything. That means that God sees all injustice, evil, sin, atrocity, pain and suffering. He sees all of it. There is never a moment that God is not seeing suffering. Unlike you and I, God never has a moment of respite.

Additionally, the Bible teaches us that God hears all. There is never a moment that God does not hear those who are weeping, and wailing, and screaming, and shouting, and crying, and moaning in agony, and pain, and suffering. And God endures this continually, unendingly, unceasingly. And the Bible says that God is good. That God is loving. That God is merciful. That God is compassionate. And you and I, when we see suffering in our life for the life of others, when we hear of suffering in our life or the life of others, we are overwhelmed. And for God, this is continual and it encompasses every human being on the earth."

"You and I will suffer. Will we suffer in a way that is purposeful that God might do something in us or through us, or will we suffer in a way that is purposeless, that nothing good would be accomplished in us and that nothing good would be accomplished through us?"

"You and I will suffer. Paul, here, is suffering. And what Paul is exemplifying for us is that there is a way to suffer as a Christian so that our suffering is purposeful and not purposeless. My question to you is this: when you suffer, because the question is not if, when you suffer, will you suffer in a way that is purposeful or purposeless? Will you suffer in a way that God could do a good thing in you? We call it sanctification. It is where through suffering, and hardship, and pain and mourning, and loss and strife, and struggling, we are made to be more and more patterned after the character of Jesus Christ. Or will suffering, for you, become an opportunity that you allow to pass you by so that God is not able, because of your stubbornness to do anything good in you?"

"You will suffer. Will you suffer well? Will you suffer in such a way that God, through Jesus Christ, could do something good in you; grow you in love, and mercy, and patience, and kindness, and faith, and humility, and Christ-likeness. My first question is will your suffering compel you to love Jesus more? Some of you know what I’m talking about. You have suffered, and because of your suffering, you love Jesus because in your suffering, you lost everyone and everything but Jesus, and he’s the only treasure you have.

Some of you, in your suffering, have learned to love Jesus more because you realize that our God didn’t stay distant and far away. Unlike the false demon gods of other religions, he was willing to humbly come into human history and our God suffered because of that. When you suffer, you love him so much because he chose suffering in a way that you and I would never choose to suffer."

"Have you suffered? Are you suffering? In what way has or could God, if you would partner with him in the suffering, use it to accomplish something good in you? And if you will partner with God in that way, he will take what he has worked into you and he will work it through you as a witness so that, as the world sees you suffer, and as the church sees you suffer, they see that Jesus is making a difference. They see that Jesus is at work. They see that you are suffering in a way that you absolutely could not apart from Jesus. Will your suffering be purposeless in you? Will it be purposeless through you? Or will it be purposeful in you, and will it be purposeful through you? I am begging you not to waste your suffering. Your tears should not be in vain. Your struggle should not be in vain. Your hardship should not be in vain. It should not be wasted. It should not be neglected. It should not be abandoned. It should be embraced as Gospel centered, Jesus given, divine opportunity. Paul is demonstrating that for us."

"...will the Christians who watch you suffer, and hear you suffer grow in their faith? Will they become more bold? Paul says, “What has happened to me, brothers, has really served to advance the Gospel.” Some of the Christians were timid. They were shy. They were embarrassed a little bit about Jesus. They didn’t wanna say his name and now, the Christians have become more bold. They say, ‘Yes, I am a Christian. Yes, I do love Jesus. Yes, I do belong to Jesus.’ Christians are watching other Christians suffer and we may articulate a theology, but we demonstrate true belief with how we suffer."

"You will suffer. Will you suffer well? Will you suffer purposefully or purposelessly? Will you suffer in such a way that God does a work in you and through you or will you waste it? Will your waste your sickness, and your poverty, and your hardship, and your loneliness, and your tears, and your grief, and your sadness, and your sorrow, and your suffering? What a great tragedy it would be for you to waste all of that.

There was American missionary to India. His name was E. Stanley Jones. He has a great quote that I think articulates so much of what Paul is trying to summarize. He says this: "Don't bear trouble. Use it." "Don't bear trouble. Use it. Take whatever happens, justice and injustice, pleasure and pain, compliment and criticism, take it up into the purpose of your life and make something out of it. Turn it," he says, "into a testimony." "Into a testimony.""

Ok, so Mark Driscoll goes on to talk about 10 false teaching about suffering, but this is already a very long post, so I am going to leave it there. There's enough for you to chew on and to think about. I really recommend listening to the whole sermon. :)

Wow! I haven't blogged since March!! Goodness! So much has happened since then. My timetable totally filled up and I've been so busy.

Anyway, what's going on now is that I am struggling to really understand what it means that God is sovereign and that He is good and, particularly, good to me. I went on the church retreat in June and there I really realised that I can believe that God is good to you, but to me, no way. To me, He only sends difficulty and I can't expect anything good from God. So, obviously, I was convicted of this thinking and wanted to change.

What I did when I got back was study the book of Ruth. The book of Ruth, of course, is a book all about God's goodness and sovereignty - particular at times when it seems like God is not working at all. I loved the study I did. I did it mainly by listening to the Redeeming Ruth series by Mark Driscoll and John Piper's sermons on Ruth. I loved those sermons and learned a lot, though since then and having prayed that God would show me what it means that He is sovereign and that He is good to me, it seems like my life has become more difficult than it was before.

I won't go into details of the difficulties, as they are mainly financial. Anyway, my point is that my heart is at the point of giving up. I feel so heavy under the weight of it all that I don't really know what to do. I know what I should do is pray, but I feel like I have no strength. I am, unfortunately, at a point where I have lost all motivation to read God's word. This is ironic because I know in my heart of hearts that this is exactly what I should do.

Well, my main struggle is that my heart is turning bitter. It seems like things are going so well for my friends and for me, it's going in the opposite direction. This is, of course, not entirely true as my job is going really well. I am established as a really good teacher and my timetable is full most of the time. There are down periods, of course, but I still have enough money to pay my bills and to socialise. My church has come through and helped me with the big bills that came out of nowhere. I have support in dealing with the issues I have to deal with and there are people praying for me. I have become a member of the church and I have made some real friends.

So what's the problem? The problem for me is the apparent ease of other people's lives. I feel like I am constantly hiking up a steep hill where my friends are strolling along a plateau. I have very little idea if that is actually true or not because I feel bad thinking it and so I haven't asked them.

I guess I thought one of the reasons that God brought me to Germany was to develop my career. I am beginning to see that the main reason was to develop my spiritual life. I have learned so much more about God and me in relation to Him since I started going back to church last year and I feel right now more than ever I am being refined and pounded. There is a part of me that is joyful because I know at the end of all this I will be more beautiful on the inside and more of a reflection of God's glory than I am now. And that will be amazing. Of course, I won't be 'done', but I will be that much closer to the woman God wants me to be and that brings a part of me so much excitement. Unfortunately, a bigger part of me is just so tired of the constant 'pounding'. I know as 'clay' we have to be, so that we can be moulded into the right shape, but goodness! When will it stop?!

I feel like Naomi at the beginning of the book of Ruth. I feel like saying, just like she did, "Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty." My hope is, of course, found at the end of the book of Ruth where Naomi's life has done a complete 180. Her life is full again and it was God who did it all. I don't mean, of course, wealth and prosperity - except that my spiritual life will be full of it - but I know God will work it out, that God is working though I can't see it and that God is with me now even though I can't feel it. I know because I see it in His word and He is always the same, never changing. Still, it's hard being in the middle of it and not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with my eyes, but knowing that there is a light by the very little faith I have at the moment.