Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power…
Welcome back to our continued journey toward Destination? Joyful! God is good; all the time, God is good, even when I fall short! Can I get an Amen? Grab your coffee and let’s try and wrap up the second sacrifice, the sacrifice of righteousness which is a huge contribution to our Cup of Joy!
The price tag for a sacrifice of righteousness may be the loss of a promotion, a job, and even a friendship or friendships and the price tag may even include some ridicule and/or mockery for good measure. STOP! Let’s talk about this price tag as it relates to these things that become such big desires that we can sometimes lose focus of their correct priority.
First, there is a verse that keeps rising to the door of my heart bursting to get out: Blessed are those who are persecuted for thy name’s sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew 5:10] The NIV say it like this and this translation really spells it out in a relevant way: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.”
Friends, these words are from Abba Himself! He’s giving us a heads-up that these things will happen! He knows that people that we come to care about will talk about us negatively, say false things about us and cause great emotional wounds, but here’s the deal: most of the time they don’t realize it’s because of Him in you! That’s when it’s really difficult to offer up a sacrifice of righteousness.
Just two days after missing the mark on turning the other cheek, I was presented with yet another opportunity to offer up a sacrifice of righteousness! Ugh, I guess He wants to make sure I get this one, and you know what they say about writers and teachers: they learn the most, probably because we need it the most, at least I do!
Have you ever come across someone who comes across incredibly harsh, opinionated and always has a critical thing to say about someone but after you get past that, you see someone with a soft heart, and other good qualities? Oh, I know a few and God has helped me to look past and try and know them beyond all of that unresolved stuff. After, all, isn’t that what He does with us?
Well, just a couple of days after the last incident wherein I failed to offer a sacrifice of righteousness by turning the other cheek, someone just like I described stepped on my emotional foot and in such a way that I couldn’t ignore it. I waited four days before I said ouch, but this time, the way I said ouch was in love in a card with a letter. I bathed it in prayer and sent it off.
I knew my heart was in the right place; my motive was to speak into her life and not out for the sake of our “friendship,” for the sake of Christ-desired unity! [Ephesians 4:3]
For the next couple of days, I put it in the back of my mind, though it stayed at the forefront of my prayers, and so when a response came at the end of our CPM Board meeting via Facebook messenger, I couldn’t wait to open it because I wanted our friendship to resume – neither of us initiating anything — and I just knew she would understand what I had tried to say. So, I did open it right as our board meeting ended, and got pulled into her message and away from my board members for as long as it took me to read it.
MISTAKE!
The color drained from my face as my heart fell to the ground and while it was down there, I continued to read and what I read not only verbally slapped me across my left cheek, but stomped all over my heart as if to be doing some angry dance.
Join me for my sacrifice of righteousness for this circumstance tomorrow!
Gripped in His arms,
Evinda
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