Stepping to His Rhythm

You know, since Tuesday, I've been wanting to post about how amazing it was to see God just open up the floodgates in my discipleship meeting on Tuesday evening. I've never gotten around to it, and now I find my week counterpointed with the disaster of a discipleship meeting I had last night. Ugh.

Firstly, let me tell you that I am the leader of both meetings, and both are with middle/high school students. I love these times, and more often than not, I am amazed at the stuff God puts into my head/mouth. You know the experience...you're talking and as you hear yourself sharing verses or illustrations or connections within Scripture, you're more amazed than the hearer at what appears to be wisdom and truth emitting from you! I love it when God's Spirit makes Himself so evident!

And Tuesday evening was just such a time. As we talked, the conversation moved in ways and directions which I hadn't planned for, but fit so perfectly the needs being stated. It was so very obviously God. But last night...oh last night I messed up so badly. It was so very obviously me, and I hate that.

You know, there are moments in life at which you groan inwardly (or in my case, outwardly) when you remember them. They are too awful or embarrassing or stupid of you to even recount. This was one of them. Let's just say that I've worked for years to create a 'safe' relationship with a very hurting and damaged girl, and just as the doors are beginning to crack open--in a moment of complete brain-shut down--I called her out publicly on something she shared with us. Even now, just sharing that much, I feel like crumpling inside and crying outside.

I've asked for her forgiveness, and for my Father's forgiveness in what was obviously a move of the flesh, not the Spirit. But sometimes you have to ask how your education, training, experience, and common sense can all go on vacation, and why do they have to do it at the same time? If even just one had hung around, I wouldn't have made the blunder I did.

Don't misunderstand. I'm not one who believes in beating oneself up after a mistake or a sin. Confess and repent and 'forget those things which are behind, pressing forward'... But today, I just wonder if I will ever again get the chance to speak into this girl's life in the way I had worked to so hard to be able to. I am just so sad and ashamed.

And so I revisit a lesson I long to have mastered: It matters--every day, every moment--that I keep in step with the Spirit, that my heart be tuned as perfectly as it is able to be to the frequency of His. It matters to those I minister to, those I love, and those I don't know but encounter in daily life. And just so you know, it matters to me that you do the same, 'cause I need you. The Body of Christ is each of us, and when we fall out of step, the whole body suffers.

So today, I recommit to stepping to His rhythm. Will you join me?

-J

(c) 2008

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. --Galatians 5:22-25