Guest Post: The Day Everyone Found Out | By:Amberlea Abbott

Being a missionary with Word of Life Canada has blessed us tremendously with getting to know Bible Institute students from all over the world.  Just this morning in my personal devotions I was praying for all of our Alumni-asking that they would be wisely walking with God, tools for His honour and glory.  This post is written by one such alumni who is loving and serving the Saviour, currently in Korea.  Thank-you Amberlea for sharing your experience, and your heart.  Enjoy readers- may His name be glorified, and His grace reach more people this day....  

The day everyone found out.

MARCH 22, 2015 ~ AMBERLEA

Have you ever had a secret that you hoped no one would ever find out? Something you hid from the world? You’d go about your daily life wondering if people knew. I do. It’s been so long since I’ve been afraid and had to face my inadequacies.  I started to think I didn’t have to hide. But my world came crashing down, like a train barreling down the tracks it hit me, it ran me over, I didn’t even see it coming. If I did, I wouldn’t have been able to move. Yes this may be a bit dramatic but it is what I felt, experienced, 26 years buildup to crumble in such an unexpected moment. I’ve moved to Korea. I am on the hunt for a church. I’ve visited a couple. I was attending membership classes to join one church. At the end of the class they had a test, a page long test about their church.

At the beginning of the class the pastor said pay attention because there’s a test at the end. My heart dropped. Why? Because I knew I would fail. I told myself it was okay, it’s probably an easy test, and it’s not like they’re expecting you to memorize the entire membership book. It’s not like they’re going to only accept the correct words, they’d understand if you put a different word that had the same meaning.  And then I received the test. I was wrong, it was worse than I expected. I read the first three questions. Then I read them again. And again. And again. I froze. The answers I did know I couldn’t write. The rest I forgot. I failed. I got an email saying I had failed and I could re-write.  I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed. I failed.

The thing is, it may take five tries before I pass, if I ever do. You see I have a learning disability-NOS (not otherwise specified). You may be more familiar with dyslexia (it is also a learning disability).  What does this mean? Am I stupid? My immediate response is yes. But this I have learned is an unhealthy view, because it’s not true. I remind myself that I am not. But the thing is, I’ve never really believed it. All the voices over the years that tell me I’m stupid, I adamantly respond with a no. I am brilliant. I am smart. I am a strong and stubborn women. I am educated. I have a university education. I have wisdom. I am a force to be reckoned with. In some ways I am smarter than you. In other ways I am no smarter than a ten year old. I am slow in some areas. It is frustrating. There are some things I can’t grasp, they feel like they are within reach but they just aren’t. It makes me mad. I ask myself why I am so stupid. I ask myself what’s wrong with me. I ask God why he made me this way.

For some time I have been seen as a knowledgeable professional, because I am. I haven’t been bullied in so long for being slow. I haven’t been made to feel like I was stupid or inferior. But you see I failed this test. And in one unexpected moment I was made to feel stupid and inadequate. Not by anything the church did (expect for having a test). If the assessment process was different I could pass.

I want so desperately to find a church to worship God, and have a community of believers. I was told I could re-write the test. I laughed inside. You see there is this story in the bible (John 5) about a lame man. For over 30 years he was trying to get healed by getting into the pool at Bethesda. There was however a slight problem, HE WAS LAME. He couldn’t walk. This guy named Jesus comes along and says “Hey want to be healed”. I can only imagine the guy looking back at Jesus with a glare like “Uh yah, of course, but can’t you see, I’M LAME, I CAN’T WALK”. Jesus ends up healing him.  Can you feel his frustration though? For over 30 years he has been so close to this pool, this healing life giving pool, almost within grasp but never can actually attain it, because of the way he was created. It is so frustrating, desiring to be a member of a church, wanting to be a part of the community, seeing the need for spiritual discipleship that I could have, but I can’t pass this test and attain it (the social worker in me says, barrier. Fight for the rights of the disabled. You’re not the only one, advocate for change in the assessment process). GRHHHHHH. This is where the similarity ends between the two stories. God’s not healing me. It’s been 26 years. Do I need more faith? No. Do I need to confess sin? No.  God is not going to heal me, and at this point I prefer it that way. Why?

In John 5, regarding the man born blind, the disciples asked Jesus who sinned, him (blind man) or his parents. Jesus responded “neither he nor his parents sinned. He was born blind that my works should be manifest in him”. WOW!!! After coming home to my apartment, crying a bit, and asking God once again why He created me like this, He reminded me of the passage in John 5. As John Calvin wrote in the West Minister Confession of Faith “What is the chief end of man? To glorify God, and enjoy Him forever.  So I have been created to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Like the man born blind, God knit me together in my mother’s womb, He created me with a learning disability that He would be glorified, that His works would be manifested in me. Paul had an infirmity and we learn that many throughout scripture had inadequacies, disabilities, weaknesses etc.  I don’t pray to get healed. I pray that the God who created me with a learning disability, that his works should be manifested in me, that the people I come in contact with will encounter the same love and grace which he has lavished on me.

And that is what I have learned in Korea.

What Am I Delighting In? Guest Post: by Karen Gaul

Read this blog post by a friend this morning, and just had to share.  This post with written by a veteran Canadian Biblical Counselor-Karen Gaul from Stratford, ON.  You can check out her blog here;  http://gracebiblicalcounselling.net/ May His truth become more and more our daily reality, His Person our delight.... Read, enjoy, learn and grow along with me....

“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart”.  Really?  I know that is what it says, but my life has not changed any.  My problems and struggles are just as bad as they were before I started working on delighting in the Lord.  Really?  There are no cattle in the stalls and no grapes on the vine…where is God?  My suffering has not changed, my relationships are still broken, my kids still aren’t following God, and I am still anxious and fearful.

I wonder if we have taken that verse and twisted it somehow.  I think we often read it “delight yourself in the Lord and thenHe will give you the desires of your heart.”  In other words we press into the Lord for a bit and then hope that He will give us what we want.  I am sure that anyone reading this will say “no, that’s not what I am thinking.” Really? Then why do we give up so easily, why do we stop trusting and start doubting God’s goodness or even His presence?  Why are we so frustrated when things just simply don’t SEEM to be changing?

Are we delighting in what God can give to us or are we actually delighting in Him alone?  That is a huge question for each of us.  We like our life to be easy and pain free and healthy and financially set and relationally peaceful.  Where in all of Scripture do we get that promise?

I know it is what our culture pursues and promises. Our culture would scream at us regularly to “go with what feels right”.  Our culture would scream at us that we are entitled, that we deserve (you fill in the blank).   We live in a culture that loves to put a world spin on the Word of God, making sin easy and making seeing a big picture of who God really is nearly impossible.   Living in North America we live in a constant war zone for having our so called needs met. We are far too easily deceived.

Jesus delighted in His Father.  That had nothing to do with His circumstances, or His feelings or His relationships.  His relationship with His Dad went above and beyond those things.  He had a proper picture of who His Father was, and that shaped how He did his life here.

“Consider the absolute bliss and harmony that Jesus has always enjoyed with the Father and the Holy Spirit.” Winston Smith in Marriage Matters.

It went beyond ease and comfort and financial security and peace to a relationship with His Father that somehow super ceded all creature comforts, and He didn’t challenge or dispute or reinterpret what God the Father might be doing or saying.

We pursue success, bigger and better purchases, acquiring more things thinking that will give us delight and we get busy in our churches, attend Bible studies, maybe even lead one, attend church, but even there we are pursuing satisfaction or praise, or hoping it will make us feel better or make life easier somehow.

During the early years of our marriage I was pursuing delight in getting pregnant and when it didn’t happen I was devastated until I realized that having a child would not ultimately give me what I thought it would, although it seemed at the time that it would satisfy me completely.

C.S. Lewis wrote:  Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak.  We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased.

“You may feel that Jesus is no match for the dreams and desires …, that to live without those dreams and desires would be unbearable.  To think that Jesus himself is the grandest prize of all …may seem silly to you.  You’re too easily satisfied.  Whatever pleasure you have set your sights on pales in comparison with what God offers us in His Son.  Jesus isn’t a consolation prize…He’s the grand prize.”  Winston Smith Marriage Matters

When Ruth got out of her mourning attire (Ruth 3) and prepared to go and claim her kinsman redeemer she was focusing on being obedient no matter how it turned out.  She made herself vulnerable, she prepared herself and she went to him seeking his protection and his provision, not only for a moment but for the rest of her life.

That is how it can be with us.  If we see our desperation, realizing that outside of ourselves we can’t amount to much, if we see our Kinsman Redeemer as one who will also provide protection and provision, if we are willing to claim Him then nothing else really matters.  He is the One who saves us from ourselves, He becomes all we need for life and godliness.  He becomes our great Delight.

Making It Personal

• What might change in your life if you really started pursuing a living relationship with Jesus, and found delight in Him alone?
• If you really believed that God’s greatest good for your life is to make you more like his Son how might that change your attitude toward your circumstances?
• What might delighting in the Lord look like in your life when your circumstances are not favourable?

“Dear God help us want just You above all else!”