Detours for Development

When we feel the rejection of the world, we can remember that Jesus chooses us. When we believe the lie that Jesus is on the sidelines, we can remind ourselves that he is chasing us. He initiates a relationship with us. He invites us to experience his grace. We are the ones who sideline him, forget about him, run away, try to hide, and ignore him.  He is the only one in our lives who will consistently pursue us even when we reject him. Jesus’s love for us compels him to pursue us to no end. So, while it may feel trite at first to hear that Jesus is always reaching out when everyone else has rejected us, this truth actually carries an incredible weight. After all, when we die, it won’t be the people in our lives that testify to who we are in front of a holy God—it will be Jesus. And Jesus won’t tell God how awesome we are, he will show God how sufficient he is to make us holy. The Creator of the Universe, the King of Kings, the nothing-is-impossible God actually pursues us. I think you’d be surprised if your favorite celebrity called you up and asked you to have lunch. “What? Me? You’re choosing to have lunch with me of all people?” But it is even more shocking that the Great I Am would do everything in his power to have an intimate relationship with us. Famous people are made famous by their fans, God has been great for all of eternity.  When we grasp the weight of being chosen, we can unite with our brothers and sisters who are also chosen. We could have nothing in common with them, but the thread that unites us all is that the God of the Universe has chosen us. We can unite under that identity and in the purpose he has given us to love one another. This is enough to sustain us when we get caught up in human rejection. Reflection/Discussion Question: How does being chosen create unity among us as believers?

Acts 5:40b-42 says, “They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah” (NIV). Isn’t it incredible that these apostles rejoiced because they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus, and then they went on boldly preaching that Jesus is the Messiah? Instead of leaving in fear or shame, they were saying in excited voices: “Wow! We are following Jesus so closely that they had to beat us for it!” They lived in a way that shook things up wherever they went. Can the same be said about you? It’s incredibly uncomfortable for most of us to think about living in such a way. We want everyone to like us. We assume that if we are loving people like Jesus, then of course everyone will like us. But then we remember that Jesus became so hated that he was killed. If we are following Jesus, we will cause disruptions. Jesus wasn’t quiet about the things of God and his life was incredibly disruptive. But Jesus wasn’t disruptive for the sake of bringing the attention on himself, he was disruptive because he came into our world with God’s purpose. He disrupted our lives set on living the world’s purpose and set us on a path to follow him.  When we grasp that we have been chosen on purpose and for a purpose, we won’t care what people think of us. We won’t live to please other people. We won’t worry about being disruptive. The God of the Universe has chosen us to live out his purpose—worrying about approval or persecution becomes trivial in light of living our God-given purpose. When we grasp this, we can live just like the early apostles who rejoiced that they were persecuted for the name of Jesus and went on boldly preaching the truth about Jesus wherever they went. Reflection/Discussion Question: What are your initial thoughts and feelings as you consider the idea that the world will hate you if you follow Jesus?

My brothers and I made the decision to move our mother out of the home she’d been living in for over 50 years, and in to a senior living facility close to my home due to her memory decline. The level of care we initially chose for her turned out to be less than what she needed. She was angry and scared and I was spending hours each day with her trying to help her settle in. I began to grow resentful, and was questioning our decision to move her. She was placed in a higher level of care, but her memory issues are far worse than we had realized. We now need to move her to the next level of care as she has been diagnosed with Stage 5 Dementia. In addition the personal care, I am responsible for all of her financial and legal needs. I have discovered that she has neglected quite a few important financial matters and it is taking an enormous amount of time and energy to straighten things out. I have had to step away from many of my personal plans in order to fulfill her needs. My husband has been very supportive, but the situation has put a stress on our family. I am struggling to discern what my next step will be. I absolutely feel God’s presence in this journey, but I continue to feel anxious about what I am to do next.

Seems like my wife and I have been on detours the last ten years, but in early February, we were put on the biggest detour of our lives. My wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Pardon me while I use the words “we and our” because in my family, cancer is never fought alone. When we hear ovarian cancer, we automatically thought the “silent killer.” We always heard of a high mortality rate because when it’s found, it’s usually too late and at a very late stage. We were very upset to the point of questioning God and being very angry at Him as to why He would do this to us. We would even quit going to church, which is something we would thought we never do since we volunteer at any church we belonged to (including when we lived in Louisville and attended SECC). However God had other plans for us. On March 10, my wife had what we though was going to be a exploratory surgery to see how bad the cancer spread. After 7.5 hours, the surgeon could not find anything else but the large cancerous mass on the ovary. The mass was removed along with a full hysterectomy. Nothing else was found and the doctor stage it was stage 1A meaning this was the best news we could hear. My wife is currently going through chemotherapy as a precaution but we feel this has been a modern day miracle for us. Because of this miracle we feel God wants us to be advocates for ovarian cancer awareness as well as advocating for getting your age appropriate check ups and screening. “You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.” ‭‭Genesis‬ ‭50‬:‭20‬ ‭NLT‬‬ https://ovarian.org