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Personal thread this morning.
It’ll be a little cheesy for some tastes but I reckon I’m nothing at all if not cheesy. You may have caught my tweet 2 days ago where I shared that my daughter @MelissaMoore77 who lives in the PNW is home for December. So happy. Been nearly a year.
It’ll be a little cheesy for some tastes but I reckon I’m nothing at all if not cheesy. You may have caught my tweet 2 days ago where I shared that my daughter @MelissaMoore77 who lives in the PNW is home for December. So happy. Been nearly a year.
I was getting ready for work in my room yesterday AM & walked through the house to grab something from the kitchen & saw her having her morning devotions. She was absorbed in what she was reading so I left her to it. But that sight, that very simple sight, stayed with me all day.
All families go through a lot. Keith and I were not emotionally healthy people when we married so we especially went through a lot. More to the point of this thread, ministry families go through a lot. And, what makes ministry difficulties particularly complex is the impact they
can have on the kids’ relationships with God. You can imagine all the ways. The pressures mount even more if the parent’s controversial. Mind you, nothing was particularly noteworthy about seeing Melissa‘s face in her Bible. She studies all the time. It’s her love. Her life work.
But this wasn’t just study. This wasn’t research. This wasn’t preparing for a lesson, article, chapter. This was prayer time. The practice of daily prayer. The habit of meeting with God most days 1st thing to hear from Him in the Scriptures & respond to Him through prayer. These
are the things that nourish the servant of God. No matter how time goes on & methods change, these remain the fundamentals, the spiritual disciples, of a personal relationship with Jesus. These along with practices like giving, fasting. I took it all in yesterday.The grace of it.
Our family went through an enormous health calamity with Keith that left nothing unscathed. We’ve also struggled deeply with all that’s happened in evangelicalism in the last 5 years. Severe disillusionment.
Families struggle.
Our messy family especially struggles.
Families struggle.
Our messy family especially struggles.
And ministry families struggle. I have prayed one prayer more than any other for my children. I want my children to love Jesus. That is what I ask Him for above all. I know they’ll make it if they do. I know they will follow Him if they do. I know they will serve Him if they do.
I know they will always return to Him when they trip & fall if they do. I know they will always look to His consolations in their sufferings if they do. They will endure & make it through the coldness and meanness of this world if they do. They will share the gospel if they do.
All the prayers in the world could not make any of that happen. Only God, in His unfathomable grace and mercy, can cause a selfish, easily wounded human heart - and we Moores seem to have humanness to spare - to love Him. To seek Him. Anyway, I’m always reluctant to say this kind
of thing because we are messy people. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? I just want to say, fellow servant, that God has carried us. That He has saved us through crisis, foolishness, sin and disobedience, disappointment, loss and cynicism. He’ll carry you, too.
It’s not your works for His kingdom that will get you through. Not your Bible study. Your busyness. It’s Jesus Himself. You can be the most gifted, anointed person in your whole generation and still fall into an abyss of sin and faithlessness. It’s Jesus Himself. He is the prize.
Nobody can do this for you. Not your mama. Not your daddy. Not your auntie. Not your uncle. Not your prayer team. Not your ministry staff. Not your newsletter recipients. Jesus is yours to know. To seek. To hear. To follow. To love. And, oh saint, to ENJOY.
