Get Lost: Love FeastSample

Gain heart focus by praying Scripture out loud: I submit myself to You, God. I am resisting the devil. Please cause him to flee. I choose to draw near to You today with the promise that You will draw near to me. Clean my hands because I am sinful. Purify my heart because I can be so double-minded. You have permission to make me mourn and weep, and to turn foolish laughter into mourning. I want to humble myself before You, trusting that You’ll lift my heart back up. (Adapted from James 4:7–10) So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these he will show him, so that you may marvel.” John 5:19–20 God wants you to join in His story by being at work beside Him. More than that, He wants you to be so committed to the work He is accomplishing that you do nothing unless it is initiated by Him. That was Jesus’s work ethic. He revealed it to His followers as recorded in John 5:19–20. God is always at work around you. Joining in this work is a part of the great romance you can have with Him. When He shows you where He is at work, it is an invitation to join Him. To ignore His offer would be like ignoring a love note from a guy who makes your heart spin. To see it from that perspective, let’s turn again to the love story in Song of Songs. From the very beginning, the Maiden is eager to know where Solomon is at work. Early in the story, she pleads, “Tell me, you whom I love, where you graze your flock and where you rest your sheep at midday. Why should I be like a veiled woman beside the flocks of your friends” (Song of Songs 1:7, NIV). She seems to know that working side by side will be a vital part of their intimacy, so she yearns to know where he is at work. She doesn’t want to have foggy vision—as if wearing a veil—about what he’s up to. And she doesn’t want to work alongside his friends. She wants to be his helper. A helpmate. Does that word make you bristle? I have to admit, I struggle with it. All too much of my mind has been programmed by the feminist movement, which has accomplished some good but sadly fuels my self-sufficiency and self-power as a woman. This tends to make me self-focused. The idea of women being helpers has been a point of contention for several generations. Our culture programs us to be strong and independent. (Translation: in charge of our own lives!) But God encourages us to let Him be in charge. And that means we have to get over ourselves. Let me show you something I discovered that helped me embrace the idea of being a helper. Genesis 2:18 reads: “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him a helper fit for him.’” God chose to call Eve a helper. In the original Hebrew language He called her an ezer kenedgo for Adam. The word ezer means “helper” and the word kenedgo means “to accompany.” We see that God created the first woman with the intention that she would accompany man in order to help him. Ready for the beauty? Only two references in the Bible point to a woman’s being an ezer, a helper. All the rest describe Someone else in that role. God is called our ezer multiple times in the Old Testament. Here’s just a sweet taste: There is none like God…who rides through the heavens to your help [ezer]. Deuteronomy 33:26 * Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help [ezer], and the sword of your triumph! Deuteronomy 33:29 * Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help [ezer] and our shield. Psalm 33:20 * Blessed is he whose help [ezer] is the God of Jacob. Psalm 146:5 Being a helper is no second-class position. What a privilege we have as females to reflect the concerned helping quality of God our Maker. He certainly does not walk subserviently behind us, but comes tenderly alongside us in a position of strength. That’s what it means to be a helpmate. Yet this beautiful privilege of being a helper within marriage has met with the firm resistance from hearts molded by the feminist mentality. Mine included. The irony of our resistance is that helping is deeply rooted into the hearts of women. It comes out readily in our friendships, for example. Girlfriends are eager to help plan parties or study for an exam. We’ll help a girlfriend run for class president or paint her bedroom. We’re more than willing to help each other get ready for a date or make a big decision about a relationship. We find it satisfying to help one another move to a new apartment or to make a batch of noodle soup when a friend falls ill. (Guys don’t make noodle soup for each other, no matter how much they might believe in its ability to cure all ills.) Women are wired to be helpful. So why do we resist the idea of a woman helping her husband? I’m praying my silly head off right this moment that you’ll get this. Honestly, I’m praying that I’ll get it too. I struggle continually to be less self-centered and to be helpful in marriage. I am burdened with the heavy armor of defense so that no man can hurt me or take advantage of me, which makes no sense because I have a husband who gives himself to me readily in service and sacrifice. He always wins the tally on picking up the kids, outdoing me with caring for our home, and surprising me by meeting needs when I’m overloaded with life. Why on earth do I sometimes struggle to give myself back to him? The Curse rises up if I am not hidden in the secure agape of Christ, and I seek to control myself, him, and everything about our relationship. My head spins at how this will look in your life when we fast-forward a few years with the third wave of feminism sweeping so many into me-centered philosophies and me-driven purpose. I see it in the young women I counsel who lead and control every aspect of their dating relationships. We can’t experience mutual self-giving while we’re hiding behind the armor of self-control and self-protection! If we are to embody God’s self-sacrificing agape, we will have to take that armor off and pick up the task of being helpers. And to be clear, being God’s helper doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll become the next Mother Teresa or marry a pastor. He might send you to Wall Street as a single woman. You see, helping is really defined by something much simpler than full-time Christian service or grand dreams. It’s the little things that count. I’m often asked by young women how to start a ministry or write a book. Please don’t ever ask me that question. I loathe it. My answer is always the same: “Find one heart. Minister. Then let God show you another.” God’s story does not unfold solely in big things—like finding yourself in a ministry to heal the sexually broken hearts of teen girls or going to India to rescue little girls. Let me show you how He most often calls us to work alongside Him. In The Message James 1:27 reads, Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. (I interrupt this passage to simply note that terrible four-letter word rearing its ugly head once again: self!) This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and the loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world. Genuine expressions of your love for Christ are often quite small, simple even. ~ Join the girl no one ever sits with at lunch. ~ Baby-sit for a single mom. ~ Take a meal to a sick family. ~ Rake the leaves in the yard of the grouchy old man next door. ~ Take a walk with the little girl down the street whose parents are never home. ~ Clean the house of a family in which the financially struggling parents are both working two jobs and never have time to catch up. ~ Sit on the street with a homeless person and listen to her story. Your opportunities to work alongside God will be revealed through your friendship with Him. He will invite you into His story in ways that uniquely fit you—but He may also lead you to do things that are not in your comfort zone. Last year Lexi and my other daughter, Autumn, and their friend, Caleb, noticed that a single mom with cancer was struggling to make Christmas special for her fourteen-year-old daughter. They would tell you that they felt ill-equipped to help, but knew they were supposed to do something for this small, fragile family. Their friendship with God prompted their hearts to take action. Before I knew what was happening, those three had a Christmas tree strapped to the top of Lexi’s RAV4 and were raiding my garage for “all those Christmas ornaments you never use.” Later, while filling that family’s living room with all things that glitter, they noticed that the cupboards were bare. A trip to the grocery store fixed that. I’m fairly sure that the only people who knew about their efforts were me, the mom, and her daughter, but I’m convinced those three teenagers passed God’s test for pure religion that day. We often dismiss these simple acts of kindness as domestic tasks better suited for a middle-aged women with kids, but putting the gospel into action is a worthwhile task for any male or female of any age. Getting lost in His story, you see, is all about bending to Him moment by moment. Just as a compelling novel unfolds scene by scene, God’s plan for your life will most likely be revealed one glimpse at a time, with the next word blossoming beautifully from the previous step of obedience. The fact is, starting a ministry is a woefully small ambition. You’d do much better to reach for something bigger: the role of being God’s helper. Write Your Story I’d like you to get honest about your emotions concerning the idea of being a helper. Purge your heart. You might answer these questions in your journal. Do you need to repent of resistance to the role of helper in your future marriage? Do you need to repent of resistance to helping now by baby-sitting, cleaning, or other things that require practical labor? What insights has God brought to your heart about helping through today’s love feast? After you’ve taken some time to get it down on paper or in the comments below (I’ll be able to counsel and answer any questions), ask God to show you a practical place where you can help someone today. And then do it.