Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: LUST (all-consuming desire; excessive craving) (01/08/15)
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TITLE: A Gfit Undenied | Previous Challenge Entry
By Marlene Bonney
01/13/15 -
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Pastor Engle allowed her this sacred prayer time she religiously sought every Monday morning, the need in her not quenched by the previous day’s services. He did not know what her quest was, only that she was troubled.
“My prayers go with you, Sister Lydia. May God’s blessing be upon you,” the pastor’s simplistic benediction passing through one ear and out the other like the meaningless memorized mantra it was.
She was eighty years old and God still was denying her His blessing. Lydia had been a devout Christian for most of her life, doing all the things she felt Christ asked of her. Attending church services, reading her Bible, praying, visiting the sick and giving—financially, as well as through serving in various capacities at the church. She had been on so many committees and organized so many potlucks and funeral dinners, and helped within various ministries, that any activity seemed naked without her presence.
Lydia Sommer loved the Lord, it was evident by her life of service and commitment. Yet, she was not content with her relationship with Him. She felt she had failed in her pursuit of holiness.
It wasn’t stated in so many words, but it was believed amongst her Christian brethren, that if you were the ultimate, TRUE, Christian, you would be able to speak in tongues. Since God had not granted this ability to her, Lydia was left feeling she had somehow missed His touch upon her life; therefore, it was the thing she craved the most.
Over the years, her request denied, she buried herself in self-denial, sacrificing her time and energy on the altar of piety. She dedicated herself daily to her Savior, devout Bible study covered in prayer. Ashamed to get spiritual advice from her pastor or a Christian counselor, Lydia wallowed in self-pity and unworthiness. She considered speaking in tongues a sign of spiritual supremacy--many believed it a sign of spiritual superiority; when, in truth, the highest goal should have been to encourage and edify others.
Lydia pursued this gift forbidden her passionately, becoming blind to her other God-given talents. Her passionate coveting—her yearning for this sign of His blessing—became all-consuming as she aged, afraid that she would depart this world into the abyss of eternity naked and wanting.
A change was about to take place, however, as Lydia’s 85th birthday approached. She awoke out of a deep sleep one night, her dream of repeated pleas to speak in tongues still lingering across the cobwebs of her troubled mind, like a song’s lyrics just beyond one’s grasp. A clear, precise answer to her constant “Why?” delved into her consciousness, an unmistakable message from God. Later, she was unable to discern whether it was a thought or an audible voice. Whichever it was, realizing her memory was not as good as it used to be, Lydia was compelled to write it down. She could not see in the night’s darkness, but her hand copied the message onto a scrap of paper on her bedside table. Then, with a lingering smile on her lips, she fell into a blessed, dreamless slumber.
Lydia, my grandmother, called me the next day, beseeching me to come over. There was an almost alarming urgent intensity to her steady, clear voice usually absent these days of cloudy and vague dementia-cloaked disconnections that demanded my presence.
“See, child, see what God told me last night,” clasping her worn Bible against her sagging breast.
We sat down together, Grandma and I, as she tenderly removed a tattered slip of paper from the book’s pages. In shaking, but discernible script, it read,
“Because you have been seeking the gift, instead of the Giver.”
I still get goose-bumps when I re-read this tiny paper nestled within the pages of Grandma’s Bible that I later inherited, a pivotal point in her spiritual life that turned her yearning after the Creator instead of after one of His many gifts. I have repeated this message to myself and others, when we seem to crave things, powers, positions, recognition over the One who bestows all good things upon us.
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See I Corinthians 14.
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God bless~
Well done.