Thinking about one my friends today and how I can minister to her. Her need is more than what I can do for her. I'm pondering how I can reach her with the truth of God's word and how it could revolutionize her way of thinking. Her thought patterns drag her down, and when they're expressed they tend to drag on those closest to her as well. Sad to say, she thinks a lot like a baby--wanting others to satisfy her hunger and her thirst.God wants us to grow out of our infantile ideas. He wants us to grow into maturity, where our worldview doesn't revolve around ourselves, around what it takes to make us feel good. He wants us to move beyond requiring other people to satisfy our longings, to grow beyond viewing people around us as a means to our own end.
Craving for satisfaction leads to manipulation, and it's often difficult to know where ministry to my friend crosses the line into enabling her attempts at control. I know that enabling hinders her need to make a change in how she approaches relationships. I want to help her look beyond herself.
When we begin to understand God's sovereignty in our life, we also begin to see life in a different context. We begin to understand that we are not at the center, that God's glory is central to all our purposes. We yearn for his plan to unfold, not only in our own life, but in the lives of those with whom we have relationship. What they can do for us gets remodeled into what we can do for them.
As Susan Hunts puts it in Spiritual Mothering:
We see ourselves, our circumstances, and our relationships as a part of His divine plan. So our approach changes from "Come into my world and make me happy," to "Father, show me how to go into Your world and glorify You." The effect on a relationship is a switch from wanting you to serve me to a desire to serve God through the relationship.
I want her to experience the joy in viewing life in this way. I hope that you are experiencing this joy as well, dear one, as we keep looking Upward and Homeward.
Painting ~ Study Two Women's Heads, Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1841-1919
