Before the classes... before the website... before ministry, he was a programmer...
I was sitting and listening to someone share their heart, my heart began to wander places.. I started thinking about the cost of things. Not the actually cost of things but THE cost of things...
Jim used to be a programmer in Manhattan, a consultant... as I was cleaning out some paperwork during last Summer's move I came across very old tax returns. And I thought how much I missed those days....
In that moment of looking back thank goodness there was grace and I ended up not as Lot's wife.
But it all made me begin to think....
Preferential treatment
Financial security
Control
Respect
May I never consider a partner who can give thousands of dollars more important than the one who gives five.... But the reality was we were great partners.... And favor flowed...
I remember the day an old friend came into my house and looked at me and told me I had to let go of the way God provided through Jim.... Not realizing the potency of said prayer I prayed it without hesitation... Our life has never been the same...
Today I thought about cost.... Today I thought about the costs we all pay... A dear friend of mine who is also in ministry will often joke with me about the position of the Wal mart greeter looking like a great position....
The personal, financial, emotional, spiritual cost that is a true reality....
I walked into a storage unit today... the unit is upon the property we were going to be building our home in... these things weren't supposed to leave the property just go up to the house that was going to built there....
But as things happen and paths are followed... that is not the case.... and today again as I knew there were things within that unit I needed I paused and wondered if I really even wanted to open it... a dear friend stood with me as we tried to get it open and almost not figuring it out we had resolved maybe it wasn't the best timing.... Upon which we figured it out...
The doors opened and there before me were our things we haven't seen in almost a year... and I could feel the moment was not going to end without tears... And then I walked in and began to lay my finger upon some of the objects within the unit and they came....
My heart ached for other times, other places... other people.... My heart ached for what was supposed to be... my heart just ached...
The cost has been high... in all honesty .. seriously... my flesh has not always considered the benefits reciprocal to the cost... Then His voice was sweet and gentle not a hint of rebuke in His tone.... "I died so others could live." He was wooing my heart to grasp a hold of higher realities... Being poured out is a place of beauty... a place of surrender... a place where I really want to live...
And the glory of that which He did fell upon a heart that could appreciate His sacrifice in very new and fresh ways... He counted the cost and for the joy that was set before Him, He endured....
The costs are real... but so was the slavery.... The costs are real but so really truly are the benefits.... The costs are real and at times brutal and painful and full of death....
At times I am unsure of my capacity to pay the cost... have I really counted the cost .. have I really thought it all through.... and the answer is really NO... Because I am not always certain of what everything will entail and there are moments that I really do miss the times when Jim was a programmer in Manhattan making a most excellent living
But what is excellent living....
My heart doesn't always go naturally to the higher ways of my God... But I want it to.... and He is ever so patient..
The cost and nature of things ... and my mind goes to things eternal versus things that will rot.. things that break down versus things that are forever firm...
The cost and nature of things... the cost and nature... the cost and nature.. those words run through my head and through my heart...
May I be so ever intuned to His ideas of the cost and nature of things...
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