Over a year ago I wrote my brother a letter. For awhile we were on a letter-writing spree, and this letter was simply a response to one of his. Nothing too out of the ordinary…
Yet something felt different about this one. I don’t usually save copies of the letters I write, but for some reason I wanted to save a copy of that one. I really felt like I had expressed my heart well in that letter, and I wanted to share it with others. But I felt like God was telling me that wasn’t a good idea. This letter was for my brother, not the world. Right?
So I took a picture of the letter, slipped the letter into an envelope, stuck the envelope in my brother’s Bible, and didn’t think too much more about it. Life went on.
Then, a couple of months ago, this same brother got up to speak at my graduation ceremony. As he was talking, I saw him pull a familiar red envelope out of his pocket, and instantly I knew what he was about to do. Oh, my gracious.
I think I bawled through the whole thing.
It was incredible to see how God had taken a simple letter, said no to my first impulse to share it, and then a year later brought it before many dear people. It was a huge blessing to me and a reminder of God’s beautiful, beautiful timing. I was thrilled.
But God wasn’t done yet.
One of my aunts asked for a copy of the letter, and my uncle shared it in a sermon. Then the sermon got circulated by family members. My letter was reaching people I had never seen.
Do not underestimate God.
He will take the simplest thing and use it in the most unimaginable way.
I wanted to share this letter with you today, because I keep coming back to it and being convicted. As the author, I feel a responsibility to be living out and exemplifying the principles I’ve laid out here… and I constantly need to be reminded of them.
This letter is reminding me to bring my focus back to the right place – and I hope it does the same for you.
The excellency of the power is certainly of God, not us. The more I live, the more I realize how desperately sinful I am. Any good that comes of anything touching my life is certainly of God. He is so, SO worthy of our praise! He has loved me with a love that I simply cannot fathom. He truly must increase as I myself decrease.
More and more God shows me that He wants my priority to be my relationship with Him – not even evangelism, relationships with others, or any other sort of good works. Those will flow from my relationship with Him. He looks at the heart, and if all my feeble attempts to serve Him don’t come from an earnest desire for Him, they are filthy rags to Him.
It is so, SO important to guard our relationship with Him from all that threatens to destroy – even if it means we are called radicals. This love is more than deserving of radical defense. It demands our souls, our lives, our ALL. It calls for action.
Are we acting?
Laurel Luehmann 