Dear Friends,
Thank you for your friendship and your response to my letters. With Paul, I repeat, “Not that I’ve already attained . . . but I’m pressing on . . . ” (Philippians 3:12).
God is original with us. Some receive a slam-dunk when they meet Him. I envy them. My experience at ten was something like that; however, many of us can testify that we were afterwards in a wilderness like Paul—“To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not” (Romans 7:18).
I loved school and I loved life, but I found it hard to maintain what I knew I found. Some of us have faith for God to save us. Period! I just kept making vows with my religious self, then fell in a heap because it didn’t work. In giving a rule or doctrine to live by, you do young believers a disfavor (as well as old believers). If we give them Jesus, they know what to do.
My husband would not require converts to stop smoking before the three-month membership classes. He asked them in class about any problems. Of course smoking was mentioned, so he asked who wanted to be free. They expressed their desire by raising their hands. There were seventeen delivered in one night.
Vowing means, “I can do it if I pledge to do it.” It’s religion at its worst. The devil tried three times to get Jesus to act independently of the Father by using Scripture. Jesus wore the devil down with the quickened Word, which we are also able to do. The devil knows Scripture, and you need to know if it’s God or the devil speaking.
I came home from youth camp top heavy with vows. When I passed my school, I thought, “I wish God went to high school.” The church pretty much made me play the piano at thirteen, which was of the Lord. It was my calling to play for worship the rest of my life. That’s good! Don loves sound effects. To me, the church world and the secular world were remotely connected. It would be sometime before I learned they were one. “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus . . .” (Colossians 3:17).
I was a thirteen-year-old freshman when my music teacher asked me to be the star in the school operetta. While explaining details, she said, “You will need to kiss the male star at the finale.”
“No!”
Mrs. Elkert finally gave up and said, “Alright! But you will dance in the finale.”
“I don’t know how,” I said. After many tries, she settled for an embrace and let the chorus line do the dancing. It helped a lot that the male star’s breath made him less undesirable.
After graduation, I anticipated a Christian college where there would be great Christians. I joined all the clubs I could that had prayer connections.
An older classmate next door was devoted in prayer. She had a different tone when she prayed. I listened, thinking she might have a secret. I tried the same, but it was empty. Carbon copies are not the original and have no life of their own.
In my third year, the best-looking man on campus appeared. I could tell he knew more about God than I did. He wasn’t “trying” to die to the world, the flesh, and the devil; he just was (1 John 2:15, 17). But the problem was that he was dead to me, too. That was both intriguing and disturbing. He seemed aloof to anything that would tame his zeal. I didn’t want to tame his zeal. I just wanted some of it.
After three months, he saw me coming down the stairs in the administration building. He said afterwards, “I fell in love with you that moment and said, ‘That’s the girl I’m going to marry.’”
On our first date, we started talking about God. We’ve never stopped. Don not only talked about Him; he knew Him. It was destiny at work and we knew it. Did it solve my search? Temporarily it did. I had a great husband, a beautiful baby, and a calling. What else did I need? I still needed a God Who was revealed in me. And find Him I did!
After the resurrection, Jesus ascended and sat down at the Father’s right hand with all the legal rights of heaven and earth. Ephesians 2:6 says, “We are spiritually raised up to sit with Him in heavenly places.” Sitting means resting; sitting with God means reigning. “He that hath entered into rest has ceased from his own works” (Hebrews 4:10). Blessed riddance! No more striving and no more vows.
Love,
Ruth Ann