The Follow-through

By: Carole L. Haines

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled, “All you are is in my way!” I shared how I felt that God wanted me to start praying for those who tailgate me or bully me in my little car on the road. High beams, car horns, all of these are at my finger-tips, but God has asked me to pray instead. He has asked me to see these people as He does, lost, struggling and alone. How am I doing? Not great. I am a fighter, not one who flees.

When I was a teenager, someone stole the purse of an elderly woman on a bus stop I was at. I immediately grabbed it back to try to give to her. The assailant pulled it from my hands and took off running, but I tried.

When I lived in a row home, I saw a man coming out of his home up the street hitting a woman, his wife I believe. I didn’t just pray, I yelled and told him I was calling the police. I stood their staring at him ‘til he stopped. I tried to help her, but she just went right back into the house of her abuser.

Jesus gives us some extremely hard commands in His Word like:

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may prove yourselves to be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:43-48)

And if anyone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak also. (Matthew 5:40)

O how I want to honor Jesus by fulfilling these commands, but I can’t, not in my own strength. I need to hear honesty from the Apostle Paul in Romans 7 when he declares, “¹⁸ For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.” (Romans 7:18)

I have to admit with Paul, that I do the very things I hate sometimes, in response to the unkindness of the world. I stand to fight, instead of kneeling to pray. God is so good and kind to promise me and call me to, this transformation, and I must yield to Him my broken, yet willing spirit and its desire to walk in the Light.
I declare with Paul:

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. (Galatians 2:20)

So how about you, Dear Believers? Has God asked you to do something that seems impossible? To love that unlovable person in your life; To turn the other cheek? Perhaps to go that extra mile? Share with me and we will pray for one another in this gloriously messy journey of transformation in Christ. Love you all.