As of today, Baby Bowers has made it full-term. I was thanking God this morning that this baby seems to be so healthy and has stayed inside for as long as he or she is supposed to. Many women experience far more complications, and I fear I take for granted what my Doctor called a "perfect pregnancy" because I know no differently.
As my body has been changing over the past eight+ months, I've realized what frustrates me more than being tired all of the time, or having emotional swings, is the inability to do as much as I'm used to doing. It was humbling, though, as Andy and I were talking about the need to rest and I realized much of my self-image is tied into being a hard-worker. In the past I typically didn't work hard to glorify God, I worked hard throughout High School and College because I was a control freak, or because if I couldn't be the prettiest or most fit girl, I would be the one to out-work them and impress the guys with my discipline and diligence. If it meant beating the UCU Men's house at dishes, or taking the hard job while working at summer camp, my motive was often self-glorification, not God-glorification. This also explains why I am not as quick to serve at things like Icthus or help clean at Staff Meeting - who is there to impress according to my selfish motives?
Thus, this morning when I was reading D.A. Carson's A Call to Spiritual Reformation, his words hit deep. In discussing Paul's prayer to the Philippian church in verses 1:9-11 he observes:
Sadly, the pursuit of the excellent can be wretchedly idolatrous...for some people, unless they tackle whatever they are doing with 100 percent of their energy and competence, the task is not worth doing at all. They cannot live with themselves unless they work that way...but from a Christian perspective, this attitude may turn out to be nothing more than another form of self-worship.
[This] is the ultimate test: it is the test of our motives. Some of us pursue what is excellent because we find it hard to do anything else. Our perfectionist natures are upset when there is inferior discipline, preaching, witness, praying, teaching. If we are concerned over these things because we sense in them a church that has sunk into contentment with lukewarmness and spiritual mediocrity, if we try to change these things because in our heart of hearts we are zealous for the glory of God, that is one thing; if on the other hand our concern over these matters is driven primarily by our own high, perfectionist standards, we will be less inclined to help, and more inclined to belittle.
Paul has in fact already tried to quash pursuit of this kind of [self-serving] excellence. By praying that the love of the Philippian believers might abound more and more, as a precondition and a means to discerning and approving what is best, he establishes the nature of the excellence that interests him. Love is essentially self-denying; it seeks God's itnerests, our fellow believer's good...so far are we joining the apostle in his prayers, and learning to live with eternity's values in mind.
He goes on to ask, "if the things I value are taken away, is my joy in the Lord undiminished? Or am I so tied to my dreams that the destruction of my dreams means I am destroyed as well?" I need to ask myself this question far more often - I know God has worked in this area of my life, from Graduate School to Marriage to Teaching, but I have a long way to go. I can only imagine how Baby will grow me in this area, as well, as I find my own dreams and freedoms subjected to someone else's good in a way I've never experienced before.
2 comments:
Maybe you're tired all of the time because you are living for two. Giving life to someone unable to live on their own is pretty hard work. Maybe you are working hard, just not the way you are used to working, like weeding, cleaning, horsing around, etc.
I'm not trying to discount what Carson said. I thought that was pretty good. However, I think you are probably working pretty hard at giving life to Baby Bowers.
Curtis, sounds like you and skh are thinking along the same lines. :) I will be stressing out that I'm doing NOTHING, and he reminds me that I'm growing an entire person. An entire person that has a God-created soul in them, no less. I love that reminder!
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