Psalm 138:8 says, the LORD will fulfill his purpose for me… God has a plan for my life and for my vocation.

1 Corinthians 7:17 Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him…

Pay careful attention to the wording of 1 Cor 7:17 -- lead the life that the Lord has assigned him – not lead the life that we think we have chosen.

We need to keep reminding ourselves that God has chosen our path and our response is to glorify Him in it.

We also need to see the value in the mundane tasks in our callings (otherwise our hearts become restless). Take my calling as a wife for instance. Ephesians 5:22 says Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. As I take care of the seemingly meaningless tasks associated with being my husband's wife (laundry, shopping, cleaning, cooking, etc), I am fulfilling the first and greatest commandment (Matt 22:37-38), loving and bringing glory to God, and fulfilling the second one like it (Matt 22:39), loving and serving my neighbor as well as providing a picture of Christ and the church.

But so often we find our hearts restless, wanting to find some fulfillment outside of the mundane tasks we do – whether that involves being a student and doing homework, being a mother and cleaning the counter for the 400^th time in a day, being an employee and listening to your boss drone on or doing tasks you’d rather not do, etc.   Christa put it this way, "Our hearts naturally seek after adventure, lust for the "happily ever after", and scorn the seemingly meaningless tasks which often comprise our day."

Knowing that – that this is what my heart will naturally do, I need to be skeptical of my restless heart -- we all need to ask -- what are we seeking after and why?

So how do we quiet that restless heart?  We must resist the impulses of our heart and learn to think through what we are feeling biblically by fighting the good fight (1 Timothy 6:11-12) with contentment and perseverance!

These following paragraphs are just some of my personal notes after studying this, not necessarily what Christa shared.

A heart of thankfulness is the key to contentment – because – as soon as you are thankful (taken from “Thankfulness – Even When It Hurts” by Susan Lutz)

·        You enter the presence of God

·        You start to see your life differently, through God’s eyes

·        You defeat Satan’s efforts to control your interpretation of reality

·        You begin to link your life to God’s promises

·        You start to see not only your situation but yourself – your own heart – through God’s eyes

·        Your human relationships get healthier because they are shaped by faith.

God is in control, as Jeremiah 29:11-13 states, For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

And the definition of perseverance: to continue to do something in spite of difficulty; refusing to give up; persist.  We need set our minds to just keeping on doing the right thing.  Galations 6:9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

We need to apply this biblical thinking to all situations. We need to be asking ourselves: How does understanding the doctrine of vocation give significance to the boring, small, routine tasks associated with one of my vocations?

… to be continued ...

Gracie last night was on the neighbor’s trampoline and fell off.  She wasn’t jumping, rather, she was stepping backwards to let someone else jump and just misjudged the end of the trampoline.  Her foot got caught the spring hole and she fell off backwards with her arm outstretched – hit the walkway and got buckle fractures in her radius and ulna forearm bones.

Looking on the blessing’s side - her leg fell through the hole to her knee as she was falling, so she didn’t hit her head, and that caused her not to fall full weight on her arm onto the cement (which probably would have resulted in a displaced fracture as well as a head injury), rather to just dangle there after she fell.   And she didn’t injure her ankle, leg or knee.

We need to make an appointment with the Orthopedic doctor.  She has is splint right now, but needs a cast for 4 weeks.  There was also some question about whether or not she has some injury in her shoulder.  The doctor last night said he didn’t think so, but it “looks odd”.  He said the Orthopedic doctor would be able to tell.  Her elbow was in much pain as well, but they said that looked fine.

Looking on line, I kind of found a x-ray of what the fractures look like -- almost in the same spot as hers, although, not as bad on the ulna as this one shows (but looks just like it on the radius (right side forearm bone) as I'm assuming that's the one that took most of the brunt of the fall):

So I have to make an appointment today with the Orthopedic to get it cast.  She is ok, but didn't sleep well last night - lots of pain.  But seems to be doing a bit better this morning.

~Di

***EDIT***

I just wanted to point out another aspect of this that I wasn't dealing with in my thoughts here, but is very important when dealing with these Matthew and Luke verses - so as to keep a more complete picture of this and not lead people to think they need to be confronting people on every little sin or offense:

1 Peter 4:8 says, "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins." 

This verse is key in understanding that the Matthew and Luke verses are not saying that we are to go to everyone every time they offend us or we perceive they do something.  If this were so our list would be endless by the end of our day every day!!!! 

We should consider confronting for two reasons:

1) As Gal 6:1 instructs: "Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness." So if they are in trouble because they are entangled in an issue, then we confront them in love to restore them.

2) Anything we find too difficult to cover in love as 1 Peter 4:8 instructs.  However, love should cover most things.  If we find that love isn't covering most things, then we need to check our own hearts -- are we having bitterness or an unloving or critical spirit?

***END EDIT***

As many of you know, I'm studying to be a Nouthetic (Biblical) Counselor.  The current class I'm in is on forgiveness.  I'm still mulling it over in my head.

One thing I'm was thinking about was....

Luke 17:3-4 "... If your brother sins, rebuke him; forgive him, and if he repents, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' you must forgive him."

And Matt 18:15 "If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother."

They explained this verse to say that we have an obligation on the offended side to confront the offender (if, as Matt 5:23-24 commands, the offender has not come to repent on his/her own).  It said that's a command here -- if he sins, rebuke him -and-  if he sins, go and show him his fault in private.

The reasoning behind this is because we want to do everything to maintain the bond of unity.   Offenses surely do not promote unity so both the offender (in Matt 5:23-24) and the offended (in Luke 17:3-4, Matt 18:15) are command to go to each other and fix it (confront or repent).

But the verse that kept popping into my mind was Proverbs 19:11 "Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to "overlook an offense." (emphasis mine) 

I always took this as two thoughts: one about being slow to anger and one about overlooking an offense.

I always have read this to say that it is to our glory to overlook it when someone sins against us.  But then Prov 19 and Luke 17 would be at odds with one another, as we cannot both overlook something and confront it at the same time.

So then I thought maybe it meant that we forgive the person the offense, even if they haven't repented of it.  But then, that is at odds with the rest of Matt 18:16-17 telling us to confront-- meaning that we are to go one on one (as it says privately) THEN if he/she doesn't repent we take one or two others THEN we tell it to the church (elders, then the body), etc.  There are a lot of commands there.... so overlooking it in that regards seems to be a detriment to the offender as every step outlined in Matt 18:16-17 is for the person's good that he/she may learn discipline and unity is restored in the body when rightly applied.

And forgiveness isn't granted to the sinner where there is no repentance.  The gospel outlines that perfectly. Because then forgiveness would be acceptance with no conditions, yet forgiveness always implies something in the offender that cannot be accepted  -- Christ did not accept us as we were - He died to make us acceptable! 

So, now I see Prov 19:11 is not two thoughts, rather one thought addressing anger and bitterness - meaning, when someone does something to us - first be slow to anger and then forbearance should takes the place of resentment.  Our response is not to forgive someone before he/she seeks forgiveness, rather, submit to God our hearts in a situation like this so bitterness doesn't rise up -- and then be ready and willing to give forgiveness when someone repents.