me, poor as I am

May 15th 2010

He reminded me…
“Go into all the world, and preach the Good News to everyone.”
“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
"Why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven."
They were still there in my head all day long. I kept thinking about them.
It was yesterday..

……

Today, 9.45 am, no breakfast, in the car, on high-way to Bogor.
The traffic was friendly…
I started my conversation with Him…
Me : Lord, I do really think that I need to retreat from everything.
I really need to think what I should do with all the messages you reminded me yesterday.
I don’t think what I do now –my job - will help anything with those messages.
It has nothing to do with them”
Him : Oh yeah?
Me : I guess so.

I turned into my book:
The spread of the Kingdom of God was to be carried out on earth by His Church, men and women commanded by Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and dedicated heart and soul to the task. Jesus' followers were not to sit idly and await His return; they were to strike out boldly as the advance guards in a revolution that will only be completed upon His return, when all things will be restored and His kingdom made complete. The same is true today. We are not to give up on the world, nor retreat from it-just the opposite. We are to reclaim and redeem the world for Christ's kingdom.

Me : eeeerrrr….so what then?

I kept reading:
But what we can do and must do in the present, if we are obedient to the gospel, if we are following Jesus, and if we are indwelt, energized, and directed by the Spirit, is to build for the kingdom. This brings us back to 1 Corinthians 15:58 once more: what you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machined that’s about to roll over a cliff. You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about to be dug up for a building site. You are-strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself-accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world. Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of His creation; every minute spent teaching handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world-all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make. That is the logic of the mission of God.

Me : Really? I want to do more, though… >.< Him : (with His loving kindness, I could feel that) Keep doing what you are doing now, my dear! Your job. Your ministries. I'll tell you what’s next when the time comes. What you do in ME now is not in vain. Same message again and again.. what I do in Him is not in vain!!! …… I arrived at Bogor, did my thing (worked), came back to Jakarta, did my thing (had fun with my friend), came home, did my thing (had fun with my sisters), started to feel so sleepy, then I opened my Bible.. (I know!! why I should wait to be sleepy to read my Bible? >.<)

This very simple verse, I have read for so many times talked to me…
"..but she, poor as she is, has given everything she had to live on.."
This is it!

Him : My dear, now, can you say, " but me, poor as I am, want to give everything I have to live on.." ?

(Mark 16:15, Acts 1:8, Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 1:11, Mark 12:44b, The Hole in Our Gospel).