My Dad as a Tool for My Sactification

More than anyone in the world, I love my dad. I am most grateful to him for three things: for his protection, for helping me develop in my role as a woman, and for calling me to be faithful. I know that through him my heavenly Father’s loving hands are molding me.

My dad has protected me by making and enforcing rules. I was angry for a long time about having a curfew. It was embarrassing to be the first among my friends to leave, especially if I wasn’t even the youngest in the crowd. It felt unfair.

But his enforcement of a curfew served to protect me when, during a period of backsliding, I was spending more time than was prudent with unbelievers from college. I know that in at least one instance, his enforcement of my curfew protected me from what could have escalated into a scary and sinful incident. I am grateful for my dad’s protection. Only in heaven will we know the extent to which I was spared from many falls and dangers thanks to him.

My dad helps me develop in my role as a woman by requiring me to submit to him and to prioritize the home.

By requiring me to submit to his authority with the curfew and other everyday things, my dad is teaching me to submit to a future husband, if it should please the Lord for me to marry. To submit to my dad means dying to self in that instant. It means honoring him when I would much rather do what I want to do. It means aligning my agenda with his, to pursue the good of the family rather than self-interest.

Dying to self, showing honor, and pursuing the good of the family are crucial if we want to build a family that is God-honoring and useful to the Kingdom. Absence of these things in a family means we will waste time struggling for headship and fighting to get our way. I am so grateful to be learning to submit in preparation for family life. And more than that, I learn to submit to the Lord by submitting to my dad.

He also calls me to prioritize the home. When I spend too much time (and money) hanging out with friends to the neglect of my duties at home, Dad calls me to set my priorities straight. He requires of me that I fulfill my duty to my family wholeheartedly. He challenges me to sacrifice my self-interest in order to be diligent where the Lord has me. He calls me to invest in the present and future good of my family.

My dad also calls me to be faithful. He himself is an example of faithfulness, committing to finish what he has begun in life, even when things do not turn out as he would like. When I graduated from high school my dad advised me to seek work that I could do just until I marry and have children. But I insisted on going to college. When, more than halfway through, I wanted to quit and adopt his original plan for me, he told me that I must face the consequences of my actions and follow through with what I've started. Graciously, he lessened my burden by allowing me to switch majors. Now I am finishing my final semester at Sac State and am grateful to him because I love marketing and because I am learning to be faithful.

I am so grateful to the Lord for His kindness in giving me a dad who shepherds my soul in this way. I fail often. But the Lord is gracious. He is faithful to complete the work that He has started in me.

The Importance of Family

Why are there young people who go to Ivy League schools and become CEOs, scientists, and senators? For many, it is because their family taught them the value of hard work and education, and sponsored the opportunity for them to be educated.

Why are there young people in prisons, entangled in addictions, and prostituting themselves? For many, it is because they did not have a family that taught them positive values and gave them positive opportunities. For many, it is because they had no family. 

Both groups of young people are accountable for their actions and the path that they choose, but family plays an important role in setting the course.

I was born in Uzbekistan and moved to America with my family when I was three. Uzbekistan is a country with extractive political institutions. If we had stayed there, I would have grown up picking cotton every September instead of starting school, like the children do there even now. 

So why am I where I am today? Why am I graduating college and applying for a fellowship program? 

Because, as the youngest in my family, I reap the blessings of having parents who worked hard to establish our family in this country and older siblings who continue to work hard and provide for me. Circumstances in their lives caused them to sacrifice an education. Their sacrifices have made it possible for me to graduate from college and pursue better opportunities. 

I am humbled by the grace of God towards me through my family.
 

Oh the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus

 

 Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. John 4:13,14



I do not pretend to know how to interpret the Bible but I had a thought on this passage that convicted me.

Solomon uses the imagery of a well in Proverbs 5 to refer to an intimate relationship with one's spouse. Perhaps we can apply this symbolism to the woman at the well. 

She had five husbands. She knew about drinking from the well. Each successive man brings less satisfaction, because men cannot satisfy a latent thirst for God.

I have not had five husbands. I have not even been in an official relationship but in my heart I have drunk from the dissatisfying well of human love.

I have lusted after good-looking guys. I have made idols out of guys I liked, thinking ceaselessly of them. I have tried subtle seduction. I have often traded in the love of the Lord for the desire of the lesser love of men.

But the Lord is gracious, holding me back from lawlessness and perversion, bringing me back to His love and mercy, sanctifying me through disappointment and waiting. How deep is His love for me, to keep me for Himself until the last day.

Jesus reminded me tenderly that I cannot find satisfaction drinking from this well. Yes, He may be pleased at some point to allow me to love a man. But I can only quench my thirst for love and approval in Christ.

O Lord, may You help me love You more. May I be a spring of love welling over onto those around me. May I rest in Your love.


 

Grace in Relationships

 

Relationships can be difficult. Essentially, a relationship is about approval.

We are hungry for approval. We are looking for someone to proclaim that we are worthy of being loved. In a new relationship, we may fear that who we really are will not meet our newly-significant other's standard, so we often protect our inner vulnerability by playing a part, by being who we think they want us to be. 

If we fall short of the standards we perceive them to have, we may lash out, exposing their vulnerabilities so that they will be too busy licking their wounds to notice our flaws. Pride often darkens our reactions, moving us to attack when we feel attacked. We turn the tables and point out all the ways in which they fall short of our standards.

We often forget that in a relationship, we are not shopping for a finished product (and trying to get a discount for that person's missing parts and brokenness). 

Being in a relationship is more like starting a brand new business, where we have to invest a significant amount of resources over our lifetime to help them be the person that God is molding them to be.

Guys and girls are not godliest, most mature, most wise, most humble, most prosperous, most confident when they are young. They are just starting out in life. What matters is the end product. How you treat your significant other has a great deal to do with who they will be at their end.

May God give us grace to cover all things with love. May He give us grace to pray for that person, to respect them, to act with deference, to be gracious with their shortcomings. When they aren't measuring up to our standards, may God give us the grace to remember how far short we fall of His standards, and how much grace He has given us to approve us when we deserve hell. May God give us the grace to remember that we are a work in progress too.