We had our first Christmas retreat since the pandemic from Friday 16 to Sunday 18 December at the High Leigh Conference Centre. We stopped accepting applications for the retreat a month previous and there were 60 people on the waiting list which goes to show how big expectations were. Through Pastor Seok Hyun Lee who came to be our speaker, the words “Believe in Jesus who lives in you” and “Live a life boldly proclaiming the power of God in whom we believe” continue to resonate in my mind even after the retreat has ended.
As the year 2022 started, the biggest words that God gave me were “the calling of God’s workers”. It’s something I usually thought about and every time I prayed I asked God to use me for his purpose, but what exactly that meant was something that I continued to ruminate on.
Being called a “child of God” means that we are in a place where we experience God’s love and grace. After we believe in Jesus, what is more important than trying to do something is to learn about God’s infinite and abounding love and the plan that he has for me. If we don’t truly know about his grace and try to work hard to do something for him, we can become like a Pharisee who builds up their own ego and good works to become a religious person and it’s easy for us to fall into judging others.
Before trying to do some righteous and great works, we must first become people who recognise that God sent his only son to die on the cross because we are weak and sinful and we must decide to live a life of seeking God’s grace and compassion. We must have confidence that even if we don’t do anything at all, even in our current state we are beloved children of God.
When we receive God’s love like this, we are called to be God’s workers. Children can just have belief in God, but workers need to also believe that God will do great work through them. God said to Moses, whose faith in himself was completely destroyed, “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:10-11) However, when Moses obeyed God said to him “I have made you like God to Pharaoh” (Exodus 7:1) When God came to Joshua, similarly he said “Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.”
When Gideon was hiding in the winepress threshing wheat, God came to him and after he grew his faith Gideon brought 300 men to fight more than one hundred thousand Midianites and during the battle they cried “For the Lord and for Gideon.” Here, it obviously shows that Gideon recognises that he is fighting together with God from an equal place.
Paul also confessed that “we are God’s fellow workers” (1 Cor 3:9). In order to become God’s worker, we need faith in ourselves and faith that God has in us. Before Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, he had spent years growing his faith. It was also a time of growing his courage.
“God, continue to grow my faith and courage as I transform from a child who is loved to a joyful worker of God.”
