While Pastor Creed was in Israel, his father, Dr. Creed, preached a message entitled “What If Your Marriage Was Not Designed Primarily For Your Happiness, But Your Holiness?”. Tonight at our church’s jail ministry banquet Bro. Dove applied that same thought to other areas. The principle was brought home for me in a rather humbling manner.
This is moving week for us. We have spent a couple of months in a basement apartment of friends while remodeling a home we are renting. We now have enough remodeled to move in. Tonight should be our first night for all of us to sleep in the remodeled house. Along with moving this week we have been doing our other responsibilities as well. Some of these for me included leading a ladies’ Bible study on Tuesday, singing at our church’s Reformers’ Unanimous program on Friday, singing at our church’s jail ministry banquet tonight, and we are scheduled to sing at church tomorrow night.
Last night the singing went well, but afterward the Lord worked on me about selfishness. I forgot that life is not primarily about how well I do, but how much I am a help to others. Brother Skinner preached a really good message about not assuming authority that does not belong to us; but when he came over to us and told us he really enjoyed the singing all I thought about was, “Oh praise the Lord, thank you.” I didn’t even mention how helpful his message was. And when one of the RU attendees walked up and said something about how much he enjoyed the singing all I thought about was, “Praise the Lord, thank you.” I could have let him know how meaningful his testimony was to me but I was too engrossed in myself.
Lying in bed last night I thought about my selfishness and repented in sorrow. Tonight when we sang at the banquet it went as horribly as last night went well. 
I was already asking the Lord about what His intentions were in this situation when Brother Dove spoke about our situations not being primarily for our happiness, but our holiness. For me the Lord was putting an exclamation point on His lesson from the night before.
What about you? Is God allowing some circumstances in your life that are primarily for your holiness, and not necessarily your happiness? And how will you choose to respond?
One Response
Excellent thoughts!! This is the kind of concept that can be life-transforming. If my mindset is that everything happens for my enjoyment or pleasure, then I will be pretty upset when my circumstances don’t fall in line with that assumption.
Thank you for the inspiration/challenge!