Floundering, Fellowship and Filling the Bill

on Floundering, Fellowship and Filling the Bill.
Remember last week's musings when I shared my desires for fellowship and my dream to see it happening in the flesh? I recognize it happens here in blogland on a daily basis and am truly, madly, deeply thankful for that, but I want to experience this type of interaction with "people with skin on" (not to imply that all of you don't have skin on or anything; but you know what I mean right?). Okay, so here is an update.

First off. Savannah sent me the following quote in a recent email exchange, and BOY was it music to my ears;

(Fellowship is) an expression of both love and humility. [It] springs from a desire to bring benefit to others, coupled with a sense of personal weakness and need. It has a double motive – the wish to help, and to be helped; to edify, and to be edified. It has a double aim – to do, and to receive, good. It is a seeking by Christian people to know God better through sharing with each other what, individually, they have learned of Him already. J.I. Packer.

This just got me even more pumped to experience this type of reality with members of our local body. So I sent out my little facebook invites and called a few people up on the phone and made a last minute invitation to one couple at church this morning, and... well.... we put ourselves out there.

Notice the nouns and verbs up there? Well, they are hounding me at this point. As I process this, in hindsight I realize that "I planned" this. Yeah, my motives were good, my desires were pure, and all that. But I lacked a few VERY important qualities. The first and foremost being patience.

I just came online to yack about this and before I did I read Dawn's blog and what jumped out at me and hit me smack in the forehead was the part at the very end where she wrote;

HE knows what "longings need to be filled" He just needs us to allow HIM to fill the bill...

Well, DUH. *sigh*. Looking back at last week's post I even said;

So I am setting this dream down in black and white, I'm offering it to God, and expressing it to others, with a hope and anticipation that He will bring something of it and fulfill the desires of our hearts and meet the desires that others may not even realize they have.

But then I didn't follow through! We felt a need, we had a longing and WE tried to meet it. And I think we (okay *I*) pushed it when we needed to be patient. Not to say the dream was wrong. Only the timing. I'm a "just do it" kinda gal. Which is fine and dandy when He gives the green light and says "Go!"... and He's riding shot gun, but I think in this case I ran a yellow light before He'd even entered the vehicle.

It wasn't a total gong show or anything (or was it Berry Girl?? :grin:) but it definitely fell more to the side of "early labour pains" than "post partem elation". I'm not discouraged or anything and we still are committed to the dream, but in our "so how did that go" conversation we realized we have to be committed to giving it to Him and seeing how He brings it to fulfillment. Who He wants to draw us into fellowship with. And how. And when. And why. We have a few tweaked ideas now (how do you know before you try right?) but I think the ultimate lesson learned is that God needs to PLANT the seed of desire for fellowship, He needs to CALL specific individuals to fellowship, and then when we who have felt that call respond, He will EQUIP us to fellowship. It's not something a person can contrive merely because it is a good idea. Which is TOTALLY what I ended up doing. I say I because although Prairie Guy was good with it all and fully on board with the concept HE would have probably waited, and talked more with people BEFORE jumping in the deep end. No, not probably... definitely.

So.... now I think after all that rushing we will stop in our tracks. Get our bearings. Take time to look and listen, and share our heart with more people as God brings us opportunity and see how He fills the bill. My evening ended with a perfect analogy that warmed my heart. I will share it in closing. I shared briefly how I took the kids to Dollarama and let them have pick of the store because I thought that would be fun for them. I think it was fun for them, not so fun for me. But I digress.

Tonight, The Poppet (6) came up to me with 5 loonies (dollar coins) in her hand. She expressed her desire to purchase her own Dollarama gift next time we went. I told her that she didn't need to do that. That the whole point for me is that *I* wanted to give her a gift, albeit a cheap one (in this case it was a cheap thrill, but I delight in giving them all manners of gifts big and small). But she insisted that she WANTED to purchase it with her OWN money. I told her she could if she really wanted to, but my heart felt a bit dull as this robbed me of that special perk of doing something for her, little thing that it was.

Maybe you are already following me. I thought of the spatulas and what a simple (cheap) thrill that was for me. He filled the bill and a 49 cent item made me feel like a million bucks. Then I thought of tonight. After the simple interchange with my little Prairie Princess I was struck by how I was doing the exact same thing with MY Father. Saying, "I'll get this Lord. I want to! I can! I'll just fill the bill here...." Wow. Me. With my 5 little coins. Wanting to fill the bill while He's standing there with His millions. What a silly girl.