SEEKING AND SEARCHING

DEALING WITH DISCOURAGEMENT

Even though I have dealt with people all over the world since late 1968, lately I have been wearied by my sister’s continual requests for medical help (anything ranging from “diagnosis please” to Band-Aids). They ask for pain tablets, powder for heat or other rashes, creams for fungus, milk or vitamins for heat boils—all this from every one of them–so much so that I finally told one sister I wouldn’t/couldn’t deal with her mother’s painful leg when I had no way of knowing what actually happened. I was beginning to feel smothered—mainly because it seems I can never just have a normal conversation with anyone anymore.

Last Sunday night, after our evening services, I simply disappeared and went back to the apartment, and of course one younger lady knocked on my door to ask to come in to talk. I was kind about it, but I told her no. About half an hour later, after I had rested a bit, two others came just to chat a while. That was refreshing. They did not want me to do anything, other than listen to their report of what they had been doing the past week.

The very next day in my evening English class, I was trying to help the few ladies who come for extra practice to know how to study the assigned Scripture reading so they will not just call words they don’t understand.

The reading happened to be Deuteronomy 1:9-15. At the time it didn’t dawn on me to think of the class exercise as an answer to prayer, but later I realized it was. I started by asking the ladies to read the passage to me in their own language first and then asked them some questions to help them understand what it was about.

Who is speaking? How do you find that information? To whom is he speaking? What is the problem? What was the solution? How many men were chosen to be judges or overseers? How did God bless these men to be able to do the work?

I helped the sisters to conjure a picture in their minds of what it might be like to judge more than a million people from morning to evening—day-in-and-day-out. Some would take Moses’ advice (judgment or command) and some might not, yet they required Moses’ time to ask.

Then I asked them who had suggested to Moses that his job was too great to endure. They all smiled when I reminded them it was his father-in-law, Jethro, (Exo. 18:13-24). I showed them how to look for Jethro’s name in computer search engines and where to read more about him. Only a few have smart phones, and even fewer have computers, but they could see how I searched on the class computer. They could read the passages I pointed out. They could answer the questions.

I used my Bible Soft program to search some related passages, showing how that Moses had been a prophet and a judge for God’s people since they left Egypt, but after forty+ years he grew weary of their continual coming. He even dared to ask God if he had given birth to the Israelites and had carried them in his womb. That was discouragement at its height. I asked them if we sometimes discourage each other like Jethro and the people had discouraged Moses. In my own mind, I wondered if I could truly be used, and yes, even abused at times without complaining. Do I take my problems to God, or do I murmur like the Israelite people did? Maybe this was a lesson to help me not to be discouraged with “their continual coming.”

If you are wondering if God has plans for you as a teacher in “all the world,” then maybe this short evaluation will help you make a choice (Matt. 28:18-20).

Growing up, I had a lot of dreams about what I wanted to be. Having read accounts of Albert Schweitzer and his outstanding work in my school studies, I was inspired to adopt lots of children the way he had. Children are helpless without someone to stand for them, but my lack of connections or money would not make that dream possible. Some time later, I set my sights to be a fabric designer or a schoolteacher. I loved to paint and would eventually teach art, music and English in more than one state. The philosopher part of my career would not blossom like I thought it might because my husband to be would have his own ideas and plans. However, there was one career that was never on my radar.

I never seriously considered being, or marrying, anyone who lived on foreign soil even though I admired Albert Schweitzer very much. Maybe that was because Albert Schweitzer was only in LIFE MAGAZINE or POST; he was not ‘real.’ Our family did have a favorite cousin whose husband had worked and died in South Africa and who had written and published book about it. As a young girl, accounts of her life seemed brutal—too harsh to my taste.

Not that living outside the state of Texas was a bad thing, I just saw the ones who left home as those who weren’t real. Reading that Schweitzer was living in a grass hut when a goat had come during the night to eat the paper on which he had just written a symphony made me cringe. Dedicated men and women who chose to “go into all the world) had to live differently than everyone else. It just wasn’t something I saw myself doing. It wasn’t something I could ever see myself capable of doing.

As I was growing up, my family was well known in the community; to me, dad and mother were strong leaders and sages all rolled into one. My dad’s career was not like most other men’s. He was set apart as a Government employee for soil conservation and a prudent landowner too—not wealthy, but comfortable.

It’s really comforting to know God has a way of guiding our paths (Prov. 20:24; Eph. 1:11-12). During my childhood I went to church because my mom and dad loved the Lord and his people, and because that was just what we did. We never missed. I loved going to church too and enjoyed answering questions in Bible classes. When I was 14, one of the elders approached me to see if I would be willing to teach a class of fourth graders during vacation Bible school the next morning. I don’t remember why they asked me at the last minute, but likely it was because the main teacher became ill. Something in me said, “Beth, you can do this,” and so I did. Looking back now, I am sure my parents prayed a lot for me that week.

The seed was planted.

Before that, I had never once thought about being a Bible class teacher but that little request would be a mustard seed planted in my heart that would be watered in the coming years.

When I went away to college at age 18, I happily took a regular Wednesday evening class of 20 little first graders at another elder’s request.

It was that group of kids that really captured my heart.

It was during that semester of my life that I dedicated my “heart and mind” to do whatever God wanted me to do.

I determined to follow the Lord and put on the new man (Eph. 2:15; Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10), thus watering the seed of faith that was planted earlier by that first elder who saw hope in me.