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The Amish Voice 9
This morning, I learned a simple, but also
valuable lesson. Have you ever noticed how
God uses our children to show us the kind of
mess we ourselves are? Yeah, I thought so!
This morning's lesson all began with my lit-
tle girl waking up at 4:45. She
cried and cried and cried, and I
could not comfort her. I think all
moms (and dads too) find this to
be quite frustrating.
My husband is traveling again (his
business takes him out of town on
a frequent basis), so there is no
backup, and I happen to have a
sore neck and shoulder right now. I
finally figured out that she has an
earache.
So, you know how it goes...you
rock and rock and rock, and finally
they drop off to sleep. Then you gently lay
them down, only to have them wake right
back up. This is repeated several times.
In the meantime your mind travels to other
grievances in your life, things that have been
frustrating you or hurting you, or are simply
unhandy. You get more frustrated. You try to
hush the baby. Meanwhile, it is time for the
other children to get ready for school. They
have needs too, or are grouchy from being
awakened by a crying baby too early in the
morning. You get the idea, I’m
sure!
By the time the older children
are off to school, mama is
tired, her shoulders and neck
are REALLY sore, and baby
is still waking up every time
she gets laid down. Mama
wants to shower, eat, give her
shoulders a break, but baby
says, 'Nothing doing'!
Now, I doubt any of you get
to this point, but, much to her shame,
this mama, got a little rough and told her
little one to quit it and go to sleep. Immedi-
ately I repented.
As I was praying, God reminded me of how
often He tells me He knows I am uncomfort-
able with some of my circumstances, and
how some of them have been hurting me, but
that He wants me to rest and let Him take
care of things, just as I want my baby to rest,
knowing Mama is nearby and will take good
care of her. I felt thoroughly chastened by
that reminder.
But yet another aspect comes to my
mind...my baby normally quiets in my
arms...and I remember the countless times
God as my Father welcomes me into His
loving embrace and I refuse, or continue to
fight and wrestle, thinking He is somehow
causing all the pain, similar to a baby who
does not understand that Mama is not hurting
her, and wiggling and fighting only makes
the pain worse. Sigh! How patient our Father
is with us!
So my new challenge for today is to simply
rest in God's arms, knowing He is so very
capable of caring for me...much more capa-
ble even than I am of caring for my own chil-
dren because He is not limited the way we
are. He sees and knows all things. Let's trust
Him.
Lynn Miller
Kentucky
Trust Me, My Child
—by Lynn Miller
But before faith came, we were kept under the law
, shut up unto
the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto
Christ,
that we might be justified [made acceptable to
God] by faith.
But after that faith is come, we are no longer un-
der a schoolmaster.
For ye are all the children of God by faith in
Christ Jesus
. —
Gal 3:23-26
“Before faith came, we were under the law”
—
before Jesus’ work on the cross was completed, all
of mankind was under the law. The law, could be
described as a person who is constantly watching
over your shoulder, and every time you break a law,
he points his finger in your face and cries: Law breaker!
Guilty! Condemned! Judged! Failure!
People who place themselves under the law (yoke of bondage)
try as hard as anybody to please God, but in their own mind they can
never measure up. This of course leads people to feel burdened
down, as if some heavy ball of steel hung around their neck and
shoulder.
Furthermore, living under the law has a tendency to lead people into a
state of depression and bring about feelings of worthlessness. To top
things off, God often feels un-reachable, uncaring and far away. Why
does it work that way? Because people under the law gage their con-
nection with God by how well they keep the law.
“Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto
Christ”
—The Apostle Paul tells us that the law, in a sense, acted as a
school teacher. To help us understand this better, let’s say that you are
a student who arrives at school and the teacher points out that she
wants you to study your arithmetic lesson very well, because at
the end of the day, she’s going to hand you a test and the
goal is to score a hundred percent. Then the teacher goes
on to explain that if you have one wrong answer, you
fail the whole test.
So you get your book out and study hard all day
long. Finally, at the end of the day you take the test,
only to find out you failed. The next day you try
again and fail. Days turn into weeks and weeks turn
into months. You keep trying and trying to score a
hundred percent on your test—some days you come
closer than others, but eventually you realize, it is
impossible to get a perfect score on your test.
The law works the same way. You and I will never score a
hundred percent. We will always come up short. Even if we
live ten thousand years. James 2:10 says:
For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend [fail] in one
point, he is guilty of all.
I have never murdered anyone, and I doubt that you have, however, if
we so much as cheated once in our life time, we are just as guilty as
the one who murdered.
“But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a
schoolmaster”
—law
moved aside and
faith in Christ
stepped
in it’s place. That ought to make someone shout amen! Glory
to God!
—Continued on page 10—
Law Moved Aside; Faith In Christ Stepped In It’s Place
—Joe Keim