“Do all things without grumbling” Philippians 2:14
A Great Sun in a World of Darkness
Do all things without grumbling, can you, will you.
Each day we are reminded of our finiteness, our limits. We are assailed by many things like illness, financial problems, fear, anxiety, heartache to name but a few.
Many of us wake up ready to “grumble,” and we move through our day murmuring at a great variety of things and people that get in our way. We make excuses, we give our attitude and words a nice name but God knows what we’re doing. Complaint and ingratitude is part of our fallen human heart, and often a focal point of many Christians’ indwelling sin.
So those who have learned not to grumble and complain are unusual, yet it should not be so.
As Paul tells us, those who “do all things without grumbling” burn like great suns in a world of darkness, Philippians 2:14–15.
Listen and read about Mabel and compare your attitude and life and see where you might need to confess and repent! - Andy
A Vision Worth Living - John Ortberg
Video from Become
"Join me for a very special story of one transformed life, as we reflect on the vision we will live. Join us as we walk through Dallas Willard's book, "Renovation of the Heart" with John Ortberg. For this series, we're adding an accompanying email that we are excited about. It will include correlating scripture, reflection questions, and other notes for each video. You can sign up using the link below. If you know someone that would be encouraged by this series, feel free to share this video with them." from video introduction.
Mabel
Posted on September 3, 2008
"I don’t know Mabel personally, but I just read about her a little yesterday. In my Spiritual Formation class for school one of the books we are reading is The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg. In this book is a story I want to share about Mabel that Tom Schmidt wrote to Ortberg. Mabel was eighty-nine years old living in a state run, understaffed convalescent hospital and had been there for twenty-five years. “Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side, dropped one eye, and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the center of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth.” Tom took a flower to her for Mother’s Day and Mabel graciously accepted but couldn’t see it so she wanted to give it to someone else. “Mabel held out the flower and said, ‘Here, this is from Jesus.’” Tom visited her once or twice a week for three years. He would read the Bible to her and she would continue to recite the passage word-for-word from memory. They sang hymns and she talked about how much certain lyrics meant to her. “I never heard her speak of loneliness or pain except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns.” Tom got busy with exams, etc. and all the stuff that was on his mind when he began to wonder what Mabel thought about. “So I went to her and asked, ‘Mabel, what do you think about when you lie here?’” “And she said, ‘I think about my Jesus.I think about good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know…I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied….Lots of folk wouldn’t care much for what I think. Lots of folks would think I’m kind of old-fashioned. But I don’t care. I’d rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.’” Then Mabel sang the words to the hymn, Jesus Is All the World to Me.
Ortberg, John. The Life You’ve Always Wanted. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002. I first read this story yesterday and have read it three times since then. It continues to convict me every time I think about complaining. I’ve read it to two people since and all that can be said is, “WOW”." from the blog post "Mabel"