A new creation by Diane Roe, guest columnist
In my testimony “Amazing Grace” I started trusting God with my life. I began praying, not the with rote memory prayers, but with prayers from my heart for his will for me, and guess what? The prayers were being answered! Sometimes very quickly, sometimes slowly, some I am still waiting for the answers.
But I also started doing things wrong. I kept praying to God to change my husband, now. I loved him and I wanted him to have what I have! He was doing things I hated! Change him! It was an order really, not a prayer. I spent more of my prayer time finding where he was going “wrong” and less on where I needed to improve. I read so many scripture passages with the thought, “Wow, he needs to apply this to his life.” Wrong!
It took me a few years, but I’ve learned something that God has revealed gently to me; and he is constantly reminding me of it when I fail: I can’t change people, only God can change people. It is only when we change, that others change. God does not touch one family member without touching the others.
God revealed something else to me by sending me a family of skunks, which made their home under my home and “skunked “ it up. I cried at the Holiday Inn that night,” Why me, why, why….? God was using the natural to tell me about the spiritual. It was simple: “something stinks.”
“Diane, how can you serve me in my kingdom,” God said to me, “if you can’t serve with love in your own home?” You see, I was still getting angry at home; I was not really at peace. I was not forgiving and accepting of others. I need to work constantly on practicing the unconditional love of Jesus.
On New Year’s Eve 2003 I was blessed to be with my Mom as she died. I watched her slipped into God’s hands one hour before midnight and I rejoiced. I was rejoicing because I could now honestly say that there is a God, and I know where he is. He is with me. He has filled that void in my heart with his Son Jesus and the power of his Holy Spirit working in me.
2 Corinthians 5:17 speaks to my heart today. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ they are a new creation: the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”
Today I am indeed a new creation in Christ, the old has gone and the new has come. I encourage all of you to share this Good News with everyone! With praise and thanksgiving forever. Amen! Alleluia.
(Diane is a wife, mother and a former researcher in biochemical genetics at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, TX)
(© 2013 Diane Roe)
