By M. Fontaine
Download Audio (11.6MB)
I have always been quite work-oriented, but I took it to an even higher level when my immediate co-workers left to attend a conference and were gone for about two months, as I had a lot of time to myself to both work and pray. I was very satisfied with all the hours I was able to put into doing both.
I worked almost from the time I woke up until the time I went to bed. I worked during my exercise (as I could listen to audio files). I worked during my meals, which I ate privately. I counseled briefly during the day with one co-worker, and the rest of the time was taken up by my work, and of course prayer.
I was having a wonderful time in fellowship with the Lord and with those whom I heard from via reports and letters. I was almost proud of myself for being able to get so much accomplished, although I probably wouldn’t have expressed it quite that way at the time!
There was a newer member of our office staff who had been helping with some of the paperwork and administration while my teamworkers were at the conference and with whom I had been communicating instructions via audio, and occasionally by intercom. I had tried to dictate any work notes as much as possible because I knew that communications via the intercom would require lengthier two-way discussions covering more than just the bare bones of the matter. I would have to spend more time instructing him and discussing situations if I used the intercom, and I was determined not to be delayed in my work. I was streamlining my work and making sure things ran efficiently and that everything was moving along as quickly as possible.
However, the Lord started to get through to me that even though I might not consider it the best use of my time, time spent talking to this new co-worker would be important to him. So I relented a bit and decided that it wouldn’t take that much more time to talk to him on the intercom.
A week before my teamworkers were to arrive home, the Lord spoke even more strongly to me. He said, “Here you have this man on your staff that you’ve never had any in-depth contact with, who doesn’t really know you personally and whom you don’t know. This may be your last chance to spend time with him, to talk to him and to hear from him, and to train him in the work realm, because when your teamworkers get home, there will be many other demands on your time.”
My, oh my, what a fuss I put up! I said, “Lord, I have too much to do! I do not want to get involved with any counseling matters or work. What I’m doing in my work communications is far more important than taking my time to interact with this individual. Please, Lord, You know how much I have to do, and how physically weak I am and how big my workload is and how it takes all of my time and strength.”
I kept telling the Lord, “You know I’m trying to do Your work and I think it’s very important that I stick to it. And, when I do get into talking with people and fellowshipping with them, I like it, and it’s easier than having to work on all these difficult written communications.”
Finally the Lord got through to me and I very reluctantly invited this new staff member for some discussion. During my first two sessions with him, I gave him a prolonged lecture on how important my work was and how I was spending this time training him in his work at great sacrifice to my work. I pointed out that the hours that I was now prepared to spend with him were precious and he should regard this time very highly; that I was going to do it because I thought it was necessary, but that I was very concerned about sacrificing my time.
The worst thing about all of this was that I didn’t even realize how arrogant I was being by so strongly implying that everything else was much more important than he was. I sounded so sure of myself and so certain of the Lord’s will, so “righteous.” My attitude must have made him feel quite “small,” and rather belittled and demeaned.
During that week, as I spent time talking with this new co-worker, I began to see that this time had been much more for the purpose of teaching me lessons than for training someone else. The Lord started zeroing in on me and exposing some areas where I was not on target in my thinking. Finally He managed to convince me that this all-encompassing involvement with my work needed to be stopped long enough to get involved with a real live person.
In other words, the Lord showed me that I needed to get myself out of the “laboratory” for a while and start living His love. He wanted me to not only preach His love but to practice it. My work was very important, but how could I preach love to others unless I practiced it myself? Now He was providing an opportunity to have to put into practice everything that I had been preaching.
The whole world may need help, but where does it start? It starts right where I can see the need, right where I am. If I don’t love the brother or sister whom I have right here in front of me, how can I love many others whom I cannot see?
The Lord spoke to me and said, “You’re acting just like those who say, ‘Please don’t make me go witnessing, as I have too important a job. I can’t take the time to go out looking for people to share God’s love with.’ Or ‘I can’t be bothered by stopping to witness to someone.’”
The Lord showed me that if I had been one of those on the road to Jericho I probably would have let the poor Samaritan man remain—naked, wounded and dying—until someone else came to help him, because I had too many “important” things to take care of. My attitude was, “After all, there are a lot of people waiting for me in Jericho that I have to communicate with, very important matters that I have to get involved with.”
I was saying, “Please, Lord, don’t upset my schedule and my plan that is working so well and so efficiently. I’ve got it all down now and I’m really making progress, so don’t let me get behind, and please don’t deter me with people. I don’t want to get involved in anybody’s life and care about their heart or their feelings. I’d rather not think about them, and that way I don’t have to be obligated. I don’t even want to know about them, because then I’ll have to do something about it. I’ll have to comfort, I’ll have to encourage, I’ll have to care, and that takes too much time and effort.”
In addition to the Lord dealing with me about my wrong attitude, He had many other lessons to teach me in this short time. The Lord wanted to emphasize to me theimportance of the individual and how the Lord cares for hearts one by one.
He also wanted to show me that my attitude had not been right, and that even though my work of spiritually ministering to many people around the world was extremely important, it was not so important that I could not stop and care for the individual. David, my late husband, never failed to do this. No matter how much paperwork he may have had, he was never too busy for us, his little family, his teammates, right where he was. He was never too busy to show love, or to witness, whether it was to us or to those he met while out. And from those hands-on experiences, he was able to gain valuable lessons that he would in turn share with others.
He was willing to set aside his work in order to have us share a witness with total strangers, and would at times cease his whole ministry as a shepherd to the Family in order to spend hour after hour talking to little “nobody” waiters and waitresses. He would always put the individual first. He put love first.
There were a lot of lessons I learned that week—mostly things about myself that I didn’t like, things that showed me how far short of the mark I was falling. I thought I had been doing pretty well in the love department. After all, hadn’t I been admonishing others that they needed to have love and telling them how to show it? The Lord showed me that I didn’t know as much as I thought I knew, and that I didn’t love as much as I thought I loved, and that I wasn’t as righteous as I thought I was, and that I wasn’t as humble as I thought I was! I got so exposed just by being put in a situation where I had to interact with someone else, where I had to teach them and be confronted by theirproblems. What it did was to show up mine!
There is nothing wrong with pointing out something to someone when necessary, but when you forget your own shortcomings and have gotten to feeling that you are better than others, you can get pretty hard in spirit and your standard can be your own standard and not God’s standard. Or when you are going against the Lord’s will, you can get pretty self-righteous without realizing it. While I was praying, I heard my husband David speaking to me from the spirit world, saying, “Don’t put the doorknob too high for others! Don’t put it higher than the Lord does! I didn’t do it with you; don’t you be that way with others!”
Also, I became aware that, for all my honesty and sharing my weaknesses, in the back of my mind I had a rather condescending attitude. The Lord gave me a verse which I at first mistakenly thought was for the purpose of showing my new staff member how sweet the Lord was being to him in giving him this time with me. The Lord said, “I have not called you a servant, but a friend!” Afterwards I realized that this was an admonition to me, that the Lord was trying to instruct me on how I should look at this dear man—as a friend! I was not superior just because I was his overseer.
I thought that simply by my communicating so honestly and openly that I was fulfilling the scripture the Lord had given. I thought that I was treating my staff member as a friend. However, in the back of my mind I was still very much the superior teacher with the inferior student who had to be trained.
As I pondered these things, I realized that what the Lord was saying was that if He had not called me a servant but He had called me His friend, the obvious implication was that I was to look upon this man as a friend, not just someone who was working for me. If Jesus would actually stoop to call me His friend, there was absolutely no excuse for me to do otherwise. The Lord was virtually saying, “Stop this condescending, supercilious attitude.”
As so often is the case, I didn’t realize that this attitude was in my heart until the Lord brought it to light. I had interpreted that verse entirely differently. I was exuding superiority, a self-righteous, condescending attitude.
The Lord not only dealt with me about my self-righteousness but also about some of my judgments of people that were not righteous judgments. They were not righteous because I had not gotten down to business and asked the Lord about them, but instead had based them on things that I had heard.
What this new friend said in our conversations showed depth and conviction and loyalty and love for Jesus and others. And getting to know him helped me to see this whole other side, which I wasn’t aware of before.
The Lord drove home several very major points to me through this:
The hurtfulness of labeling.
The importance of not jumping to conclusions or blindly accepting what you hear about someone, or even think you know about someone’s past, either years in the past or a week in the past.
The importance of fully listening to the individual and finding out firsthand where he stands; how he sees things now, as well as the things he has gone through in the past.
Most important of all, the importance of asking the Lord what He thinks and how He sees the person.
As always, the most important lesson was love—that we must have His love for each other or we fail in the job He has given us to do. We fail Him, we fail others, and we fail ourselves. If we don’t see things through the eyes of love, then we don’t see them accurately, but only with distortions and misinterpretations.
The only way we can have that love is to ask the Lord for His wisdom and His compassion. We must ask Him how He wants us to see things, how He sees someone. And only then can we be sure that we are seeing things clearly.
Originally published February 1995. Updated and republished September 2012.
Read by Bethany Kelly.
Download Audio (11.6MB)
I have always been quite work-oriented, but I took it to an even higher level when my immediate co-workers left to attend a conference and were gone for about two months, as I had a lot of time to myself to both work and pray. I was very satisfied with all the hours I was able to put into doing both.
I worked almost from the time I woke up until the time I went to bed. I worked during my exercise (as I could listen to audio files). I worked during my meals, which I ate privately. I counseled briefly during the day with one co-worker, and the rest of the time was taken up by my work, and of course prayer.
I was having a wonderful time in fellowship with the Lord and with those whom I heard from via reports and letters. I was almost proud of myself for being able to get so much accomplished, although I probably wouldn’t have expressed it quite that way at the time!
There was a newer member of our office staff who had been helping with some of the paperwork and administration while my teamworkers were at the conference and with whom I had been communicating instructions via audio, and occasionally by intercom. I had tried to dictate any work notes as much as possible because I knew that communications via the intercom would require lengthier two-way discussions covering more than just the bare bones of the matter. I would have to spend more time instructing him and discussing situations if I used the intercom, and I was determined not to be delayed in my work. I was streamlining my work and making sure things ran efficiently and that everything was moving along as quickly as possible.
However, the Lord started to get through to me that even though I might not consider it the best use of my time, time spent talking to this new co-worker would be important to him. So I relented a bit and decided that it wouldn’t take that much more time to talk to him on the intercom.
A week before my teamworkers were to arrive home, the Lord spoke even more strongly to me. He said, “Here you have this man on your staff that you’ve never had any in-depth contact with, who doesn’t really know you personally and whom you don’t know. This may be your last chance to spend time with him, to talk to him and to hear from him, and to train him in the work realm, because when your teamworkers get home, there will be many other demands on your time.”
My, oh my, what a fuss I put up! I said, “Lord, I have too much to do! I do not want to get involved with any counseling matters or work. What I’m doing in my work communications is far more important than taking my time to interact with this individual. Please, Lord, You know how much I have to do, and how physically weak I am and how big my workload is and how it takes all of my time and strength.”
I kept telling the Lord, “You know I’m trying to do Your work and I think it’s very important that I stick to it. And, when I do get into talking with people and fellowshipping with them, I like it, and it’s easier than having to work on all these difficult written communications.”
Finally the Lord got through to me and I very reluctantly invited this new staff member for some discussion. During my first two sessions with him, I gave him a prolonged lecture on how important my work was and how I was spending this time training him in his work at great sacrifice to my work. I pointed out that the hours that I was now prepared to spend with him were precious and he should regard this time very highly; that I was going to do it because I thought it was necessary, but that I was very concerned about sacrificing my time.
The worst thing about all of this was that I didn’t even realize how arrogant I was being by so strongly implying that everything else was much more important than he was. I sounded so sure of myself and so certain of the Lord’s will, so “righteous.” My attitude must have made him feel quite “small,” and rather belittled and demeaned.
During that week, as I spent time talking with this new co-worker, I began to see that this time had been much more for the purpose of teaching me lessons than for training someone else. The Lord started zeroing in on me and exposing some areas where I was not on target in my thinking. Finally He managed to convince me that this all-encompassing involvement with my work needed to be stopped long enough to get involved with a real live person.
In other words, the Lord showed me that I needed to get myself out of the “laboratory” for a while and start living His love. He wanted me to not only preach His love but to practice it. My work was very important, but how could I preach love to others unless I practiced it myself? Now He was providing an opportunity to have to put into practice everything that I had been preaching.
The whole world may need help, but where does it start? It starts right where I can see the need, right where I am. If I don’t love the brother or sister whom I have right here in front of me, how can I love many others whom I cannot see?
The Lord spoke to me and said, “You’re acting just like those who say, ‘Please don’t make me go witnessing, as I have too important a job. I can’t take the time to go out looking for people to share God’s love with.’ Or ‘I can’t be bothered by stopping to witness to someone.’”
The Lord showed me that if I had been one of those on the road to Jericho I probably would have let the poor Samaritan man remain—naked, wounded and dying—until someone else came to help him, because I had too many “important” things to take care of. My attitude was, “After all, there are a lot of people waiting for me in Jericho that I have to communicate with, very important matters that I have to get involved with.”
I was saying, “Please, Lord, don’t upset my schedule and my plan that is working so well and so efficiently. I’ve got it all down now and I’m really making progress, so don’t let me get behind, and please don’t deter me with people. I don’t want to get involved in anybody’s life and care about their heart or their feelings. I’d rather not think about them, and that way I don’t have to be obligated. I don’t even want to know about them, because then I’ll have to do something about it. I’ll have to comfort, I’ll have to encourage, I’ll have to care, and that takes too much time and effort.”
In addition to the Lord dealing with me about my wrong attitude, He had many other lessons to teach me in this short time. The Lord wanted to emphasize to me theimportance of the individual and how the Lord cares for hearts one by one.
He also wanted to show me that my attitude had not been right, and that even though my work of spiritually ministering to many people around the world was extremely important, it was not so important that I could not stop and care for the individual. David, my late husband, never failed to do this. No matter how much paperwork he may have had, he was never too busy for us, his little family, his teammates, right where he was. He was never too busy to show love, or to witness, whether it was to us or to those he met while out. And from those hands-on experiences, he was able to gain valuable lessons that he would in turn share with others.
He was willing to set aside his work in order to have us share a witness with total strangers, and would at times cease his whole ministry as a shepherd to the Family in order to spend hour after hour talking to little “nobody” waiters and waitresses. He would always put the individual first. He put love first.
There were a lot of lessons I learned that week—mostly things about myself that I didn’t like, things that showed me how far short of the mark I was falling. I thought I had been doing pretty well in the love department. After all, hadn’t I been admonishing others that they needed to have love and telling them how to show it? The Lord showed me that I didn’t know as much as I thought I knew, and that I didn’t love as much as I thought I loved, and that I wasn’t as righteous as I thought I was, and that I wasn’t as humble as I thought I was! I got so exposed just by being put in a situation where I had to interact with someone else, where I had to teach them and be confronted by theirproblems. What it did was to show up mine!
There is nothing wrong with pointing out something to someone when necessary, but when you forget your own shortcomings and have gotten to feeling that you are better than others, you can get pretty hard in spirit and your standard can be your own standard and not God’s standard. Or when you are going against the Lord’s will, you can get pretty self-righteous without realizing it. While I was praying, I heard my husband David speaking to me from the spirit world, saying, “Don’t put the doorknob too high for others! Don’t put it higher than the Lord does! I didn’t do it with you; don’t you be that way with others!”
Also, I became aware that, for all my honesty and sharing my weaknesses, in the back of my mind I had a rather condescending attitude. The Lord gave me a verse which I at first mistakenly thought was for the purpose of showing my new staff member how sweet the Lord was being to him in giving him this time with me. The Lord said, “I have not called you a servant, but a friend!” Afterwards I realized that this was an admonition to me, that the Lord was trying to instruct me on how I should look at this dear man—as a friend! I was not superior just because I was his overseer.
I thought that simply by my communicating so honestly and openly that I was fulfilling the scripture the Lord had given. I thought that I was treating my staff member as a friend. However, in the back of my mind I was still very much the superior teacher with the inferior student who had to be trained.
As I pondered these things, I realized that what the Lord was saying was that if He had not called me a servant but He had called me His friend, the obvious implication was that I was to look upon this man as a friend, not just someone who was working for me. If Jesus would actually stoop to call me His friend, there was absolutely no excuse for me to do otherwise. The Lord was virtually saying, “Stop this condescending, supercilious attitude.”
As so often is the case, I didn’t realize that this attitude was in my heart until the Lord brought it to light. I had interpreted that verse entirely differently. I was exuding superiority, a self-righteous, condescending attitude.
The Lord not only dealt with me about my self-righteousness but also about some of my judgments of people that were not righteous judgments. They were not righteous because I had not gotten down to business and asked the Lord about them, but instead had based them on things that I had heard.
What this new friend said in our conversations showed depth and conviction and loyalty and love for Jesus and others. And getting to know him helped me to see this whole other side, which I wasn’t aware of before.
The Lord drove home several very major points to me through this:
The hurtfulness of labeling.
The importance of not jumping to conclusions or blindly accepting what you hear about someone, or even think you know about someone’s past, either years in the past or a week in the past.
The importance of fully listening to the individual and finding out firsthand where he stands; how he sees things now, as well as the things he has gone through in the past.
Most important of all, the importance of asking the Lord what He thinks and how He sees the person.
As always, the most important lesson was love—that we must have His love for each other or we fail in the job He has given us to do. We fail Him, we fail others, and we fail ourselves. If we don’t see things through the eyes of love, then we don’t see them accurately, but only with distortions and misinterpretations.
The only way we can have that love is to ask the Lord for His wisdom and His compassion. We must ask Him how He wants us to see things, how He sees someone. And only then can we be sure that we are seeing things clearly.
Originally published February 1995. Updated and republished September 2012.
Read by Bethany Kelly.
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