More Like Christ

The girltalk conversation begins with the four of us, but we love it when you jump in! Tina sent us the following excerpt from Noel Piper’s inspiring book Faithful Women and Their Extraordinary God that fits and expands perfectly on the G.K. Chesterton quote Mom shared yesterday. This quote comes at the conclusion of Mrs. Piper’s profile of the missionary doctor to Africa, Helen Roseveare:

"Perhaps the deepest underlying personal factor in Helen's tension was the need she felt to do her very best and, if possible, to be the very best. God called her to Africa where that was not possible. There were continuing lessons for her: learning to treat malaria by symptoms rather than with prescribed lab tests, having to operate without having been trained as a surgeon, needing to make bricks rather than spending the day with patients.

Perhaps that is an issue for some of us--struggling with the reality that God has called us to do less than we want to do or less than what we believe is best. That can happen in any setting. For me, it's been especially true in my years with small children - 'I got a college degree for this?' Maybe the problem is the way we see ourselves. Maybe we think more highly of ourselves than we ought.

If anyone was too good to die, it was Jesus. If anyone should have done greater things than walking dusty roads and talking with people too dense to understand him, it was Jesus. In Philippians 3 . . . is the verse, "that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death" (verse 10). When God called Helen to less than she expected, he was helping her become like Christ, rather than like the best doctor or missionary she knew of. Who is it we want to be like?" (p. 172)