HomeARC ML 2628
A Letter of Love & Admiration to Josiah from Mama Maria #121 DO 2628 3/90
Dear Sweet Jo,
1. After receiving all the wonderfully encouraging news, I just had to write you & tell you how thankful to the Lord I am for you & for the wonderful work you're doing! I'm just thrilled & I'm really proud of you! I've got to say, Jo, that you're certainly making up now for your weaknesses of the past. And now by contrast people are going to get the message even more clearly than they might have before if you hadn't operated the wrong way! I'm just overjoyed to know that you not only learned the theory but you actually are putting it into practice now. What a miracle! Thank the Lord! The Lord has been able to do it because of your yieldedness, willingness & desire to really do the right thing for the Lord.
2. Jo, as I'm sure you expected, Peter was able to use your sample & your lessons as a major illustration in the second Summit '90 meetings to help the other leaders understand what he was talking about & to understand the contrast between operating in the arm of the flesh & doing things more in the Lord's Spirit & more slowly & prayerfully. So if you've felt bad at all that you were ever a bad sample to any of these leaders, I think you certainly have been able to make up for it & remedy it in that your example was very useful & very eye-opening for those who were attending.
3. Don't worry, Jo, not only your bad sample was discussed but also your very good sample in that you took the lessons, you yielded to the change & you not only got the point mentally & intellectually but you were able to put it into practice & start living it. So the Delegates not only heard the talk that Peter & Paul gave you but they were also able to read your "Dear Teamworkers" letter, as well as hear the wonderful news from your own mouth through some of your reports, which Peter passed on to them to read. They can all see how wonderfully you have changed & what a wonderful sample you are now to all of going more slowly & more prayerfully & operating more in the Spirit.
4. So all across the board, you were a wonderful example to use, Jo, & I'm really thankful for your willingness to allow your mistakes, shortcomings & victories to be used in this way. I know it's not the easiest thing; in fact, it's quite painful. But you've always been a very good sample of this & have had lots of practice at it, so maybe it's getting a little easier by now. GBY! You're wonderful!--I really love you & so do the leadership who attended the second session of Summit '90, & we all very much admire you!
5. Nobody was jumping on any bandwagon to try to criticise you, as the other Summit '90 leaders all love & admire you very much & have said so numerous times. However, because they do admire you so much & have tried to imitate you, they have felt inferior, discouraged & sometimes confused when they were not able to keep up with your level of accomplishment. We commended you very highly for being hard-working, diligent, dedicated & efficient, but we had to point out that these things need to be balanced with more prayer & more Word & more communion with the Lord. It's true that some people don't work hard enough, & they need to press in a lot more, show more dedication & sacrifice, & labour more diligently for the Lord. It's just that we must be careful that our working hard does not crowd out our time with the Lord.
6. I think all the leadership in their taped reactions expressed very sincere admiration for you, Jo, in quite a few areas.--Expressing specifically that you have a real Shepherd's heart & that you really love people & understand them & are able to have a real rapport with them that helps them very much, & that you've taught them a great deal that they very much appreciate & will always be grateful to you for. And now they also very much want to imitate your good newly-developed habits of prayerfulness & slowness & operating in the spirit rather than so much in the arm of the flesh.
7. Jo, I hope you understand that we aren't pointing you out exclusively, because certainly we all operate in the arm of the flesh sometimes & it's really a matter of degree, & we're all learning to operate more in the Spirit & be more dependent on God & His Word. But I guess because you have worked with so many of these other leaders, & you are quite a charismatic personality, that you have had a great influence on them, so therefore they know you & they have worked closely with you & they know your style of leadership & they've tried to imitate that.
8. So you & your situation did make a very good illustration to use, & I think everybody got the point. I'm sure the Lord is going to bless you for your getting the point in the first place, enabling the others to, in turn, get it as well. I don't think that they really could've gotten it nearly as well if you hadn't led the way & gone out & fought before them to learn that lesson yourself. And as I said, we're all learning it, it's a matter of degree, & the goal is to try to continually be getting closer to the Lord, more dependent on Him, more dependent on His Word & more prayerful constantly.
9. I love you so much. I love you for your love for the Lord. Someone reminded me of that verse the other day that says, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in Truth." (3Jn.4)--And that really is the thing that makes me the happiest--to know that you're sticking real close to the Lord & that you're right in the center of His Will, yielded to Him, doing what He wants you to do.
10. A lot of times I don't really feel like "Mama," I feel more like one of the children myself, more like your bungling big sister. There're lots of lessons that I'm learning myself. The Lord's teaching me the same lesson that He's teaching you, Jo, by what He's done with my eyes, & I think that's been made very clear in the Letters. So I'm not guiltless either!--We're all guilty of operating too much in the arm of the flesh & leaning on the arm of the flesh. The Lord said I was doing that in leaning on my eyes so much. So we've all been learning it, but isn't it wonderful how the Lord uses different ways to teach each one of us, so individually tailored to our individual needs. PTL!
11. There's one thing I would like to ask your permission for, Jo, & that is to put some of the reactions of the leaders who have been working with you in the FSM. We would also like to print your "Dear Teamworker" letter as well as probably excerpts from your latest report to us showing how the Lord's working in your life & your prayerfulness & your desire to do things differently this time. So Jo, if you have any reservations at all about us publishing any of this, please let me know. If we don't hear from you we'll just go ahead. I think everyone will be quite impressed with your sample, a good sample of a wise man who is wiser today than he was yesterday.
12. Jo, don't let anybody intimidate you into moving too fast. I'm referring now to the comments that different people in your local situation made about how you're going slower & they don't know if they're going to be able to get enough work done.--Just don't let that bother you. Just tell them that you're doing what you're supposed to do & what we want you to do, what the Lord wants you to do, what's going to really get the most done in the long run in the best way possible.--And that's what they should be doing too--following your example, going slow & being prayerful, & that's what you're there to teach them.
13. Just tell them you're sorry you learned it so late, but you have learned it & that's what you're supposed to be trying to teach them. God bless you for getting everybody around you in the Word & prayer more, too! I'm real proud of you! TYJ! You're laying the right foundation of the building.
14. You're certainly right, Jo, that I never chided you for going too slow; in fact, I want to commend you for going slower on asking for answers to your questions & slower on implementing major moves. I love you so much & I'm so happy to see how you take your correction, how you've changed & become a "new creature in Christ!"
Much love & admiration--Mama.
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
