Trusting in God

By now most of us have met with our M & M relationship at least a couple of times. We’ve started the process of getting to know one another and listened as they’ve shared some of their life, hopes, and needs. For some of you the relationship may be going smoothly and as you expected. For others, you may be thinking, “what have I gotten myself into?”

The inclination to feel ill-equipped, inadequate, and unworthy is something we all know only too well. Whether the relationship is going well, poorly or somewhere in between, we may wonder about what our role as a mentor entails and whether or not we have the ability to be a Godly mentor.

For me the first question was, “what exactly is a mentor supposed to be?”
Although I’ve had many informal mentor-type relationships, I’ve never had a formal mentor role. I found myself wondering what I was supposed to do and say; what’s appropriate and what’s not? Will I royally mess this up? So I looked up mentoring in the dictionary. It says that a mentor is “a wise and trusted counselor or teacher.” Great, that helped a lot. There was no example, no mention of a how-to anywhere. (where’s a good mentor when you need one, right?) So I decided to search the internet. It came up with roughly 43,000,000,000,000 entries (okay, that’s a slight exaggeration-it was really only 130,000,000). I looked at a few of those hoping for an epiphany; no such luck!

All joking aside, the dictionary, the internet, and even the world’s model for a mentor will not help us to fulfill a role that was given to us by God Himself. (Titus 2) In order to be that which He has called us to be, we must always look to Him for our understanding. Each mentor/mentee relationship is so unique that we could never come up with a manual to cover all the possibilities. There is no 1, 2, 3 checklist somewhere. So where does that leave us?

It leaves us right where we need to be—totally and completely dependent upon God for every aspect of the mentoring relationship. God defines our role and God grants the ability to be that for which He has called us. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths.” Prov. 3: 5&6 (NLT)

(written by Kim Collins)

Looking at the Heart

My husband and I had decided that we needed a little landscaping for our new house, so we headed off to the nearest Plant Shed to choose the trees. My husband was set on a pecan tree, but I was okay with whatever looked best for the yard.

We walked through the nursery and separately selected a couple of trees. He had gone to look at the few pecan trees that were there; I had gone to look at the "pretty ones". I chose a beautiful lacebark elm, and he chose the ugliest, scrawniest pecan tree I had ever seen. Being the submissive wife that I am, I only argued with him for half an hour or so. I finally relented and we bought the pecan tree. I was not a happy camper.


The tree was delivered, planted in the ground, mulched and watered. I hated it. He loved it. I really didn't think it would make it for very long. But it did make it. My husband lovingly tended that tree, but I still thought it was crooked, small and misshapen-ugly.


The first spring, it struggled to "leaf out", but it finally did. I began to think that it just might make it with a little TLC. I was sort of rooting for the tree now, although it still wasn't great looking. Then an amazing thing happened-that ugly little tree produced pecans its very first year! It produced the fruit that it was meant to produce. And I felt God say to me, "What more can you expect from a pecan tree than that it produce pecans? What difference does it make what it looks like if it is fruitful?" I had not seen the tree for what it really was or could be; I had only seen the cost and ugliness of it. God knew it would be fruitful, I did not. That pecan tree has borne pecans every season since it was planted. It still struggles. It grows ever so slowly, but it does grow.


As we meet or attempt to meet with our M & M relationships, we may be inclined to size up circumstances, comments, and even the woman herself by that which we can measurably see and hear. What a mistake it is to see through our own eyes and not the eyes of the One who loves her. We need to remember the relationship begins with prayer. As we pray for our M & M relationships, I believe we should be asking God to help us see them as He sees them. We need God's insight and wisdom in order to understand how we might correctly and lovingly "tend" them in the mentoring relationship.


"The LORD does not look a the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." 1 Sam. 16:7b

(written by Kim Collins)

Focusing on the Heart

Meltdowns
It hadn't happened in a while. In fact, I can't remember the last time I saw the four year old melt down. But melt down she did when I looked at her and said "he's younger than you. Just give him the toy and be a big girl."

It wasn't a tantrum or a fit. It wasn't screaming or fighting or pushing or pulling. It was big crocodile tears running down her face while her whole body went limp, and she just fell to the ground crying. Then her emotions took over and she began to yell "no, no, no, no". A real melt down.

My first reaction.
Focus on the unacceptable behavior and the consequences to that behavior. That seemed to work, until the next day when it happened again and then again and then again. Pretty soon, it was becoming a daily occurrence, and I just longed for the day when my four year old started acting like a big girl again.

Life consists of lots of meltdowns.
A situation happens, and we react badly to it. Maybe we yell. Maybe we curse. Maybe we throw adult tantrums. Maybe we give silent treatments. Maybe we gossip. There are a lot of ways adults react sinfully to circumstances. Usually we eventually realize our actions were a mistake and seek forgiveness. But before we know it, our behavior creeps back up again, and we are yelling, gossiping, cursing, and who knows what else all over again. The cycle of sin we just can't break.

But what if we took a different approach.
What if we looked at sin as a heart issue instead of a behavior issue? What if we looked at yelling as a lack of love in our hearts? What if we looked at gossip as a self-centered heart? What if we looked at frustrations as a lack of patience in our soul? Would that change anything? I think it might.

The solution
See my four year old didn't stop having melt downs because I continually disciplined her behavior. No, the meltdowns didn't stop until we started focusing on the selfishness in her heart. We made a chart with I Corinthians 13 written in it, and she started focusing on how to show love to others. We wrote down how she showed love all day long and rewarded her continually. We started focusing on putting godliness IN instead of just taking sinfulness OUT.

How do you apply this to your mentoring relationships?
Avoid the temptation to spend the next 6 months in your M&M relationship focusing on the sin you need to rid from your life. Identifying the sin in our life is easy; replacing that sin with godliness is the hard part. It is definitely important to identify the sin patterns in your life and confess that sin, but then focus on the heart issue behind that sin. Changing your heart is the only lasting way to change your behavior.

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Matthew 12:34

Pray First

March 1st. A new month. A fresh start. The beginning of a new season. The ending of the old one.

Today marks the start of the Spring M & M's relationships and a winding down of the Fall's M & M relationships. 6 Months goes so fast!

Your time with your M&M will be over before you know it. Don't waste it! God has placed you together for a reason. Only He knows what He wants to accomplish in your relationships so we must be seeking Him daily. Don't waste the time God has given you with your M&M.


Exercise for the Week:
Before you sit down with your M & M this week, try to find 15-30 minutes to sit down, by yourself, and pray. When you pray, focus on:

1. Asking God to show you where you need to repent and then spend time confessing and repenting
2. Praising God for who is is. A great place to go to would be the Psalms. Pray the Psalms back to God. Praying scripture is a good way to focus our mind on how big God is and how little we are.
3. Seeking God's direction for you and for your M&M.
4. Be still and allow God to speak to you!
5. Thank Him for what He is doing and what He will do. Because He is alive and active, we can have confidence that He is working and will continue to work in our lives and through our lives.
   

"We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" Ephesians 2:10

I am praying for you!