Keep our lamps burning…
Luke 12:35-36 (NIV): “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him.”
If there’s one verse I could share with fellow Christian women who are teaching or wanting to teach teen girls, it would be this verse, Luke 12:35. In it is our motivation and our battle-cry against anything that would tear us and these young ones away from God.
It’s the story of a master who is away and his servants are waiting for him. It’s the story of God and us.
God’s character stays the same: He is a loving Master who takes care of his servants, who has gone above and beyond what a Master should do for his servants — even as far as to call us friends and family (John 15:15, Mark 3:34-35). So we can rest assured in the consistency of our Master. His purpose is solid and we have strong encouragement in him, holding fast to the hope we have in him (Hebrews 6:17-18).
But what about us? As his servants, we are not forced into submission — we were given the choice in free will. And we chose him.
It wasn’t a simple story. We all know where our free will got us at the beginning: sin and separation from God. But God gave us another chance in the steady love that he always has. And that’s why we stay with him. We know that there’s nowhere else that’s better than the safety of being in God’s arms. So it’s not out of a sense of begrudging duty, but out of overwhelming gratitude to our Master that we serve him wholeheartedly.
But it’s a daily choice. Because we are waiting. We are waiting for our Master. And as those who want to help “the next generation” of women in Christ, that’s what we want to encourage them to do, too. We want to show them the beautiful life of a Christ-follower, whether they’ve made the decision to follow him yet or not.
We need to be honest: it’s beautiful, but it's hard. It’s not a one-and-done decision. That’s why Jesus told us to pick up our cross daily and follow him. So we choose to walk alongside these girls in their lives, in whatever capacity God has in mind, to be someone they can trust will speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).
So we encourage them to keep their lamps burning. It’s a lamp that we tend to continually, to burn through the difficult moments and the seasons of joy. We spend each day eagerly awaiting when we can fully be with God which sets the mood for the day. Because we don’t want to miss it. We want to be ready for our Master. And we want others to be ready for him, from teen girls to all seeking souls.
For us at Evergreen, this is our heart’s mission: to share the beauty of God with teen girls and women so they may be encouraged to keep their lamps burning for him.
