Character

Calvin Miller is the inspiration author again today.  As I read today's entry I decided to officially put his name on my must-read list of authors. 

John 13:15) "For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you."

Today's study looks at the word character.  To help myself understand more clearly I looked up the word in the dictionary.  Here is what it said. 

Character- the qualities that form a person's nature, moral quality, reputation

I do not believe I was born with character.  I was born with a sin nature and a genetic makeup.  My character was not built in the easy, smooth times.  "Character comes gradually in the process of allowing God to make us servants," Calvin Miller.  The process is not easy.  Mr. Miller says we beg God to cover the hammer with felt.  This hammer pounds the anvil...and it hurts.

"And sometimes it is the very people we are called to serve who hold in their ungrateful lives the pain that breaks our spirits and crushes beneath alienation and aloneness," Calvin Miller.  I absolutely love this quote!  A  wife comes to mind, a woman who spent a great deal of her life honoring and serving her husband.  Really without her there is no telling where he would have been.  She obeyed God by showing him honor and serving him in a Godly manner.  All along he was hiding a plethora of sin.  The times she needed him most he was not there.  He showed her no respect.  His ungratefulness smacked her in the face.  Yet she served God by continuing to handle the situation with a Spirit-lead grace.  He continues to do everything in his power to completely destroy her in every way possible.  God rewards those who serve Him and by serving the unlovable she served Him.  This woman has more character in her pinkie than most have in their whole bodies and I guarantee it grew greatly in her service.  There is a day coming soon where God will shed amazing freedom upon her and offer to her a new start.

As I read today's entry by Calvin Miller I couldn't help but think of this very special woman and how the hammer has chiseled out an even more incredible character.  Jesus says the example is set in John 13:15.  Jesus is our ultimate example.  I am so blessed to know this woman and have learned so much from her.  She also is an example to me.