Thought This was the Line for the Teacups

“Right now I am storm-tossed. And what am I going to say? ‘Father, get me out of this’? No, this is why I came in the first place. I’ll say, ‘Father, put your glory on display’.” (John 12:27-28a; MSG)

I’m pretty sure I didn’t voluntarily stand in line for the roller coaster I’ve been on recently.

Except that I did. The moment I prayed, “Your will, not mine,” I signed up. And every moment after, when amidst the prayers for grace, serenity, peace, and rest I earnestly lifted it all up to God and said, “It’s yours,” I got back in line.

God is the master planner, the principal architect, the one with the knowledge and tools to put my life together the best way it can be. Good thing, too, for his design is far better than mine ever could’ve been. My last entry, Cup is full..., was all about giving that truth a nod.

So following that writing, I got back in line to ride again.

Just after I received amazing, life-changing news (God working out those plans I of which I couldn’t have dreamed), I discovered mold in my apartment. My couch in the living room sat against the wall shared with the building’s laundry machines. At some point, some time ago, the washer leaked and mold began to grow on my side of the wall. (Completely unbeknownst to me, as I hadn’t moved the couch in the year and a half I’ve lived here.) It had been growing long enough that it had grown into my couch. My couch, my dear friend with whom I spent my evenings, where I ate, worked on my laptop, watched entirely too much TV, napped and occasionally slept.

I renewed my lease and they offered to have my carpets cleaned. Looking at my apartment I thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice to rearrange the furniture after they clean the carpet? It’ll be like a new place to go with the new life.” I think I knew I needed it. I also needed to do a serious spring cleaning and de-clutter.  I moved my couch to vacuum underneath and there it is. Mold. Dark, toxic mold. The kind of mold which, seeing as much as I could see of it and as dark as it was, likely expanded out from the visible spots exponentially.

Funny how God works.

I’m very allergic to mold. Suddenly, what I thought was a worsening of my asthma with age stood explained. The seeming ineffectiveness of allergy pills? Clarified. There was no amount of “cleaning” or “fixing” the issue with which I was comfortable. I had to move.

During the moving process I ran into trial after issue after unpleasant situation. Trip after trip in and out to the car, up and down the stairs... No time to pack in an organized fashion, just get the stuff out and get it out fast! And move it up stairs. (There’s a reason why I’ve lived on the first floor for the last ten years.)

Within a few days of being in the new place, I felt so much better. I could breathe easier, my allergies were more in check, I didn’t feel as fatigued. And you know what? I like being on the second floor now because I love having my windows open and I feel safer doing so when not on the ground floor. Though the apartment is the exact same layout, I’ve rearranged the furniture for a different set-up, so it feels new. The big, bulky couch is gone, and as I look at how I am de-cluttering in this major spring cleaning that took its form in haphazard moving, I just want to get rid of more. (I wrote about this in August – we can see how quickly I accomplished the task on my own!)

God’s plans are better. At first I resisted. On the phone with my mom after I found the mold, all I could utter was, “The absolute last thing I want to do is move.” But I didn’t have a choice. God made the choice for me. Fresh starts – new job, new home...  Things come in threes, so what came next?

I got back in line and then strapped in for the next big obstacle that hit me full-force as the move neared completion.

God, I know you go before me in all things and that you are with me through all things. Please help me remember always to find the joy in your divine design and not fall into bitterness or discontent. You prove time and time again that you do a far better job with my life than I do, so now and always (though I’ll forever have to renew), I place my life in your hands. Your will, not mine.

Amen! :D

Gratitude

Matthew 6:31-34

“What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” (MSG)

Amen!

Because I Said So

Zechariah 10:7

“I know their pain and will make them good as new.  They’ll get a fresh start, as if nothing ever happened.  And why?  Because I am their very own God, I’ll do what needs to be done for them.”  (MSG)

I used to live in a world of darkness and pain.  It eventually became easier to believe that I was defective in a way that could not be healed than to try method after treatment after long-shot, losing hope with each failed attempt that I would ever find a way out of the dark. 

Plenty of those bleak years I spent yelling at God, cursing God, blaming God.  He created me, he made my life, therefore he was responsible for my pain.  After the first major shift in my universe when I stopped moving away from him and began my journey moving toward him, more often than not my simple plea was a weak, “God, help me, please.”

I had gotten to the point, however, that I didn’t even believe I deserved to be healed.  I had decided that I was being punished, that I somehow deserved my darkness and the aching of my soul.  So I didn’t really believe God would heal me, I just desperately wanted him to ease my pain. 

I rarely considered God’s purpose in all of it.  Toward the end of my depression I was so utterly lost that I couldn’t summon up any kind of purpose for my life and everything I had been through.  I knew God had his reasons and I wanted to trust in his plan, but I was tired.  I was so tired.

Today, as I sit and think about how life was then, I stop, as I often do, and simply say, “God, thank you for my life.” 

He brought me out of the darkness.  When it was time, when I was ready for whatever he had in store for me, he reached into the depths of my soul and not only eased my pain, but healed it.  I was, indeed, made new.  And I returned to my life to find myself in a position to make a fresh start.

God will do what needs to be done for me, but it’s up to me to trust that he has the plans for the architecture of this life.  It is not for me to understand, and while he may grace me with revelations, I must be content in not always knowing why things happen.

A line from a morning prayer I wrote reads: “May I always remember that you have the top of the puzzle box and trust that each piece you place next is chosen at that time for a reason or reasons which may remain unknown to me.”

I don’t ask why very much anymore.  Coming into my new life, that was one of many huge changes.  I no longer sat in the dark and cried, “Why, God?”  But if I look at this verse and follow its, “Why?” then I see the answer plain and simple.

So if I find myself tempted to ask God, “Why?” about something, I pray that I can remember the answer as he said it through Zechariah:

“Because I am [your] very own God, I’ll do what needs to be done for [you].”  (Zech 10:7b, MSG)

Trust me.  I’ve got things under control.  --God

Amen!  :D

But I Want It Now

Romans 5:3-4

“We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next.”  (MSG, italics mine)

I’ve never been one to be good with patience.  At least, not the waiting kind.  I can have the patience of a saint when it comes to dealing with an unruly child, but make me wait on something and I won’t have any fingernails left. 

There’s a particular area of my life I constantly try to take back from God.  Why?  Because I get tired of waiting.  I get impatient.  In spite of the fact that I have plenty of evidence that my doing so causes more trouble, I continue to give it up, take it back, give it up, take it back...   I know God sits there and shakes his head, maybe doing an occasional facepalm when I really botch things up by trying to take over.

Just last night we talked about it, God and I, and I expressed to him my frustration.  “You made me, you know I need this, please!”  Right?  I need it.  Says who?  Me?

What I do need right now is to turn it around and develop that passionate patience.  God has placed a situation in my life where lack of patience in this area could really cause me some trouble.  Lacking the patience I definitely will not forge my steel of virtue and I’ll get so caught up in my mess that I certainly won’t be alert to what God is doing. 

And I know, in the end, that is why I need to be patient and wait until the time is right anyway.  With this particular issue I am prone to be completely distracted from God if I am not ready when it comes.  He knows this.  He knows I need to be stronger in him before I can have these other things come into my life.

In the verse that follows, Paul points out that in developing this patience and living in alert expectancy we will never be left feeling “shortchanged.  Quite the contrary – we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives by the Holy Spirit!” (Rom. 5:5 MSG)

That is where my focus should be: on all the blessings God constantly pours into my life.

Lord, grant me patience and help me to look at the blessings, not at what I think is missing.

Amen!  :D

Prone to Wander

 

"There goes another one..."

Know how God burns calories?

Chasing his sheep.

Philippians 4:4-9

“Rejoice in the Lord always.  I will say it again: Rejoice!  Let your gentleness be evident to all.  The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ.  Finally, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.  Whatever you have learned or received from me, or seen in me – put it into practice.  And the God of peace will be with you.”  (NIV, italics mine)

That I am still amazed at the drastic change I feel in my life when I make a point of spending time with God only points to how new I still am at truly making God the focal point of my life.  Complete and total surrender is not an easy thing, especially not for one as stubborn as I am.  Lack of self-discipline has been a theme in my life and is something I still struggle with, meaning I am prone to distraction and, of course, prone to wander.

I got caught up in the busyness of life and, one by one, parts of my day I had devoted to God started to fall away.  I was still praying now and then, still hitting church Sunday morning, still praising him, but life’s distractions had edged him out of my central focal point.  And I knew it happened, but I couldn’t seem to make myself shift it back.

As God moved out of my focus and I prayed less and less, feelings of chaos, anxiety, fear, and sadness began to move back in.  Before I knew it, I found myself in a state of discontentment, confused, a bit bewildered, and wondering how on earth I managed to let myself get to that point.

It wasn’t until I laid myself out and in earnest prayer admitted my error, asked for forgiveness, thanked him for all the blessings he still gave me and begged for help to completely surrender myself that I felt a change.  And oh! what a change. 

God is willing if I am willing.  If I open myself up in earnest prayer and show him that I really mean it, he will almost instantly lift the negative feelings from my heart and wrap me up in his wondrous love. 

God is faithful to the degree to which I am faithful.  Sure, he still provides and cares for me while I’m off wandering along the edge of the precipice, and, yeah, he’ll catch me when I slip and fall, but it is only when I turn and run to him that I will truly feel all the effects of his love, and get to know his peace which passes all understanding.

I pray that I may make a more conscious and consistent habit of earnest prayer. May I walk in his love always, and, though I still will wander from time to time – I am human, after all – I pray that my wanderings are less and less frequent and for shorter periods of time.   

Amen!  :D