Wednesday, October 31, 2007

when life seems out of tune

"Sometimes", as in the words of Rich Mullins (Hold Me Jesus), "my life just don't make sense at all." It has seemed a bit like that lately for me. Maybe it's because I'm out of tune with the Giver of all good songs. Maybe it's just a difficult season of life that inwardly I'm going through. Probably some of both.

I think sometimes I lose much or all of the sense of the Presence that is meant to pervade all, and in the end for the redeemed, will. God as Father, Son and Spirit, is the One in whom we as humans are meant to live through Jesus. But that sense of loss only drives me to seek God all the more in prayer, or to do so, period.

I think in this that God is at work, seeking to get me more in tune with who he is. I so easily get out of tune, but this seems more so lately. Maybe it's just that I've picked up a keener sense of God's tune and see that my life is not as much in harmony as I may have thought at brief moments. Or maybe it's just that I am more sensitive to the disharmony between myself and God and others.

Oh, to hear the music of God; I want to hear that music. And then I want my life with others to be lived in our harmonizing around that music in God. I speak metaphorically now, though our love for music and songs surely is somehow related to this. That is part of my prayer right now, that with others, we can hear and live in the "music" and "song" God has for us now. And that this sound would go out into all the world, in Jesus.

6 comments:

Ted M. Gossard said...

Well, I haven't read this post since this morning, but I have read recently, and I think it is true, I look at the Christian life as like a story or a song (I think from Eugene Peterson). It has beauty in rhythm and harmony.

Maybe it's sorrowful right now with what Charity and others are encountering and we who love them wanting to carry our share of the burden. Along with other factors we are up against as well.

Anonymous said...

i think the older we get... we can see that many things that use to make sense and seem important are falling away. and it can make one feel a bit off at times. i know that you will come through.

this was on today's bible gateway verse of the day...

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

1 Peter 5:8-9

Ted M. Gossard said...

Well, Nancy, of course we don't live according to our feelings, though feelings can be an indicator of something or another. But yes, as we get older in some ways we know better how to navigate life, but in other ways I feel more challenged than ever.

Thanks.

Anonymous said...

i feel a lot more challenged mentally and physically. ask any woman in her 50's...and then step back a bit. and then children growing up, maybe college payments. parents and friends needing care or dying. it is easy to look for an out in things that might not be good choices. i think that being able to have a faith in Jesus is the lyrics and melody that will carry us through...also, the resonance of our spirit with the Holy Spirit... our spirit vibrates to the same note. we can be lifted up.

i like it when you are able to tell of your struggles.
i think that as we get older we have a lot of struggles but at the same time do not fight things as much...we more easily give it to God. if we live a long life or one with much sickness most people come to a place where death is welcome.

but, the life as a story is interesting thought...or like a quilt..each fabric adding more to the story, just like each person adds more to the story. the ongoing story of life.

Anonymous said...

not meaning that death of anyone is welcome...but that with suffering it usually gets to that place. i have had cousins die when we were young and friends when fairly young and those were accidents and not sickness. and it made quite an impact on those left alive. i can not see anything worse than sickness and death in youth. it is crushing to see. i hate sickness and death...and the only joyful to think of is that one day there will be no more of it.

that Jesus will return in Glory.

and He is with us now. God is with us.

we will come through. we will.

Ted M. Gossard said...

Nancy,
As always thanks for your many good words here. I liked them all, and especially your words about being in harmomy with God.