i also do not like the mess. mess that i have brought on myself or has been brought on by someone else has been able to drive me and can still drive me at times. there have been so many times that i have just wanted to have things neet and clean and tidy. wanting to be done with something or over something. wrapped up tidy with a bow so i could move on. well, i am starting to live with knowing that nothing will ever be perfect and lovely and tidy in life here on this earth. that it will always be one thing or another...or many things that make a mess. so no need to let it drive me crazy or anywhere else. it is really good to know that God is with me throuth it all and in it all. i know that i will always desire what it should have been here...and what i will be in heaven. and i know that God will give me help when i ask, maybe not in the way i expect it, but, maybe something like l.l. had...a smooth warm stone to sit upon in a fresh green forest when i need it the most. enough to get me through what i have to go through and get me to the next place.It is so true that life is never tidy for long in this present world. Once you think you might have at least some kind of handle on something, something else is thrown at you. Seems the nature of things.
Just this realization has helped me to relax more with things as they are, and cope better with the problems and issues that will come. There's no getting around them, for sure.
So I think half the battle is to accept whatever comes, and the other half is to live through whatever comes with faith in the Lord. To go and grow through it in him and in fellowship with his people as we seek to live as children of light for others in this world.
What would you like to add to this?
15 comments:
I'm reading Water from a Deep Well and one of the interesting quotes from a long-ago Christian is about struggle. He says that the soul grows through fighting and that if you lack struggle, you should pray for a new struggle to begin!
Well. I can't say I relished that thought. But it sure was an interesting perspective. And so different from the stasis we modern (maybe Western?) Christians seem to seek.
i think God wants to love us. and i think that God wants for us to seek Him for our true comfort.
we naturally seek "things" out for "ourselves". where does this take us? in can take us away from looking to God. even though the things may not be bad in themselves, we can use them in a way that takes the place of looking to God. in looking to God we are given what is best for us even though it might not look like or be what we think is best at the time.
when you wrote
"Just this realization has helped me to relax more with things as they are, and cope better with the problems and issues that will come."
it makes me think that God really does want for us to look to Him and have trust in Him in all things. For in the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit we have a special kind of peace that is given to us. when i take my eyes off of trust in God, i can find all kinds of things to comfort myself with that might not be the comfort that would come from listening and talking to God.
since there will always be struggle and mess, we might as well get use to looking to God for our true comfort that gets us through the struggles while feeding our soul.
for no one really wants the fake comforts that really do not lead to the peace of God within the struggle of life, but instead leaves us empty in the long run.
when you wrote:
"So I think half the battle is to accept whatever comes, and the other half is to live through whatever comes with faith in the Lord. To go and grow through it in him and in fellowship with his people as we seek to live as children of light for others in this world."
i thought that this was a good encouragement to faith and fellowship. for relationship with our God and with others.
though we are not usually in this place. and asking God, i think He will provide something to get us through.
i think that the comfort that God supplies us with, when we ask, is best because He knows what is good to give us at the time... and the fake comfort is what we find for ourselves without asking God.
Broken cisterns that hold no water...?
I like to think I turned a corner, grew spiritually, when I started to learn to accept what life has thrown at me and cling to God to get me thru it. Though I cannot say I am happy with the way some things in my life have turned out to be, I can say I felt God with me every step.
Very briefly: my middle son, Colin, is in the 7th grade and mildy autistic (PDD diagnosis for those who follow these things) He didn't speak till he was 5 and had an aide next to him at school from kindergarden thru 6th grade. Countless hours and hours of therapies...more money spent than I can fathom..many many nights of crying and being afraid and praying to God to help me find the right diagnosis, therapy, doctor, etc. My life was consumed by him and getting him what he needed to grow and thrive.He was failing school horribly until 4th grade and then he started to understand, to learn...tonight he was inducted into the national junior honor society. I'll write in my journal tonight, a very long entry going over Colin's journey with God, and marveling at an event I thought was impossible. And I will get on my knees and thank God.
rachel...thank you for sharing the story of you and your son, colin.
i had to look up what you commented on halfmom, and found Jeremiah 2:13.
good one.
This reminds me of a quote I read tonight--"The High Places of victory and union with Christ cannot be reached by any mental reckoning...The only way is by learning to accept, day by day, the actual conditions and tests permitted by God, by a continually laying down of our own will and acceptance of His as it is presented to us." Thank you for sharing this post with us.
Good point, L.L. It seems like most of my life has been a struggle or about struggle, and as I grow to accept that at least a probably wrong attitude in regard to it, subsides.
But I have to face it if I'm going to make headway in the Christian life: struggle is an important aspect of it in this life.
Nancy,
Good thoughts on finding our comfort in God and not in something else which will leave us "high and dry" at the end. And this comfort from God helps us now, not just for the "sweet by and by."
Halfmom, AKA, Susan,
Good Scripture to bring out there. So true. Yet we left to ourselves apart from God's grace, run after them.
The Walk,
Good quote. Yes it has to do with the reality of life and our will to be surrended to God's good will. This needs to become more and more the habit of life for us, and more and more who we are.
And good to hear from you again, The Walk!
Life is messy is something I can wholeheartedly agree with. But it also makes us look forward to the Day when God will bring all things into order and harmony.
ESI,
Yes. That's beginning now in Jesus and the kingdom of God come in him, I believe. But someday will be realized completely.
Amen!
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