I have this process I go through sometimes. I am doing it right now. I pause for a moment and ask myself the question "What is in my heart right now?" Then I pause again and listen. Pretty profound, huh?
I guess I believe that the heart is where Papa is going to speak to me most of the time, so going there makes sense. Sometimes I hear Him there. Othertimes I hear louder voices that I have begun to distinguish as not His voice. Like right now, as I look in my heart, I find fear. It is pretty big fear too. I don't like it. I want to get really busy with something so I don't have to look at that place inside of me, so I don't have to listen. But if I choose to stop and listen, I have to listen to the fear. Not like it is right or wrong, but that I can learn from it and follow it to the foot of the throne again.
Today, the fear is pretty big, and when I listen to it for very long, I hear it tell me this. "Life is too good. You are going to screw it up. You had better get your ass in gear and do something or this will all go away. Because ultimately it is about you - this is your making, and yours to unmake. Work hard, make it happen, spin the plates so the ride lasts longer".
The road has taken us to some very new and wonderful places. I spend my days getting to do exactly what I want. My needs are met, and I even have a new toy (it has two wheels and a motor). Everything is as I have always longed for it to be. I have it made. That doesn't mean that life doesn't have its share of problems. But it means that if I could design the perfect life, this would be it. I'd make it just like this.
I have never experienced this before. I have always been running after the bigger and better. The truth is I am happy, and I don't know what to do about it.
And I am convinced inside that it will all fall apart if I don't hold the world together. The funny thing is that I didn't do much to make life this way - it is a gift from God. Literally. He worked things out, He brought us here, He is to blame for all the greatness of life. The fear in me tells me it is up to me. The truth inside of me reminds me that this is about Him, not me, and there isn't much I can do about it. I sat through a horrible season in life for several years, where thing after thing came down on me. I suffered. I know that sounds a little dramatic, but those who know where the road has taken me the last few years would agree. Injustice was done, life was unfair, people were nasty, and I suffered through and still believed in Papa's love. Now I find myself in a new season where things couldn't be better, and I am having a heck of a time 'suffering through' this one. I guess it was easier to see 'testing of my faith' as enduring when things went wrong. Now that things are much more pleasurable than I ever imagined they could be, I am learning a new lesson about getting my faith tested. I am faced with tough questions like "Will I stop worrying about how I can screw this up and just enjoy it?" Or the question "Will I trust Papa when He gives good things? I trusted Him when everything was taken away. How about now?"
Suddenly the story of Job comes to mind. Not that I have been through anything compared to him, but I wonder if it was hard, after all the loss and all the suffereing, to fully enjoy all that Papa gave him at the end of the story?
I am learning that He is good and He is my loving Papa, regardless of what happens around me, good or bad.
He is. And that is enough - or at least I am learning.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
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I was thinking today about how I'm so addicted to my own sense of comfort that I'll seek it out time and time again before seeking His presence. Yet it is so sweet, I easily forget what it's like to sit on Papa's lap and to whisper in His ear and for Him to whisper too. I so easily forget that it's a place that's so accessible, for some dumb reason I think that it won't work and that I have to struggle through it myself.
I've been so geared up lately over things that I would really like to be in control of and I have nothing to contribute. I'm not even good enough at this stuff that I could control it if it was even in my realm to begin with...but for 30 minutes today I was truly free. Everything changes when Dad's around, and when He stays then there you're just in a s@!t-storm of craziness. He's the happiest and most secure person I've ever met and He's totally OK with me being dysfunctional to all extremes, but He'd just prefer that I forget being functional and just work on being close. I don't know if I'd be all that great at being functional anyway.
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