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 Christ Jesus. Philippians 4: 6-7 NIV
Unresolved, unfinished, lacking, incomplete. These are all synonyms of how I feel at times.
I have spent so much time planning, envisioning and daydreaming about THE DAY that I will finally reach that place of Nirvana. I will reach this or that particular goal, and I will feel complete. Life will make sense, all of my struggles will be gone and all my relationships will be how I want them to be.
I would set a particular goal. I would plan exactly how I was going to get there, and I would dream of the day that I reached that particular goal. The next day, I would wake up, something would go wrong and mess up my perfect plan and I would throw my hands up. It didn't go EXACTLY like I wanted it to, so I would give up and forget the whole thing in anger and frustration.
Life is not Perfect. It does not always go like we plan it to. In fact, in my experience, it never goes like we plan it. Life is full of errors, defects, mistakes, and alternate paths.
So what does this have to do with Peace which transcends understanding. This verse tells me that we can live with unresolved issues in a imperfect world. I can have peace when the world is full of chaos and when I have unresolved conflicts in my own life. I have issues that are not resolved. I do not understand what causes Devan's autism. I have relationships with loved ones that are not what I want them to be. When I look at these issues and then examine my abilities to deal with them, I become overwhelmed. I do not have the resources to handle them all or actually any of them on my own.
God meets us in the Middle. Where we are lacking, God takes up the slack. Where we do not understand, God directs our path until we get it. When we screw up, God offers forgiveness. Therefore, we CAN have peace which transcends all understanding even though our human nature says otherwise. We can be OK, even though our lives aren't exactly the way we wish they were.
TIP: Every few months, take a glance back at where you were then and where you are now. Do you notice patterns? Are you moving closer to where you want to be or futher away? This glance back can often bring some interesting surprises. You just may be making more progress than you thought you were.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Break My Heart, Lord
Break my heart for what breaks yours. Those words in a popular song by Hillsong United often resonate with me. I have found myself thinking intently about them lately and trying to figure out what they really mean.
With 24-Hour News, internet and cell phones w/ internet, we are exposed to story after story after story that could and probably should break our hearts. There are earthquakes, starving children, tornadoes, domestic abuse, disease, cancer, death, greed, and all kinds of cruelness in our world. And more than ever before, we are exposed to all of these facts of life every single day.
I am fully convinced that all of these things do break the heart of God. He did not create us to go through all of this pain, and did want our world to be so BROKEN. The fact of the matter is, however, that we do live in a broken world and bad things happen.
As a Christian, I often feel guilty because my heart is not always broken when I am exposed to these things. So many times I hear about these horrible things and my heart turns callous. I get down on myself because I can hear about the earthquake destruction in Japan or Haiti, and not feel the pain and loss that I should. At times the thought quickly disappears and my mind moves to some small thing in my own life.
I have finally realized that as a human, I honestly cannot take all of that pain on myself. It would bury me. If I would internalize and have a broken heart for all of the pain and loss that I hear about, I could not survive the pain.
Lord, Break my heart freely when you want it to be broken. My prayer is that I am in sync with God enough that my hard, callous heart can be broken when it needs to be. When I need to feel and internalize pain of others, I pray that God will break my heart when he wants to and in turn spur me into action to do my part.
Again, my focus needs to be on knowing God and spending time with him and not on trying to conquer the world in his name. I do not understand or have the answers for all of the pain in the world, but I know the ONE that does. I can stand on that.
With 24-Hour News, internet and cell phones w/ internet, we are exposed to story after story after story that could and probably should break our hearts. There are earthquakes, starving children, tornadoes, domestic abuse, disease, cancer, death, greed, and all kinds of cruelness in our world. And more than ever before, we are exposed to all of these facts of life every single day.
I am fully convinced that all of these things do break the heart of God. He did not create us to go through all of this pain, and did want our world to be so BROKEN. The fact of the matter is, however, that we do live in a broken world and bad things happen.
As a Christian, I often feel guilty because my heart is not always broken when I am exposed to these things. So many times I hear about these horrible things and my heart turns callous. I get down on myself because I can hear about the earthquake destruction in Japan or Haiti, and not feel the pain and loss that I should. At times the thought quickly disappears and my mind moves to some small thing in my own life.
I have finally realized that as a human, I honestly cannot take all of that pain on myself. It would bury me. If I would internalize and have a broken heart for all of the pain and loss that I hear about, I could not survive the pain.
Lord, Break my heart freely when you want it to be broken. My prayer is that I am in sync with God enough that my hard, callous heart can be broken when it needs to be. When I need to feel and internalize pain of others, I pray that God will break my heart when he wants to and in turn spur me into action to do my part.
Again, my focus needs to be on knowing God and spending time with him and not on trying to conquer the world in his name. I do not understand or have the answers for all of the pain in the world, but I know the ONE that does. I can stand on that.
Friday, November 4, 2011
I Don't Know
These three little words have changed my life. What leads me to feelings of anxiety, depression and anger are often me trying to figure out and control the world around me.
How many countless hours and nights have I spent over-analyzing and obsessing on things that I am just not meant to understand right now. When this thinking begins, it goes in circles and leads further and further into confusion. The thing that gets me out of this cycle is realizing GOD IS GOD and I am not. If he is GOD and I am not, then, it is not my job to understand everything. I only task is to understand what is given to me at that particular time and obey what God tells me to do. So, basically I need to quit trying so darn hard.
A few months after Devan (my son) was diagnosed with Autism, I went to the internet was going to find out what caused this and how we can get him out of it. What started as hours and hours researching, studying and obsessing finally ended in me on my knees saying I DON'T KNOW GOD, but you do and that is OK. I was then at the point where I could sit back, relax and go to work on helping Devan (not as the commander of the project, but as a simple laborer doing what I felt lead to do as we went along.
Why does God allow Cancer to come back in people when they have so much to live for? Why does he allow that, but then let others walk away cancer-free? Why does the drunk driver walk away from the accident unharmed, but the innocent child lays dead? If we have a loving, sovereign God, why is there so much hurt and pain in the world?
I don't know and that is OK because God does know and I can rest in that.
How many countless hours and nights have I spent over-analyzing and obsessing on things that I am just not meant to understand right now. When this thinking begins, it goes in circles and leads further and further into confusion. The thing that gets me out of this cycle is realizing GOD IS GOD and I am not. If he is GOD and I am not, then, it is not my job to understand everything. I only task is to understand what is given to me at that particular time and obey what God tells me to do. So, basically I need to quit trying so darn hard.
A few months after Devan (my son) was diagnosed with Autism, I went to the internet was going to find out what caused this and how we can get him out of it. What started as hours and hours researching, studying and obsessing finally ended in me on my knees saying I DON'T KNOW GOD, but you do and that is OK. I was then at the point where I could sit back, relax and go to work on helping Devan (not as the commander of the project, but as a simple laborer doing what I felt lead to do as we went along.
Why does God allow Cancer to come back in people when they have so much to live for? Why does he allow that, but then let others walk away cancer-free? Why does the drunk driver walk away from the accident unharmed, but the innocent child lays dead? If we have a loving, sovereign God, why is there so much hurt and pain in the world?
I don't know and that is OK because God does know and I can rest in that.
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