But obviously, the overall disappointment and sorrow looms large in my mind, and it comes spilling out whenever I read my Bible and sit down at my computer to write. The other day, a good friend even commented that she'd never know I felt this way if she didn't read the blog.
I don't think I'm trying to hide anything, but I often don't fully recognize what I'm feeling. I just move on to the next thing in front of my face...my 'get-over-it' coping style?
So this blog has been a gift in allowing me to process my thoughts and emotions as I engage the Living Word. Maybe I would have journaled about it if I wasn't doing this blog. I don't know.
All that to say, given my state of mind, it'll be no surprise what verses jumped off the page at me in this chapter. I can definitely relate - on a much smaller scale, of course.
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.'" (12:27-28)Oswald Chambers is helping me process my experience and feelings, putting it all in a godly perspective. (In this passage though, He uses a slightly different translation in verse 27.) He's helping me to see it from a different vantage point.
"As a saint of God, my attitude toward sorrow and difficulty should not be to ask that they be prevented, but to ask that God protect me so that I may remain what He created me to be, in spite of all my fires of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself, accepting His position and realizing His purpose, in the midst of the fire of sorrow. He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour.
"We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to accept and receive ourselves in its fires. If we try to evade sorrow, refusing to deal with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life, and there is no use in saying it should not be. Sin, suffering, and sorrow are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.
"Sorrow removes a great deal of a person's shallowness, but it does not always make a person better. Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be this way is immaterial. The fact is that it is true in the Scriptures and in human experience..." My Utmost for His HighestLord, I am storm-tossed, but by faith, I thank You for my fires of sorrows. Thank you for teaching me in this way. I choose to trust You, Father - Your love for me, Your goodness, and Your wisdom. I ask You to put Your glory on display.
2 comments:
Two things jumped out at me. One - Judas being upset about the wasted money because he embezzled the funds. An important warning for giving Satan a foothold into one area of our lives that than takes over the rest. And two - "When push came to shove they cared more for human approval than God's glory" is something that hit home for me. How often am I worried about what other's think when I need to be focused on God's glory.
Thank you, Cici, for being so raw and honest in this blog. It is helpful to know how to pray for you, specifically, but also encourages me to be honest with God and others about my own struggles.
I loved the quotes you included on sorrow. I thought this verse related to that topic as well:
"Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. (John 12:24 MSG)
When I experience grief or sorrow of any kind, I am experiencing a loss of something. And with this loss, a part of me dies. But this verse reminds me that when a part of us dies, something new and beautiful can sprout from that pain.
Right now, my troubles seem small and insignificant, but painful none the less. I am continuously confronted with my impatience, irritability and anger at my husband and children when things don't go my way, i.e., a smooth day of happy children where I can be productive and do everything that I hoped to do that day. But God is reminding me that through this uncomfortable process, I am DYING to myself. I am experiencing pain and grief over loss of MY desires, MY control over my time, MY expectations of what my day should look like. But as I am dying to these demands, I can see the sprouts of submission, of acceptance and patience and trust in God's sovereign plan over my life. And it is a beautiful thing to see. I only get glimpses every now and then. But when I do, I am reminded why sorrow and pain and difficult circumstances are necessary: to make us more like Jesus, to cling to our Lord, and to hope in the glorious, sinless perfection that awaits us in His renewed kingdom.
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