new year, new hopes, so many tweeting and posting and going on and on about this is going to be the best year......
great.
listening inside.. to be honest, I am not feeling it.
I am looking back and for the first time in my life I am wondering if this year might even be worse than the last one.
I am not someone to blame anyone for what is going on.
but then again, I am tired of it and it seems that there have been just a few too many things that have turned out badly, too many things that could have just not happened and as you can tell, right now I am not in a good place.
years ago, a very mature and well respected lady at my church, in a leadership position at the time shared with me, that when you are that "well respected", and kind of under the microscope because of that, certain things are expected and she felt it was easy to fall into the trap of feeling you cannot be authentic about where you really are.
now everyone who knows me knows I am open, and I do never pretend to be okay when I am not.
what people have seen me do, no matter what happens is that I choose to go to the scriptures and stand on the truth, even if I don't feel it.
right now. I can show you a lot of scriptures that talk about suffering and that it is normal.
I can show you scriptures that we like to take and anchor our hope on... when, if we are looking at the historical context... well, the hope was VERY FAR in the future, as in not in the lifetime of the one who wrote it or the ones that were told it..
yup. so. as I was cleaning my house yesterday and gave it a good "Year End Thorough Cleaning" I was thinking this: what we expect from our lives, living in this day and age, is pretty unrealistic.
yes. no one ever promised the white picked fenced happiness we so love in movies.... maybe to live a life that brings glory to God is about how we take the bad.
so I thought it would be good to praise and thank God for the bad. the mean. the outright unfair and miserable.
have been thanking Him for all He gives me, the good, no matter how small all along and will always do that. but I really think I have to take it a step further.
I have been doing it today, as I am thinking about all the bad news I have received.. I am receiving, the disappointments, that are so hard to get over. I am thanking Him because obviously He alone knows what this all means.
all the hopes that were not granted. all the stuff that is not good.
I want an attitude change. I don't want to be defeated and without hope.
I need to rejoice that in the bad and the ugly here, the One that is going to take me safely to His heavenly Kingdom, is always there, controlling the situation.
and that is the truth. and I know that.
So "Happy New Year"... the blessing that is available for all of us always is that we can know Him as closely as we want. as we need. because He, He is always right there with us. and for some unexplainable, mind boggling reason, He loves us.
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
James 4:8
No comments:
Post a Comment