Ponderings

I've been thinking alot lately about life in general.

About the confusion, the struggle to know what to do with my life. The wondering if I'm making the right decisions. The wondering why everything has to be so difficult.

Often I find myself wishing God would just throw a slip of paper down from heaven telling me what to do with my life. Giving me step-by-step instruction on how it's to be accomplished. It would be so much easier, right? Just spell it all out and I'll do it!

But really, would I do it? If I can't trust Him enough to step out on faith in the direction He's laid on my heart now, what makes me think I would do it if He spelled it all out?

I look at my life and ponder what to do with it, and I think, "Oh, this is so hard. This is so confusing!"

As though it shouldn't 'be.

But that's the point: is it supposed to NOT be hard?

I tend to have this mentality that if something is hard, it must not be what God wants of me. If something is difficult, if something doesn't make sense, it can't be of God. But that's the exact opposite of what Jesus said in John 16:33. Jesus guarantees we will have trouble. So why do I expect that everything will just lay itself all out in a neat little line for me? This world has trouble. It's not heaven. I seem to forget that it's not heaven. It's not home. I will always have struggles and conflicts. Trusting God doesn't necessarily mean things will become clear--it just gives me Someone Else to place the confusion on. I will still have to keep searching and praying, and seeking wisdom for my life .

It's like the widow in Luke 18--she kept persisting until she had an answer. I'm not saying God is unjust, please don't misunderstand--of course He is totally just. I'm just saying that often I find myself thinking all I have to do is pray a couple times about something, and poof, it'll happen, when in reality, we often must keep praying and praying and praying about it, persisting in prayer, persisting forward, until God gives an answer. We will have trouble in this world. It's just one more reminder that we don't belong here.

Of course our actions have consequences, but often I think we tend to forget that God is sovereign. He knew which action we would take before we took it. He's still in the business of orchestrating our lives, despite mistakes and regrets.

We sang Great Is Thy Faithfulness in my church recently, and as I was singing up in the choir loft the words of the chorus shot out at me "All I have needed, Thy hand hath provided."

He will supply my needs. He has supplied my needs. He does supply my needs. If I don't have something right now, perhaps it's because I don't need it at this point of my life?

Maybe some things will never make sense to me, but I don't see everything clearly in this life.
I see thru a glass darkly. The view is distorted by the world and body I live in. It's hard. It is. It's confusing.

But the wonderful part of it all in the last part of John 16:33, where Jesus says "Be of good cheer; for I have overcome the world." I can just see Jesus talking to His disciples, and telling them what all will happen. Their eyes getting bigger and bigger, fear and worry entering their hearts. I can see Him raising His hand to quell their fears, and saying in gentle kindness "But be of good cheer. For I have overcome the world."

In Him, we do have peace. This world and all its trouble cannot get the better of us, so to speak. He has already conquered it. I can know that though it doesn't make sense to me, it does to Him. I can know that even though it won't make the decisions necessarily easier, thru Him it does make them doable. And I can keep plugging forward, thru every stage of life, even, though sometimes I just want to throw in the towel, sit down, and cry till my eyes pop out. Through Him I can keep putting one foot in front of the other. Praising Him for the simple joys He brings into my life, the wonderful, precious reminders He loves to give me, reminding me of just how much He cares.

And how much He wants what is best for me.