Tag Archives: God’s mercy

Talking To Myself

Dear Me – Just Say Thanks

Leave a comment

IMG_0833.JPG
I needed this reminder today because I really need to get over myself and the way I think things should be. Please tell me I am not the only one who has their moments of wanting to stomp their foot or dig in their heels and say, “No!” or “It’s not fair!” when we don’t get what we want. Especially when we have prayed and waited and prayed and waited. Please tell me I am not the only one who finds sullen contentment in a good pity party? Please? Anyone else?

I am not proud of this in myself. This is my humanity. This is when emotion takes over and my heart runs away with my head, even though I know it isn’t right. I totally get what Paul was saying in Romans 7:15 “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.”

Today I needed a “thankful” reminder and God was only to happy to smack me upside the head with it as verse after verse flooded my thoughts replacing my pity party with feelings of humble graciousness. Even, and especially on the days I find myself falling short, God’s grace and mercy cover it all. He continues to bless me in ways that I don’t understand because of my short-sightedness. It’s so easy to lose sight of the haves in the face of the have-nots.

This life is not all about us and our comfort. (Hey me, get over yourself and your ideas of fairness! Yes, life sometimes stinks but you have so much to be thankful for.) God does not promise us contentment in the things of this world but in Him and Him alone.

“Christian contentment, therefore, is the direct fruit of having no higher ambition than to belong to the Lord and to be totally at His disposal in the place He appoints, at the time He chooses, with the provision He is pleased to make.

It was with mature wisdom, then, that the young Robert Murray McCheyne wrote, ‘It has always been my aim, and it is my prayer, to have no plans with regard to myself.’ ‘How unusual!’ we say. Yes, but what people noticed about McCheyne was how content he was to pursue one driving ambition: to know Christ (Phil. 3:10). It is not accidental that when we make Christ our ambition we discover that He becomes our sufficiency and we learn contentment in all circumstances.”
–In Christ Alone, by Sinclair B. Ferguson, pg. 190

Lord, help me keep my eyes on you and you alone.

Encouragement

More than a cliche (Troubled Waters, Part C)

2 Comments

20130805-093401.jpgWhen I started on the first Troubled Waters post on Saturday I had no idea it was going to lead to two additional posts. It wasn’t until the first one was finished and I re-read it that I thought, yes, God comes to us in our troubled times, all we have to do is cry out to him but that isn’t quite the whole story. Peter’s prayer, “Lord, save me!” was prayed as Peter was seeking Jesus in the midst of the storm. Peter took the first step, Peter was following Jesus’ command, Peter got out of the boat! Which led to Part B yesterday. I woke up this morning and was going to just post a “Still Moment” but found my spirit troubled by some of the lofty words of yesterday’s post. We have all heard the saying “If you want to walk on water you have to get out of the boat.” Oh, ok thanks. That clears it all up. What does that even mean? Christians can be great at going around and spouting off clichés. Be anxious for nothing, pray for everything. (Biblical yes, but is it backed up by any “meat” in their own life or is it just off the cuff advice to combat your deep-seeded anxiety? Take two of these and call me in the morning type advice. And oh, by the way did they offer to come alongside and pray with you over it?) So as I re-ready yesterday’s post, I felt it a little cliché to say, “So I will go, out into the crashing waves, out into the deep to meet Jesus. If that means trying and failing, at least I have failed while trying.” Very well put but what the heck does it even mean? I am calling myself on this one because I hunger for more, for the nuts and bolts of faith.

I don’t have this all figured out and I will never claim to. God’s ways are higher than our ways. We try to understand Him in the only capacity we know how, which in turn puts Him into a human-size box and He is so much more. Infinitely more.

Here is what I should have said…

Father, I love you. I want to seek you and I want to obey your commands. I know that I don’t always do a good job. Sometimes I see something shiny and I get distracted for awhile, but You, in your mercy and grace, always bring me back around to what You have planned for me. You bring me back into your will. Please forgive me for the times when I have failed, when I have been distracted, when I have chosen my own path. Lord, you see my heart and my secret thoughts, and you know that sometimes the things that you ask of me are daunting. They are big, and they are primed for failure and disappointment and I am driven out of my comfort zone. Please remind me on those days that was what you were trying to teach Peter. That is what walking on water really is. It is conquering whatever is impossible, whatever is terrifying, through You. It is where you are waiting to display your power through me, and where you are waiting to show your love to me. Please help me to become more like you. I want so much more than to live in clichés. Lord, save me!

Today, I challenge you to do the same. Get back to the nuts and bolts. Strip your faith back down to the basics where it is just you and Jesus, alone on the water. What would you say to Him? And more importantly, listen for what He is saying to you. Where is He leading you? What “water” is He asking you to brave? I know sometimes its hard to hear Him through everything else clamoring around you. It’s why I started running. It’s why I started writing. Please, just be still…