Monday, July 6, 2009

now is the winter of our discontent...

I'm finding myself discontent lately. I didn't know it was happening until recently. I knew something was a little... disconnected, but I didn't know what or why. Now I know. Even though I'm surrounded by friends, family, and people that love me very much, I find myself discontent with the state of my life. Quite frankly, it's a little lonely.

But why? Because I'm not married? Because I'm not in the stage of life I think I should be in? Because I might secretly blame God for keeping me in one place too long and that's apparently a bad thing? Or because I blame myself, as if I had the choice to move on to the next stage of life and I passed it up?

E: All of the above.

I want to be married and I'm not. That's that. I see people who are the next stage of life and I want to be there. I'm tired of the problems that come with my current stage and I'm ready for new challenges. Yes, I do blame God. He's in control, isn't He? This is His show after all. And yes, I blame myself. I've had two distinct opportunities to move on to the next stage of life and I didn't.

But here's the thing about all that: if I'm not faithful with what I have been given in this stage, I won't be given anything new. If I'm not content with God in my current stage of life, I'm not going to be content in the next stage. Yes, God is in control, and He's a lot wiser than I am and He knows that moving me too quickly through life isn't going to turn out well for me. The decisions I've made in the past, I made after consulting a wise counsel and had a peace about them. Blaming myself now for making the right decisions then just seems silly, but you just saw me do it a paragraph ago.

The point is this: we, as humans, are pretty much stupid when it comes to what is best for us. Yeah, we make a right decision every now and then, but statistically, we're not good at running our own lives.

While I have been searching for contentment, the thought of asking God for it hadn't really entered my mind until today. I mean, praying for God to help me be content in Him... it just seems kinda wrong. Shouldn't my own contentment be something I can handle on my own? No, that's the point! We can't handle it! Something as huge as our own contentment, we cannot, nor should we try, to handle!

Here's what David said about it:

Psalm 62:5-8

5 Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. 6 He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. 7 My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. 8 Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.

David pretty much ordered his own soul to find its rest in God and then told it why God was worthy. David then moves from his own soul to all his peoples souls. Basically, David says "do this, because God will never let you fall." Is that a good enough reason to find my contentment in God? Simply because He's trustworthy? I can honestly say that I have tried to find my contentment in things other than God and have ended up very disappointed and discontent with myself and the world. But shouldn't I find my contentment in God because that's where it really is? Shouldn't I rest in God because I love Him and He loves me? My human heart doesn't always understand that.

Later, David says this:

Psalm 86:11-12

11 Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. 12 I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever.

David has to ask to be taught God's ways. He had to ask for an undivided heart so that he could love God as God should be loved and that he could fear God the way God should be feared.

My prayer today is this: that God would see fit to give me this undivided heart so that I can long for the things God longs for in my life. So that I would be able to see how He sees and help people and glorify God the way God should be glorified. I stink of humanity and sin and that hinders me from praising the Eternal God the way He should be praised. But that doesn't hinder me from asking that God make my heart whole so that He can use it for His glory.


I think I'll work on a drawing/painting to illustrate this "whole heart" idea...

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