So often, if I find myself returning in frustration and anger, again and again, to a subject.
When this happens I know that it has become an area of idolatry for me. Or it’s an area that God wants to heal in my life. Or both!
I’m a slow learner but I’m learning this about myself. About God. His Truth is a beautiful thing. Opening my heart to God’s voice in my life not easy, even unnatural.
How to you do that? How do you listen well? And when you know that you need healing by Him, how does this usually occur? That’s something else I’m learning to allow space for in my life.
For the longest time I drank to try to make that Ugly Thing (you name it) go away. I ignored God’s regular, persistent call. His knocking was gentle, consistent, reliable true. But I chose to numb myself with alcohol or shopping or other idols. But by self-medicating, aren’t we simply postponing the inevitable? Running from reality. Ignoring truth. Letting the Ugly Thing win.
Areas where I have seen this in my life recently, where I am letting go of my vice grip of control.
I’m letting fly free the issue of women in my denomination.
I’m letting fly free my need for a “paying job.”
I am letting fly free my need for significance and accolades.
I am letting fly free my self-loathing.
I am letting fly free my wish for my children to know Jesus as their Savior.
These are all things that I have tried to ignore how much they hurt, yes my big gut wrenching fears that control my mind and heart. And in the end the weight of them crushes my spirit. I cannot bear the weight of them any longer.
So I open my hands and I see them fly away knowing that the universe is God’s and he is in control of it all. He loves me, he loves them, more than I ever could. His desire for justice and truth to prevail in the Church is stronger than mine. And in fact he gave me this heart, that breaks and so easily comes undone.
And finally, his desire for me to be useful to him is less than his wish for me to know, fear, and love who he is, the Holy One.
He made me and he’ll carry me and all my fears.
May we be people open to God and able to let go of our need for control whatever it is — it’s so different for everyone. Let them go free into God’s hands, because is it not true that the Holy One is so much more capable than you or me?
What do you need to let fly free?
Logic & Imagination 
My question for you is, what do you want? After all these hurts and fears, what would you think would bless you most?
LikeLike
I think we all want a sense of purpose to our life. That’s what I long for, even as I see what is ahead of me day by day. To be content.
LikeLike
Contentedness does not mean being satisfied. And vice versa. To learn that we do the best that we can in the moment, and striving to be better in the next is so very difficult. I wish that I could be content with today and satisfied for tomorrow, (or the other way around) but rarely is it so. Too often I confuse contentedness with complacence…
LikeLike