There are some days when I just feel so off-kilter and so out of touch that I find myself actually begging for the promises of God to be true. Which sounds silly because God is God and he doesnt break his promises regardless of whether I ask him to keep his word or not. Thank goodness he is not a human!
So today when I read the words “I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you” (Psalm 32:8), I found myself begging God to please please let that be true for me.
And of course it is. I'm his child. His kid. All of his promises are true for me.
But sometimes it feels like they're not.
Sometimes I let myself fall away from scripture and reminders of his promises to the point that I forget they are even there. Sad. But true.
Confession; lately I have felt very anxious, very distracted and very unsettled. Bigger confession, I sometimes struggle with remembering that God is good. Confession number three, I sometimes treat prayer as if it doesn't work. This presents itself in my not praying or thanking God but rather worrying and meditating on possible solutions to my problems instead.
Its a vicious cycle. And its not how it needs to be.
And so I read the words of Philippians 4:6-7 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
And I'll read them over and over again hoping that by reading them enough times I will start to feel peaceful. And sometimes that works and its great for a while until something else creeps back up, and sometimes that doesn't work and I get frustrated because it feels like I'm begging God for peace and he's just not answering.
But the peace of God is more than a flimsy feeling of peace. It is a knowing, and a settled confidence in the sovereign goodness of God that will guard against all anxious feelings. Its when I really believe that God's promises are true, and he will guide me, and he does have things covered, that I can start to experience real peace.
And so when I am thanking God for his promises, and reading them and constantly repeating them to myself is when my trust in God begins to deepen and real peace starts to set in. But its when I'm not thanking God and I'm not thinking about his promises and I'm instead thinking about all that I dont have, and all that I need to do, and all that I want for myself that I lose my trust in God and eventually slip into a very self-focused anxiety and depression. And thats the thing that I'm constantly struggling against. An obsession with self vs. a peace in God. And every day I am faced with a choice to follow God or myself, and even as obvious as the answer to that question may be, it is still never easy. Prayer, is not always easy for me. Wanting to read my bible is still not always easy for me. Running to God with my problems is still not always easy for me.
But thats why Paul tells Timothy that its a struggle and we have to train ourselves into godliness. It doesn't just show up, and it isn't easy. Something about Paul saying that being godly isn't easy, that makes me feel a lot better about how much I struggle with it. But we do still work after it. Because Paul also reminds us that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. So its not a pointless struggling and God promises that we will grow in it. He's not just gonna leave us to it on our own to see how quickly we can hang ourselves.
Which is a really beautiful thing to remember on days like today when I feel completely wretched and unable to think straight because of all the anxiety building up in my thoughts. I wont get left in that. And more often than not I have to speak truth to my emotions. Perception is not always reality and just because I'm a girl doesn't mean my feelings always get to win.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment