Christ offers hope, not relief, in the middle of suffering.
Finding God, Larry Crabb
Where is hope? Is having hope in God and having hope in finding a job soon related at all? Where is my allegiance, to what am I giving my energy? My heart?
Is my hope in God or is my hope in myself? Hope in God should bring rest to my soul, while hope in myself brings about this frantic effort to get my act together. How do I rectify the two? How do I keep faithfully looking for a job and still be faithful to only God? What if God never provides me with a job? What then?
I know deep down that God is good. I know that God is faithful to provide me with what I need to make it through today. So why is there so much doubt right now? So much fear? What is this angry fist that I am swinging at God? Am I saying that God owes me more than he is giving me? That God must somehow be holding out on me?
I am realizing that my current pain has really become a "friend" to me. My pain wrongly justifies my choices. It wrongly justifies my angry fist at God. I know that the knowledge of that should bring me to my knees pleading for God's mercy, but I am not quite there yet. I seem caught between my pain and brokenness; between my dear "friend" and God.
There is a feeling of hope as I write that, a hope that has recently felt absent to me. It is proof to me that deep down I really do believe God is good. I know He will win my heart in the end. So for the moment, I am free to live caught between pain and brokenness; free because the breaking is not something I can do even if I tried, it is the Spirit's work. I trust God to bring me to my knees.
To believe Christ (faith), to serve Christ (love), and to wait for Christ (hope): that is what it means to find God.
Finding God, Larry Crabb
I understand your description of being 'caught between'. That feels familiar to me...in may different contexts. A leaving behind of something whose fragrance (or stench) is still wafting about...and a leaning towards something true and alive, yet unfamiliar, and threatening on the front end.
ReplyDeleteMay your knees know where your heart can't.
And, keep sharing your thoughts. They are good...for all of us.
I was reminded of something today as I read John 16. "Because you've gone out on a limb, committed yourselves to love and trust me, believing I came directly from the Father, the Father loves you directly." (v. 27 from The Message) This verse seems to be saying that the Father is moved by our faith in Jesus--by our loving and trusting Him. Somehow we offer something to the heart of God by our faith. I think most of the time I'd rather have the pain taken away. But this verse pushes me in another direction and stirs up my desire to trust because I see that it means something to Him.
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