Skip to main content

Un-Comfort-Able


Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said, “in mourning will I go down to the grave to my son.” So his father wept for him. (Genesis 27:34-35)
          How often do we refuse to be comforted? We think we have good reason to be upset. Sometimes, we do have good reason, and sometimes, we don’t. In either case, we are so invested in being upset, so determined to milk it for everything we can that we won’t let go of the pain or the anger.
          Dad is like that today. He doesn’t know where he is, and sometimes he doesn’t know who I am. But he is determined that what he believes to be true is true. He believes we’re in Florida and all the evidence we show that he’s in Pennsylvania is stuff we’re using to trick him for some unknown reason.
          As tragic as that is to deal with for him and us, we do the same thing all the time. We say “God is in control. God is good,” then go on and on about whatever is bothering us. In spite of what Scripture says, we tell others that we aren’t in a state of blessedness, but in the state of cursedness. Things are not as they should be because they are not as we’d like them. We refuse to be comforted.
          What does it take to be comfort-able? It takes being wiling to relax, to stay where we are, and allow others to be involved. It takes submission. It takes accepting what others give. It takes believing that something positive can happen. It takes hope. Right now, that’s a little difficult to find. WDA. WDA. Sometimes, when our focus is on reality as we dictate it, it takes letting go of what we demand

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen To Him

              The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . (Deuteronomy 18:15)           Today, we switch from Jesus’ claims of “I am” to prophecies made about Him. My Bible platform is starting in Deuteronomy. I’d start in Genesis, where we would learn that the one who would save us would be a descendant of Eve (Genesis 3:15), of Noah (by default), Abram and Sara(Genesis 12:1-3). Isaac (Genesis 17:19), Jacob (Genesis 25:23), Judah (Genesis 29:8), and David (II Samuel 7:12-16). There were also references to a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-32). In addition, there were prophecies about when and where the prophet/Messiah would be born and what would happen to him.           Of course, naysayers will claim that Jesus’ life was retrofitted or reverse enginee...
Post a Comment
Read more