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Meltdown

             Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”  “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?” For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:13-36)

 

Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord, or instruct the Lord as his counselor? (Isaiah 40:13)

 

Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me. (Job 41:11)

 

As a quick prelude, the verse from Isaiah and Job are the cross-references for the passage in Romans. The nice thing about it is that it shows that even the “greats” like Paul didn’t feel they had to come up with original phrases with which to praise Him. We don’t have to be poets like David. We can quote as long as the quote connects to our souls.

Now, to the passage. Last night, I got some bills, and life fell apart…again. It tends to do so whenever life doesn’t go the way I want it to. So, I’m running to God with the “Help! Father! Make it all better!” routine, complete with dire predictions about being out on the street. I’m not saying this routine is accurate in terms of reality. It’s just accurate in terms of how my mind works. And I know what I should do is take advantage of the excess energy produced by the anxiety to get some things done. I should use it to give me the boldness to do things I should do. Instead, I tend to use it to whine, which has the marginal benefit of using some of the energy up.

And then, Biblegateway.com gives me part of the passage from Romans above as the verse of the day. Yes! Let’s celebrate. “God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform,” and all that jazz. Except, it’s true. Some of the hardest things I’ve faced have produced the greatest blessings, made me stronger, revealed that I’m already stronger than I thought, and given me the chance to grow, trust, love, to hope, and dream.

So, God is good. God is God. I don’t understand – can’t understand what He is doing in my life, and even more, I can’t begin to even pretend to understand how He can take all the pieces of my life, and all the pieces of your life, and all the pieces of all of the lives around us and make them work together to accomplish His goals. I’m working on my third book, and it’s hard to keep all of the details straight for the various characters who people the story. I can’t imagine trying to do it with millions, or billions. And yet… He does. So not only is God good. And now only is God, God, but God is amazing – and is fully capable of guiding me through the details of my little life. So I’m going to hold onto that, and the joy it brings, even though my inclination is to meltdown.

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