Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Think About These Things

                 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8) This passage is a major challenge for me. Like everyone else, I struggle to keep my thoughts from wandering off into the weeds, then wondering what possible benefits those weeds might have… Sigh. But as a writer, I have to delve at least a little into the ignoble, wrong, impure, unlovely, and debased. After all, there’s no story if everything’s just as it should be and everyone’s happy. As Christians, there are times when we need to deal with all the negatives, but that makes it even more important that we practice turning our minds by force of attention to what is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. It’s just too easy to get stuck in a swamp. With my...
1 comment
Read more

Higher Thoughts

  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the  Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)           The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,   for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord      so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16) If you read about the ancient gods of the various peoples, you’ll find that they think just like people. In fact, they think just like the sort of people we really wouldn’t want to be around. They think like the most corrupt Hollywood producer or, like hormone overloaded teens with no upbringing.   It’s embarrassing to read. I have a friend who argues that because God is not just like us, He is so vastly dif...
2 comments
Read more

Pure...

            The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (I Timothy 1:5)   I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:15-16) I’m probably cheating - or mishandling the Bible, but earlier I was thinking about love being pure and purifying. And hatred being pure and purifying. And anger…joy…patience… fear… jealousy… courage…lust… and other strongly felt feelings, attitudes, and beliefs. Today’s verse brings purity and love together, so it’s the verse of the day, but it’s not really the focus. That means my motive for sharing it with you probably isn’t pure. As you read through my list, you   probably thought, “Yeah” about some, and “What’s she on?” about others. But consider how much hatred, a...
Post a Comment
Read more