Ponderings from a week spent lying down!

As weeks go, this one has been harder than some, easier than others. Early in the week, my back seized and started to spasm. This led to pacing, drugs, lying on the floor and much prayer. I am doing everything I can and it gets a little better each day, however, I will not be back to average activities for a little while yet. This means I have spent more time in my thought/prayer life and indoors than an average week. The easier part comes from not lifting things and working from home some, so that I could alternate pacing, sitting and lying on the floor. The harder part is that my inner life is already pretty busy at the best of times but God has spent the week challenging my beliefs about Himself.

Actually He has challenged me on this longer than a week, but has driven the point home this week, which made living within myself all that much harder. He is quite remarkable and I stand in awe of the ways in which we can know God. He is so much more than I ever could have imagined when I began this life with Him. And yet, sometimes I learn so slowly that I feel like I am going backwards. The wonderful part is the more time I spend with the Trinity, the more time I want to spend with them and the more I realize that I will never reach the end of the getting to know.

So, back to the challenging part.....God is truly rich and created in us a desire to be great. This is God-given and quite fine, until my human heart gets involved. It takes what is holy and makes it greedy and selfish. So this week, God has been challenging my faith in His perfect authority through my desire to be great. I want to be great at my job, I want to be great in relationships, I want to be great at what I do (knitting, canoeing, reading, playing music)........I want to be great.

But I want to be great on MY terms. God is perfect and has a perfect plan for my life, and I have trouble believing that He knows whats BEST for me and that His plans are the BEST for me. I am just like the Isrealites. I can't see my way out of the desert, so I think that God must have gotten me lost. So I start looking for my GPS/maps and making my own plans to get to the promised land, instead of trusting that God can see the whole thing and I only the small portion I am currently in. I have questioned God's work and the details of it. I don't think there is anything wrong with asking questions, but by believing that I have the better plan of how God should work out my life, I am not submitting to His authority.

Now, we don't like the word submission. It conjurs up all kinds of abuses, which I don't support but I will live a much more joyfilled life, if I submit to my Heavenly Father, who holds perfect authority. By trying to take charge of my own life, I am trying to become God. Which is not who I am. God is God and kara is kara. Kara is human and God divine. So in all logical sense, I should just submit and be done with it. However, I am slow and God is patient and works things out so that I get lots of chances to learn. This week I got lots of chances to learn.

Learning for this week, is as follows:

God is God and He is perfect in all ways - authority, love, designer, provider, etc.
kara is not God - she is human and can not see the whole glorious picture
God wants the BEST for me and will work towards that - note: this may not look the way kara thinks it should
It is OK to be angry but not to sin (hold onto or cause hurt) in my anger - at God or at other humans

I was reading Hosea (go team for trying to read the Bible in a year) and the following really struck me this week, the last in the Lenten season:

Hosea 6:1-6

Come, and let us return to the Lord;
For He has torn, but He will heal us;
He has stricken, but He will bind us up.
After two days He will revive us;
On the third day He will raise us up.
That we may live in His sight.
Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord.
His going forth is established as the morning;
He will come to us like the rain,
Like the latter and the former rain to the earth.

O Ephraim, what shall I do to you?
O Judah, what shall I do to you?
For your faithfulness is like a morning cloud,
and like the early dew it goes away.

Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets,
I have slain them by the words of My mouth;
And your judgements are like light that goes forth.
For I desire mercy and not sacrifice
And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

Oh Hosea, what a hard task God set before you, and you were obedient. I hope and pray that when God calls me to submit to Him, I answer in obedience, like you did.

Check out Hosea and Gomer's story. I love it and the picture it creates of how foolishly we return to those things that do not bring life and despite that God loves His bride, the church, and calls her to return!

Ponderings on 'redemption' may follow...