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Showing posts with label Morning Thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Morning Thoughts. Show all posts
I’m typing this on New Year’s Eve. The Christmas decorations are starting to feel like clutter, and there are still a few opened presents piled into random corners. I am choosing to ignore all of that, and I’m sitting next to our wood stove with a cheap mechanical paper and a list of New Year’s Eve questions.
I don’t think I’ve ever taken such intentional time on New Year’s Eve to reflect on the previous year, but if I’ve needed it any year, it’s this one. “Pick three words to describe this past year,” the paper commands me. My three words combined give an impression of the year that feels more negative than it actually was, but I don’t think I can change any of them.
Quiet. So many years can be described this way, but this is how the year felt internally for me. Not alot happened this year that was life-changing, there were no major events. We didn’t do anything very grand. We made outings of local sights, we played alot of games, we hung around here. We visited family, had dinners with friends, went to the pool, went roller skating, went on hikes. No huge vacations or parties or weekend trips. Just quiet. There is a subtle difference between “quiet” and “peace”, but I found this year that the first can lead to the second if you have the right perspective.
Disappointments. Alot of things did not go to plan this year. We had to cancel plans, shell out savings money for broken appliances, and subsequently rework our budget. We weren’t able to take a trip to see our dear out-of-state friends as planned, and that one hurt. We had some unexpected challenges that made me slow down and appreciate the time I have with my loved ones, because each day is a gift, but we don’t always notice that. Many things that happened this past year have reminded me that death can come for us at any time - and having that in mind shouldn’t be morbid, but should fix my eyes on things that really matter. Knowing God more, loving Him better, living “before the face of God” - coram Deo, something I learned from R. C. Sproul - these are pursuits that are never wasted. Disappointments remind us Christians that this world isn’t our ultimate home. We are just passing through.
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.”
-Augustine
Togetherness. Even though we didn’t get to do all the grand things this year, in the end, I think it was a good thing. We had to get a little more creative to plan fun things to do, and those things ended up being fun because of the people we were with, not the thing we were doing. I’ve appreciated more than ever having a happy, healthy family life, having friends we love, having extended family relationships that are a peaceful joy in our lives. Not everyone can say those things. These are true riches.
“Create a statement that describes this past year for you,” the paper prompts me.
I tap my pencil against my teeth, and hesitate. Creating a phrase to represent a whole year is no small task.
This is what I scribble down.
Disappointments are inevitable, but time is a treasure I can’t take for granted.
Lord, teach me to number my days, that I may gain a heart of wisdom.
Do you ever feel a little lost or purposeless, or wonder what God’s will is for your life?
I have felt that way at times, especially when I get caught up in the daily tasks of my role as a wife and mom, which can at times feel monotonous. When the kids are crying over a math lesson, dinner is burning while we are busy struggling under a load of laundry, and job conflicts or people problems are burdening us emotionally, it’s easy to start thinking there is something bigger and better out there that we’re missing - especially with the call of the little squares on social media, like a siren song, altering our expectations and luring us to all the wrong things.
Well, God‘s will for your life and mine isn’t some mysterious thing that we have to figure out. It’s right here:
“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.”Colossians 1:9-12 NKJV
Did you catch it? In verse nine Paul tells the Colossians that he is praying they will be filled with knowledge of God’s will:
“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;”
And then he lists exactly what that is in the following verses.
“…{1}that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, {2}being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; {3}strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; {4}giving thanks to the Father…”
I don’t know about you, but I fall short of all of those things every day. But to any extent that God strengthens me to fulfill His will for my life, it is only because of what Christ has done on the cross. God alone is holy, and He took our sins upon Himself and died in our place, offering us His righteousness when we trust in Christ, so that we can stand blameless someday before the throne of God.
“He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” Colossians 1:13-14 NKJV
So you and I, when we trust in Jesus alone for our salvation, we don’t have to sit around wondering anymore if we are missing God’s will for our lives. Wherever we are, whatever we are doing with our time, whatever obstacles or struggles come with those daily tasks, we can live fully in His will if we do these things. We can pray and ask Him to equip us to…
…walk in a manner worthy of Him, fully pleasing Him in whatever we do,
…bear fruit in every good work by the power of His Holy Spirit,
…increase in your knowledge of God,
…be strengthened by His glorious might to do your daily work, in service to Him, with endurance, patience, and joy,
…and to give thanks to the Father who delivered us from darkness to the light of Christ’s Kingdom, by Jesus own blood spilt for our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.
That. That is God’s will. For your life and for mine.
Sometimes it’s not a very clear answer. This is where Paul’s prayer for spiritual wisdom makes a lot of sense. We need to pray for God’s wisdom to see these things clearly when making decisions. If there is no right/wrong decision, it’s just a matter of our preference, then I think we choose to the best of our ability, and do whatever we do to the glory of God.
What do you think?
This morning in my Bible reading, I read this verse:
"...Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel - and God knew."
Exodus 2:23-25
That last part really stood out to me today - God knew. It wasn't that He didn't know before and now He did, it wasn't that He forgot and then remembered. He always knows, He always remembers. Another version, instead of "knew", says He "acknowledged them". He marked His covenant with the Israelites in His mind - our God who is always faithful to His covenants, though we never are. He saw their suffering, and He knew.
How grateful I am that He is a God who knows, who sees, who keeps His covenant when we are faithless, who is always good and worthy of our trust.
"It is good indeed that God remembers His covenants. We are a forgetful people who fall short in our commitments, but the Lord never fails to keep His promises. From our perspective, He may seem slow in doing so, but rest assured that He will always keep His covenant words. If we trust in Him, we can count on Him today to save us and to give us many more blessings besides."-Tabletalk Magazine, January 2022
Note: Sometimes I make sharing things on this blog too complicated - sometimes I want to write about something I read in my devotions, or a quick point that's on my mind, but it feels too short for a post. But what's wrong with short posts, anyway? So I might just stick those short things in a quick "Morning Thoughts" post in the future. Hence the "Vol. 1".
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