Hi Sweet Friends,
I’ve had an epiphany. Or apathy. Or appendectomy. Hang on, let me check. …Yep. It’s definitely an epiphany. I’ve been watching a robin bang it’s head on my living room window for three or four weeks. Every day it’s the same routine. While his or her friends are building nests in my ferns and tearing them up to serve their own purposes, this robin has continually flown into the window and perched on the ledge. He sits there and stares in at us like he’s watching a movie at the drive-in. He often decides to give it one more try and bangs into the window trying to get in. The racket is frustrating. The mess he is leaving behind is more than frustrating. I have stared at this bird often thinking, “I wish he knew what I know.” You see, I know what would happen if this robin’s dreams came true and he finally made it in. I am fully aware that the bird is exactly where he is supposed to be. His reality is total freedom. What he is knocking his brains out for is captivity, imprisonment. He can no longer live as he was made to once he makes it in the house. In the house, his life would be a constant battle to make it back out to where he was in the first place. He is a perfect picture of discontentment. And this is where my “Aha” moment sets in.
I so often am that bird, staring in at someone else’s life, knocking my brains out trying to get in so I can be them. Or maybe I’m not wanting to be anyone else in particular, I’m just so badly not wanting to be me. And why exactly is that? What’s so bad about being me? I think my “dreamer” personality doesn’t help me out very much. I tend to have an artistic heart that is emotional and loves beauty and tends to fantasize. My contentment is often dependent on the contentment of those around me. As badly as I want everyone else around me to be content, I struggle with it daily. I often have a movie playing in my head and am disappointed, or even devastated, when my movie doesn’t match my reality. Unmet expectations are hard to bare. This is why three-year-olds throw a fit when they don’t get their way. We train them to not be so selfish and not throw a tantrum when disappointed. We try to teach them that the world does not revolve around them and there is a bigger story going on than theirs. We help them grow up. God doesn’t let us stay three years old. He is constantly giving us opportunities to grow up in contentment.
I feel like I have matured enough to know that the feeling of happiness comes and goes with the wind, so I don’t plant my garden in its ever-changing soil. Contentedness produces deep, solid roots that find purpose and even rest in the good or the bad circumstances in which it finds itself. It may even say, “I don’t like where I am right now. I want it to change. It hurts to be here. But while I am here, may I rest in the care of my Lord, knowing that I won’t experience anything He didn’t already experience for me or because of me. May I glorify Him and may His purposes be fulfilled in me in what feels like the waiting time.” The waiting time is a hard place to be. Waiting speaks to temporariness and things changing. But when, how? Watching the fulfillment of other’s dreams, especially when they are your dreams too, is painful and lonely. Our enemy comes to us in these waiting times and tells us that we are indeed alone, different than everyone else. We are somehow forgotten or not chosen for the good things that God seems to have lavished on others. He tells us that there is no hope for happiness. Everyone else is riding the happy train and we don’t have a ticket. We are banging our heads on the window trying to get in. Our enemy lies to us a lot about happiness. He dangles it like a carrot in front of us leading us down the path of bitterness, regret, jealousy, and discontentment. It feels true, but we’ve been on this journey long enough to know that we can’t trust our feelings and they are not an indicator of the reality of God and His work in us. We must go to the source of truth, God’s Word, to find out what is really going on. We must then agree with God and refuse to side with our enemy about the character and nature of God. Let’s blow some lies out of the water and claim the reality of who God is to us and who we are to Him.
I am loved. I John 4:10 tells us that God loved us when we didn’t love Him and sent His son to be the substitute for our death so we could be with Him forever.
I am cherished. Isaiah 49:15 tells us that just as a mother could not forget her nursing baby, neither could God forget us. We are His priority. He is always caring and providing for us.
I am not alone. Isaiah 41:10 tells us to not be afraid because God is our God, and He is with us. As He told Joshua in Joshua 1:9, “for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
God has good for me. Psalm 84:11 tells us that God withholds no good thing for those who walk with Him. Psalm 107:1 tells us that God is good. Romans 8:28 promises that He works all things together for good for those who love Him.
Is it possible that what is eating at my soul and depriving me of what I deem necessary for my fulfillment and contentment may one day be called “good” by me? Sin is not good. Sin is cruel, and all heartache is a result of it. Maybe not our own, but just the condition of a world cursed by it. We struggle to see correctly, and it hurts. We are not in our original form, but we will be again. And while we are in this waiting time, may we beg God for sight and truth and clarity. May we clamor for God’s name to be praised rather than clamor for a change in our circumstances. Sometimes we get both. Sometimes we are asked to praise God in a place we never wanted to be. I believe when that is the case, a root grows deep and a solidness of soul sets in and a knowing that can only come from a bowed knee and an unclenched hand raised in worship. There comes a deep understanding that He is God and His ways are not ours, but they are always good. Hard? Sure. Painful? Yes. Impossible? Never. It is His life in us, and it is good.
Like the bird on my front porch, I need someone who sees what I can’t to show me the way. What does God know about my life and circumstances that I don’t? What is He protecting me from? What is He saving me for? What is in my heart that He wants to show me? What is He preparing me for? What all does He want to accomplish during this waiting time? How does He want to grow me up and what will it take for that to happen? I’m not sure. But I do know that I don’t want to be banging my brains out on a window trying to get to a different life than what God has for now. Every pain requires a choice and act of obedience in me. It is a constant opportunity to sacrifice my will. A sacrifice costs something. It is the slaughter of something precious. It’s why we have a Savior. I was meant to live in freedom. I am free to do all things for the glory of God, not my own. I beg God not to let me be blinded by the selfishness that is constantly knocking at my door trying to sell me the lie that I should, even must, seek happiness and self-fulfillment because that is what matters most. Don’t buy it. We have no room and time for those lies. We don’t have time to be selfish. We can’t stay in a self-seeking mode missing God and leaving a mess to keep cleaning up. We have a very short time here to bring God glory through faith and not sight. We’re living in freedom and selflessness and for God’s glory. I’m not telling you to not hurt in your suffering. Of course you hurt. I’m just asking you to not waste it. It’s part of God’s bigger story in you. He’s asking us to live in His story. Make sure you’re not expecting it to be the other way around. Bow your knee, open your hand, and worship. That is what God is always leading us to. It is the goal in all suffering, all discontentment, all waiting. We finally realize it’s about Him, His story, His love, His glory, and His longing and pursuit to include us in it. I’m a receiver, a participant, a worshiper. It’s what I was made for. It’s the fulfillment of all my heart has longed for. I am no longer banging my head, obsessed with what I don’t have. I live in the freedom of all that is mine forever.
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