Hey Steve, it's Thursday, and I am picking you up from the airport today.
Yay!
OK, but seriously, time to get to reflecting.
Get it?
No?
That's fine.
Dad jokes.
OK, now seriously.
Question one, what are the ways that I try to stand on my own and how has this failed
me?
I think the first part of this question is actually something I've talked about in other
responses, but I think it also still might be useful to reiterate it in a little bit
of a different way.
I find that sometimes my instinct is to try to save myself.
Like, I swear that I'm not going to keep making the same mistakes or committing the same sins,
and so I just try to buckle down and be better.
I just try to put my head down and be perfect, but it really isn't too long before I end
up falling into the same trap of sin that I set out trying to avoid.
The problem is that when I try to set out to make myself better, I'm actually falling
into the trap that is the very cause of all my pride, my self-reliance.
As if I had the capacity to make my broken body and soul well, as if I just tried harder
then I would be able to do better.
Because the problem is I don't recognize that I don't actually have strength to stand on
my own.
That's how I ended up here in the first place.
By just relying on myself, I leave myself further isolated and weak.
Because if I had the power to pull myself out of sin, then I would probably have the
power to pull myself out of death, but let's be real, I don't.
This is why we need the Lord, and yet I willingly blind myself to this reality sometimes.
I cannot deliver myself from my own brokenness of soul, and any attempt to do so just leaves
me further entrenched in the cycle of brokenness.
Question two, how am I focused on my own idea of how God should act?
Man, you cut to the core.
This is actually probably one of the biggest things I struggle with in my life.
Like, I have all these ideas of how God should act and what God should do, and when He doesn't
I get frustrated.
Full disclosure, I struggle with living in Phoenix.
It's hot, I frequently think that it's ugly, and everything in my life is too far away
from where I actually live.
It's just hard sometimes.
And, to my shame, I spend a lot of time complaining about it.
I pray that somehow God will provide an opportunity for me to get out of here.
But, if I really slow down, I think that I might be missing what God is trying to do
in my life.
What God is trying to do in my heart.
Because I think my problem with Phoenix actually has very little to do with Phoenix.
I think it has almost everything to do with me.
Until I got married, I moved around a lot.
I bounced from place to place just 'cause I got bored or dissatisfied.
But now that I have a family, it wouldn't be fair to them if I were to uproot them from
their life just because I don't like the place that we live.
And so I sort of feel like God has pinned me down, but in a good way.
I feel like He's trying to shape my heart to learn how to be content and hope, and,
after all, you can't hit a moving target.
Instead of running away from the things that I don't like and just giving in to a spirit
of discontent, the Lord is likely teaching me how to stay put, how to sink into my life
and show up for it even when it's hard.
And so while I may have all these ideas and dreams and hopes about the kind of life that
I could live with my family somewhere else, I think the Lord is working on my heart.
Teaching me how to be content in the present.
Three, how am I not joining in the celebration of others?
You know, I actually think about this a lot.
This idea of shared joy.
And the Scriptures command us to rejoice with those who rejoice.
I think part of the reason that it's a command is because sometimes it's really hard to do.
For me, I think it's easy to get discouraged when things are going well for other people,
because then I start to feel like I'm far behind the curve.
When others succeed, particularly in areas where I'm struggling to get by, I'm stricken
with despair.
What are they doing that I'm not doing?
What am I doing wrong or, rather, what's wrong with me?
Others' successes don't so much mark me with envy as much as they hit me with despair.
I fail to feel good for other peoples' successes because I'm too busy feeling bad for my failures.
When others are flying high, I realize how low I am.
When I see their successes, I'm reminded of my failures.
But man, I really hope it's not like that forever.
Alright Steve, that's all I got, and I'll see you in like, a couple hours.