ApprehendingGrace.com

Six Temptations of Failure, Day 2 of 6

Yesterday I started a 6-part blog about the temptations of failure. The first temptation we looked at was the temptation to believe that you are a failure. It’s a lie. Don’t believe it. Believing it leads to the second temptation.

Temptation #2: Allowing a Failure to Spread Its Branches
Once you start to buy into the lie that you yourself are a failure (instead of seeing the truth that you are loved by God who continues to delight in you, despite the fact that you have experienced some things that didn’t work the way you intended), the next step for many is believing that you “can’t do anything right.” The first lie has taken root and has begun to spread its branches into every area of your thinking.

This one always shocks me when someone says it, simply because it’s such a blatant and bogus lie! Of course you can do MANY things right! You probably did a pretty good job at taking a shower and getting dressed this morning! This week you may have cooked some good meals or balanced the checkbook or made a sale or made a good decision. You probably did LOTS of those things and many others very well.

Every professional athlete experiences a “slump” from time to time. Home run king Babe Ruth also held another record — the one for most strike-outs. Thomas Edison tried 5,000 different ideas before he invented a workable light bulb. The prophets Elijah and Jeremiah both despaired that all of their efforts and all of their ministry didn’t produce any change in the lives of those they preached to. Each of these great people, when they were in their slump, could have bought into the lie that they can’t do anything right, but history shows it isn’t true.

If you’re ever tempted to believe this lie, step back and say as Jesus did, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” Then sit down and make a list of ALL the things you did right today. Did you ask for God’s help at all? That’s doing something right. Did you pray or read your Bible? Those are things you did right. Did you call a friend when you were overwhelmed? That was a good decision. The list could go on, of course, but make your own list. Walk through your day in your mind and list everything you did right, even the small things.

I’m serious! Do it! You’ll begin to see that the sentence “I can’t do anything right” is a foolish one.

Six Temptations of Failure, Day 1 of 6

Blogs by nature are generally supposed to be short. I’m not good at that. I’ve written an article that I’m confident is a message that many people need to hear. Rather than subject you to the reading the article as a very long blog, however, I’m breaking it into six smaller blogs.

Now, on to an introduction and temptation #1.

Six Temptations of Failure

Failure. It’s such an “ending word.” At least it sounds that way to me. In God’s economy, though, it is anything but an ending word. It is the beginning of something great that God wants to make out of the situation and those involved in it. God’s Word says:

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28 (NRSV)

If you love God and are pursuing His purposes for your life, when you experience failure you can know that God is going to begin to make something good out of the situation. Failure isn’t necessarily from Satan – God allows us to fail to bring about growth in our lives. He uses our failures to teach us things, to conform us to the image of Christ, and to show forth His glory. That’s part of the “good” that God works in our lives.

But when God begins to make something good, we can also know that Satan tries to foil His plans. One of his favorite tactics, especially in failure, is to misdirect God’s people with enticing alternatives. Failure carries with it many temptations, all of which have the potential to stop us in our tracks if we don’t resist them.

Bringing goodness – or even greatness – out of failure is God’s specialty. Bringing defeat and death is Satan’s specialty. Whether we embrace the greatness or the defeat is up to us. In this blog, I hope to debunk many of the temptations the enemy uses to entice us away from God’s plan when we experience failure.

Temptation #1: Believing That You are a Failure
I hope all of you have heard the phrase “failure is an event, not a person.” I’ve heard it from many people, but I think the first was Christian motivational speaker Zig Ziglar. Failure is the event that didn’t go as planned; it is not the person who planned, implemented or participated in the event.

One of the first things Satan throws in our face when we experience a failure is the lie that we are the failure. On the surface it would seem like a hard sell for Satan – after all, who wants to think of themselves as a failure? The truth, though, is that for many of us it’s easier to believe the lie that we are a failure than to hold on to the hope of success. Scripture says “hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12). When we experience a failure, it’s easy to lose hope. If we allow the failure to define us instead of applying the word “failure” only to the event, it’s easier to believe that we are the failure instead of holding onto the promise that God has something better for us.

The truth is that God made us uniquely for His purposes. Holding on to His truth requires actively engaging our faith. Believing the lie that we are a failure doesn’t require much of anything from us. Experiencing a failure takes the wind out of our sails and lowers our resistance to temptation. Although it is debilitating and painful, believing the lie can be the path of least resistance. Believing the lie is easier than holding steadfastly to the truth that God has something greater for us. Believing the truth requires that we expend the emotional and spiritual energy to actively engage our faith – to say “God will prevail on my behalf.”

Tomorrow’s Temptation: Allowing a Failure to Spread It’s Branches

Note: you can purchase each of the books discussed in this blog simply by clicking on the name of the book.

Having graduated with my masters a few weeks ago, I have been thinking a lot about “what’s next?” I want to pursue more speaking and writing, but I don’t think that’s the whole picture and I don’t have many answers to that question. I am, comfortable resting in God as He unfolds things before me, yet “what’s next?” keeps reverberating in my mind. It’s created in me a more watchful state about opportunities that might appear on the horizon (at right in front of my nose).

It’s also had me thinking very specifically about what I’d like my life to be. I am regularly and eagerly praying “Lord, Your will, not mine – where can You best use me in Your kingdom,” but I am also thinking through what I would like to do in this next phase of my life and asking God to fulfill those dreams.

With that as a backdrop and having been released from “required reading,” I’ve read three fiction books in the past month (!). Interestingly, each has lent its perspective to the process and has made a strong impression on me. Curiously, I didn’t choose any of these books:

• My husband, Phil, picked the first book – one that had been sitting in our library for quite some time and neither of us had read yet. It didn’t appeal to me at first, so I laid beside my bed and it stayed there several days – until I was leaving for an appointment and wanted to something to read should I have to wait. I quickly grabbed the book and was out the door.
• A few days after finishing that book, I picked up another book at the retreat house I stayed at for a couple of nights. Having read Scripture and a devotional book, meditated, prayed and worshipped, I felt ready for something lighter and found a basket of books. I picked up the one by an author I had read a book by almost thirty years ago.
• Finally, two weeks ago, Phil stopped at a discount store and for only $1.99 they had a copy of the first book in a six-book series by my favorite fiction authors. Who could resist such a bargain! Being side-lined a bit after my knee surgery, I’ve had plenty of time to read it.

I’ve provided this detail because it’s so interesting to me that I truly had little to do with choosing the books I read, and each has challenged me in the same way, while weaving stories across three continents and sixty years.

Can you say “God speaks?” One of the way God speaks to us is by the repetition of a theme – it comes up in a conversation with a friend, then we read an article that touches on the same topic, then our Scripture reading that day reinforces the message…or perhaps we just read three books in a row with the same message. Clearly, God is speaking.

Each of these books has made me very aware of the blessed life I lead and even more aware of how warped my definitions of a “blessed life” and “success” are. But I’ll get to that. First, a little about the books I’ve read:

Safely Home, by Randy Alcorn, was the first book I read. It is a story about a Chinese man, educated in the United States and on the fast track to becoming a professor and famous thinker of his time. He is also a Christian and upon returning home, he finds all opportunities closed to him…except that of a lock maker. He becomes the best lock maker, living a life that challenges the reader to make sense of the world in which we live and the purposes of God in one man’s life. “Is this the day I die?” the lead character asks every day as he lives for eternity instead of for himself.

Secret Believers: What Happens when Muslims Believe in Christ, by Brother Andrew and Al Janssen, is the fictionalized account of real people who live in Muslim countries and come to faith in Christ. How are the people in the story to fulfill their calling to strengthen the Church when it is illegal for the Church to exist? It is a story about how believers live, struggle, and glorify God when the place to which they are called is hostile toward them and their faith.
    
    

Jerusalem Vigil, by Bodie & Brock Thoene. The Thoenes are masterful authors of historical Christian fiction. Jerusalem Vigil is the first book in the Zion Legacy series and begins with the creation of Israel is a nation. Jews and Christians attempt to make their home in the war-torn city of Jerusalem as neighbors on all side seek to destroy the nation before it has a chance to live. It is a gripping novel about the lives of those transplanted from safety to a place requiring all they have to give and more – all the compassion, all the strength, all the love, and most importantly all the faith.

In all cases, the main characters lived with great fear and sadness. In all cases, the main characters redefined for me the phrase “blessed life” and the concept of “success.” Both have little to do with circumstances and everything to do with perspective. I am blessed to serve God in my circumstances. Success is a life lived for God with integrity and purpose…regardless of whether that life is lived out in a place my “dreams” would never take me, or exactly in the place my dreams would take me.

I’m reminded of what Paul said:

²⁰For I live in eager expectation and hope that I will never do anything that causes me shame, but that I will always be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past, and that my life will always honor Christ, whether I live or I die. ²¹For to me, living is for Christ, and dying is even better.
          Philippians 1:20-21 (NLT)

²⁰I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. ²¹For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 
          Philippians 1:20-21 (NIV)

As I recall, there is also that phrase in the Bible about sharing in Christ’s sufferings:

¹⁷Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
          Romans 8:17 (NIV)

Wow…we are His children IF we share in His sufferings. And sharing in those sufferings is living for Christ, seeing Him exalted in our bodies. Somehow I think that message gets lost in American Christianity. Lord, forgive us.

Can you pray this simple prayer with me?

Lord, continue to shape and mold my understanding of success and blessing. I submit to Your will for my life…where ever it leads.

On Monday, a blog about destiny…..hmmm, I see a theme here!

¹⁸Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.¹⁹When such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself and therefore thinks, “I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way.” This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. ²⁰The LORD will never be willing to forgive him; his wrath and zeal will burn against that man. All the curses written in this book will fall upon him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven. ²¹The LORD will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.
          Deuteronomy 29:18-21

Whew! I read this passage and my first thought was “I need to write a blog about this.” My second thought was…”what in the world would I say?”

You see my first thought came from a place of understanding that many slide backwards in their faith from time to time and the condemnation they feel as they try to come back to the Lord can be great. Let me say here as at the begining, as strongly as I can: If you are on your way back to the Lord, any condemnation you feel is not from the Lord and is totally inappropriate. The Lord is not the author of condemnation, Satan is. The Lord is the author of conviction – that is, bringing about a heartfelt sorrow for our sins that is accompanied by a desire to turn away from those sins and by taking steps to do so. That’s from the Lord. Condemnation, on the other hand, tends to immobilize us in guilt and keep us from taking steps toward reconciliation with God and others. Conviction motivates us to change. Condemnation immobilizes us, keeping us from change.

Yet we read here in Deuteronomy 29 that God will bring disaster on those who have turned away from Him and go their own way to the extent that “the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven.” Where is there room for repentence and reconciliation with God? Where is there room for a renewal in our relationship with God if we have fallen away?

That was my dilemma as I considered blogging about this passage. My goal for ApprehendingGrace.com is to help each of us apprehend – grab hold of – what God has done for us and what He wants to do in us and for us. Where is that message in this chapter? To use King Solomon’s phrase from Ecclesiastes, is my whole purpose just “a chasing after the wind?”

It can’t be. I know that God accepts the prodigal. I know that He watches for the prodigal’s return. Yet somehow it’s not satisfying enough for me to simply explain away this Deuteronomy 29 passage with the often used phrase of “we’re under the New Covenant, the covenant of grace.” Yes, we are under the New Covenant, in which God promises salvation to all who would come to Him in humility and sincerity and ask for His forgiveness of their sins and Lordship in their lives. Still, God’s Word remains true and this passage sure doesn’t seem to provide much wiggle room for anyone who has backslidden.

So you understand my conundrum. My approach was to set all that aside and keep reading. (When in doubt, keep reading. Pause to pray, but keep reading.) Am I glad I did! You see, Deuteronomy 30 is a continuation of Deuteronomy 29. Our chapter divisions weren’t in the original writing and they don’t always seem to make sense. They make it possible to refer to specific portions of Scripture, but we shouldn’t allow verse or chapter divisions interrupt the train of thought of the original writers. Read with me portions of Deuteronomy 30:

¹When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the LORD your God disperses you among the nations, ²and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, ³then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. ⁴Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back… ⁶The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live….⁹…The LORD will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your fathers, ¹⁰if you obey the LORD your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
          Deuteronomy 30:1-10

If we turn from God, as described in Deuteronomy 29, God will surely bring those disasters upon us. But when we return to the Lord, He will restore us. It really is as simple as that…and yet it’s not just that simple. It’s really much better than that!

I love so many verses in this passage: “Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back.” No matter how far we have strayed from God, now matter how badly we have been conquered by our enemies, God will meet us in that place and will gather us in His arms and bring us back. Wow! He will bring us back. I play a role, of course – I have to determine in my heart to love God and obey Him. But having done that, He will bring me back. He will do the heavy lifting. He will conquer the foes who have conquered me during my time of disobedience. Hallelujah! What a gracious God we serve.

Not only will He bring me back, He will circumcise my heart so that I am able to love Him all the more. Further, He will take delight in me. The word translated “take delight” is literally “rejoice over” or “take great joy because of.” It totally blows me away that the Creator of all things we see (and don’t see) around us and of every distant galaxy and star, the King above all kings, the One who holds the universe together, will be delighted in me. He will take great joy because of my love for Him. If we could truly grab hold of just this last point, our lives would be revolutionized. Why should I care what opinions others hold of me? Why should I become discouraged because I can’t do all that I’d like to do? Why should I…? I shouldn’t. The King of Glory delights in me simply because I love Him.

Oh, Lord, may all who read this know that they know that they know how much you love them. And may You circumcise our hearts that we may love You more.

²⁰But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” ²¹Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
          Romans 9:20-21

³For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.⁴Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function,⁵so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.⁶We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith.⁷If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach;⁸if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
          Romans 12:3-8

Are you happy with the way God made you? Or do you long for a better singing voice, or greater organizational skills. Do you wish you had curly hair or straight hair or more hair? In my family, my siblings always thought I had all the brains and I always thought they had all the common sense. None of us were happy with the way God had created us. (Now just for the record, I didn’t get all the brains and they didn’t get all the common sense. I’ve come to understand that as an adult, but childhood images of one’s self can be hard to shed.)

God has created each of us uniquely to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us. He has custom-made us to fill the hole in the universe that He created for us to fill. If we don’t fill it, it will just be a void – a place in time and space that is empty, waiting for the perfect fit to come and fill it.

We have such a tendency to be dissatisfied with ourselves, when what we ought to do is celebrate that we are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God for His purposes (Psalm 139:14, Genesis 1:27, Ephesians 2:10).

I cannot fulfill God’s purposes for me when I am wishing I were or trying to be someone else. That either makes it really crowded in the space that God’s created for them or makes my space seem ill-fitting. But when I celebrate and grow in the person God has made me to be, my space begins to feel just right for me. In fact, my space probably expands a bit because I fill it so well.

How insidious is this desire to be other than we are! While writing this blog I began to look up a Scripture. It was the Ephesians passage I referenced above. But I didn’t know it was in Ephesians. So I started using the search feature in my Bible software. In the meantime, I asked my husband for help. He immediately gave me the reference I was looking for. The words that came out of my mouth next are the exact opposite of what this blog is about! Aargh! I immediately said, “I wish I could do that.” Well, yes, it would be nice to have the recall of Scripture that my husband has. But God hasn’t wired me that way. I have read and studied Scripture as much as he has. I have applied myself to memorizing it as he has. But unless I continually review those memorized passages they are easily lost from the front of my mind. He, on the other hand, has probably not reviewed Ephesians 2:10 lately. He just learned it once and now he knows it. He just knows where to find whatever it is he is looking for. And the truth is I’m jealous of him because I have to research to find those passages that I already know or once knew. I need to keep a good concordance or search feature nearby. Does that make him smarter than me? No, it just means he was created differently and for different purposes. And instead of wishing I were like him, I want to pursue the place God has uniquely created me for.

There is a flip side to all of this. Just as we ought to celebrate and grow into the person God created us to be, we ought to be very careful to not try to fit anyone else into a slot that God has not created for them. Phil and I served as co-pastors for a short time. We work very well together. Where one of us is strong, the other is weak and vice versa. We submit to one another according to our areas of strengths and God’s leading. During the time that we were pastors, our supervisors tried to force each of us into roles for which we were not created – roles in each of our areas of weakness. It made for an exceedingly difficult experience for all of us. In fact, the affect it had on Phil and I was that it made us feel like failures and doubt the abilities God has given us. We were not, in fact, failures. We were just the proverbial square pegs being required to fill the round holes. Had we been given the freedom to let Phil fill the holes that he was created to fill and me fill the holes that I was created to fill, the needs of the church would have been met as God intended them to be.

When we force someone into a role that God has not designed them to fill, we not only are working against the plan of God for that person’s life, but we are assisting in making them ineffective for the Kingdom of God. As a coach, we ought to look for the best in each person, celebrate it, water it and nurture it.

So this week, my goal is to do just that – in myself and in others. Lord, let me celebrate the woman you have made me to be, trusting that you have created a perfect hole for me to fill. Let me also see others as You see them, celebrate who they are, and encourage them to grow into the person you’ve designed them to be.

I invite you to join me in celebrating God’s creation – you, me and those around us – uniquely created to fulfill God’s purposes.

He does not need to transplant us into a different field, but right where we are, with just the circumstances that surround us, He makes His sun to shine and His dew to fall upon us, and transforms the very things that were before our greatest hindrances into the chiefest and most blessed means of our growth. No difficulties in our case can baffle him. No dwarfing of your growth in years that are past, no apparent dryness of your inward springs of life, no crookedness or deformity in any of your past development, can in the least mar the perfect work that He will accomplish, if you will only put yourselves absolutely into His hands and let Him have His own way with you.
                                         Hannah Whitall Smith (1832-1911)

Quoted from page 45 of The NIV Worship Study Bible; published by Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI; copyright 2000 by The Corinthian Group, Inc., Dana Point, CA.

How very hard it can be to trust the Lord when we are in pain! It doesn’t matter whether the pain is physical, emotional or spiritual, it can be difficult to rest in God’s peace when the questions of “why?” and “when?” and “will He?” jab at our souls at every turn.

There was a time when I unequivocally said that I had the gift of faith. My ability to trust God went beyond myself — I just knew He was trustworthy and I could count on Him. That deep-down-in-your-spirit kind of knowing that you can’t really explain. That peace that surpasses all understanding.

Then life happened. Significant life. Significantly bad life. Don’t get me wrong. I am blessed. But in the midst of that blessed life, I experienced life circumstances that challenged the farthest reaches of my gift of faith.

I am on the recovery path from those circumstances. My path hasn’t been a straight one, by any means — I didn’t always do the right things — but I have learned some things along the way that might be helpful to others who are in the midst of “life.” In the following discussion, I continually use the word “healing.” Please realize that I am not necessarily talking about physical healing. If you have suffered a significant emotional blow, I mean emotional healing.

• There probably is no straight path to healing. Expect that you’ll take two steps forward and then fall back a step. Over time, the number of steps you move forward will begin to outweigh your backwards steps at a much greater ratio.That might mean measuring your progress in terms of months at first instead of weeks or days. Physical issues demonstrate this well — for the common cold, people expect to feel a little better each day, but recovery from abdominal surgery might take six weeks, and recovery from a stroke might take six months. When recovering from the surgery or stroke, you won’t sense that any healing has taken place on a daily basis. For those more significant setbacks in life, don’t even try to measure your progress toward healing on a daily basis — measure your progress in weeks or months.So don’t think of your goal as being past your current circumstances. Make your goal to move closer toward healing each week. Your ultimate goal is to be healed, but work toward the smaller goals and celebrate those incremental victories. There was a time when I said to my husband “I haven’t been angry for a week.” That was a step in my healing that took several months to achieve. It was worth celebrating.
• Don’t let setbacks discourage you. Don’t live in them. Don’t overly coddle yourself. Accept them as reality, set aside the disappointment, and continue moving forward. There is so much to be learned from the physical realm here: I am always shocked by the fourth day of a cold. Colds typically run something like this for me:     Day 1 — feel yucky
       Day 2 — feel like I’m going to die, or wish I would
       Day 3 — I’m amazed at how good I feel, Praise God that this cold was so short-lived
       Day 4 — feel only slightly better than I did on day 2 – what happened to yesterday?
       Day 5 — almost better
       Day 6 — back to normalThat’s the cycle that colds have run for me for the past 30 years. Yet each time I get a cold, I’m shocked at day 4. “How can I feel so bad when I was doing so well yesterday? I must be really sick!” Don’t be like me. Don’t be shocked by day 4. Don’t look forward to it, but don’t be shocked when you get hit by it and don’t be derailed by it. Set your discouragement aside and look toward tomorrow.
• Have someone that you can confide in who will reassure you of God’s goodness and of His continued love for you. I needed this more than I could have imagined. I needed someone to say, “Sandy, this is an aberration in your life. God is still being faithful to you. He still loves you. He will still use you in His kingdom.” It greatly embarrasses me to admit that my faith wavered so much. Like I said, I was a woman of faith. I had the gift of faith. I had always been able to believe God for things that others couldn’t see. In the midst of my pain, though, I couldn’t even see the things He was doing right in front of my eyes. I needed regular encouragement. And throughout the long process, I was continually reminded that my strengths were not my strengths after all. Qualities that I considered to be my strengths were fractured and broken, teaching me that I didn’t “own” my strengths — that I couldn’t sustain them, but that they were loaned to me by God and were sustained by Him alone.Notice that I wrote “have someone.” It is not healthy to go over your story again and again, even though that may be what you want to do. Have one person that you trust to whom you can pour out your heart and reveal your fears, and with whom you can celebrate your successes.
• The body requires rest to heal itself, whether from physical or emotional issues. Sleep often and don’t beat yourself up about it. Quit being superwoman or superman for awhile — drop some of your activities so that you have plenty of time to rest.
• Consider the importance of play! Be sure your schedule includes some things that bring you joy. Whether dancing or drawing, watching a movie or playing with the dog, be sure you take time for these things. You need the positive endorphins that your body releases when you are enjoying yourself. Make time for it.
• Be proactive about spending time with friends — probably in short duration at first, but be careful not to shut yourself off completely. The tendency when we feel pain is to draw back. If the pain is emotional, that means withdrawing from those who love us. Work hard not to do this.
• Don’t rely on your emotions. Your friends are still your friends, God still hears you and He still loves you, those closest to you still love you. Your world is not closing in on you. It may feel like it, but your emotions are not reality.
• Practice kindness and forgiveness in situations where kindness and forgiveness are easy. No matter what healing you need, forgiveness will play a part. You may need to forgive someone who hurt you, you may need to forgive yourself for past decisions or actions, and you may even need to forgive God. That doesn’t mean that God sinned against you. He didn’t. However, you may be laying things at His feet that cause you to be angry with Him. The process of releasing that anger is for you to forgive God for allowing you to go through the circumstances you’re in.
• In your heart, you will need to recognize that God’s ways are above your ways and that He is accomplishing His purposes through whatever has happened to you. But during that process, you may need to say, “Lord, forgive me.” ….. Grow your forgiveness muscle by forgiving all the little things that need to be forgiven. Some day you’ll be able to forgive the big things, too.I’ve learned that wounded people bruise easily. I caught myself becoming quite angry frequently during the process of healing. My latent anger turned into impatience at those around me. I needed to practice regular forgiveness for little things during that time. For example, a person who said something unkind offended me when in my “normal life” it wouldn’t have even registered. I needed to forgive her. The people around me in the grocery store all seemed more incompetent than they used to be. No, I was just less patient. I needed to confess that sin to God and extend kindness to every one of them.
• Don’t forsake God. Stay in church. Find a new church if you need to. Continue to read Scripture regularly, even if it’s just a few verses at a time. Continue to pray, even if you feel like your prayers are just bouncing off the ceiling. Do those activities that make you feel closest to God. For me that’s worship; for some, it’s study, and for others it’s service. Feed your soul. Your pain will rob it of it’s stored energy, so feed it often.

This blog has been a long time in coming. This morning during my devotions I read a verse that finally prompted me to write it:

⁸“My thoughts are completely different from yours,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. ⁹For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
            Isaiah 55:8-10, NLT

God is bigger than my pain. He always has been and always will be. His ways take my pain and turn it into a golden treasure. I am not yet at the point of seeing that treasure, but if there’s a progression from pain to treasure of clay, to treasure of silver, to treasure of gold, I would guess that I am somewhere between clay and silver. For that I am very thankful.

God may choose to heal you instantly. Rejoice! Praise Him! I know He can and often does heal instantly. He also allows us to journey through the healing process so that we learn to trust Him more and are able to help others through their healing process. I learned much about myself and God during my healing process. Some of the things I learned were things I didn’t want to know — how very weak and fragile I really am. But then God’s probably been trying to teach me that for years!

This week has been crazy and I haven’t dealt with it well. Wednesday I was working hard to meet a deadline that didn’t get met. (It’s still not met and today’s Saturday.) Not meeting deadlines with customers is rare for us and something I consider highly undesirable. In addition, my computer was doing all kinds of things it had never done before. Working in programs I use every day I learned many new features by accidentally hitting the wrong keys and causing the software to do unwanted things. (Thus requiring much time to figure how to return the screen to its previously unmolested condition.) This is not a good thing when deadlines are looming.

The day was a harried one to say the least. Looking back, I realize that my mind was essentially working on two tracks throughout the day – one track was the project at hand, the other was a constant barrage of what needed to be done, how it wasn’t getting done, how I needed to call the client and how I didn’t want to do that.

Ouch! That’s no way to get through a day victoriously! What I realized late on Wednesday is that if my mind can stay on two tracks at once (and it obviously can), I certainly have the power to choose the second track. Yes, the work at hand must fill the first track, but the second track should have been about the goodness of God and my confidence in Him, not about my anxiety over not finishing the project on time. At any point in the day, I could have switched from the anxiety track to the grace track – you know, the one that grabs hold of my confidence in God. There are any number of things I could have done to arrest my brain and point it in the right direction. I did none of them.

Lord, forgive me. Forgive me for falling into the trap of believing that it all depended on me. Forgive me for stressing. Forgive me for not purposefully bringing you into the center of the situation. Help me to choose Your confidence over the enemy’s anxiety.

Wednesday was a classic example of not taking my thoughts captive. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says this:

³Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; ⁴for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments ⁵and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ. (NRSV)

I didn’t even try to use my weapons last week. I just let the enemy have a day of victory. But God is greater, and having repented, I want to do better next time. So I’ve been gathering a list of things I might do that would help me jump from the anxiety track to the God track. Here’s my notes. Maybe you can add to them.

• Pray continuously. I know that wasn’t happening last Wednesday. I was fretting instead of praying.
• Take a prayer break – don’t just pray in the background while working, stop working and pray. This might require taking a short walk down the hall. For two or three or ten minutes, stop working and pray.
• Play worship music in the background while working. This often turns my mind toward God in the midst of chaos.
• Play worship music in the foreground – take a worship break. (Pick your song carefully – do you need a soft worship song to mellow you into God’s presence, or do you need a loud victory song?
• I almost always walk away from my desk at lunch. It helps me to gain perspective in the middle of the day. I didn’t do that last week.
• Call a friend. I should have stepped away from my desk to call a friend. My friends would have told me to get over it and trust God. I needed to hear that last week.
• Instant message a friend – it would have had the same results as calling a friend.
• Take a short walk. It would have not only had physical and mental health benefits, it could have turned me toward God.

Now I know that last week I would have strenuously objected to most of the things on this list saying I didn’t have time for them. But that would have been a lie. Everything on this list takes less than ten minutes, some as few as two or three minutes. Unless you’re in the 2-minute countdown for the next space shuttle launch or in a true split-second life and death situation, you can take two to ten minutes to turn your day around. Since I’m not involved in the space shuttle program and I don’t work in the emergency room of my local hospital, so can I.

The point is to use these weapons that are at our disposal, not to keep them on the shelf. I especially like the way the New Living Translation writes the beginning of verse 5: “With these weapons we break down every proud argument that keeps people from knowing God.”

Had I employed my weapons, I would not have fallen into the trap of believing that meeting the deadlines (and thus ultimately the success of our business) all fell on my shoulders (aka, a very proud argument). Had I employed my weapons, I would have seen God victorious in the day – I would have known Him and His mighty power. Instead, I allowed my proud arguments to keep me from knowing Him on Wednesday.

One other idea…I’ve decided to use the ring of the telephone at work as a reminder to praise God. Often when I’m over-busy, the telephone is a source of stress. That’s wrong thinking. Without the telephone I wouldn’t be able to talk to the clients God sends our way. The telephone is a source of blessing, giving us opportunities to meet our customers’ needs in a way that brings glory to God. Sounds like a good reason and opportunity to praise God. Imagine how different my day will be when I thank God every time the phone rings. I’m looking forward to it!

I’ve been avoiding my blog! I’m in the process of transferring from one blog service (Yahoo) to another (we’ll see which one wins out!). Hence, whatever I write here must be transferred there, wherever there is. I know others who have decided to write a blog and have it up and running in what seems to me to be minutes. And of course, all the blog services make that promise. But what is minutes to others has been months for me. Aargh!

So lately I’ve been reminding myself a lot that God has uniquely gifted each of us and no, I’m not particularly lacking in intelligence just because I can’t get my new blog to work! And even if I were inordinately lacking in intelligence God would still be over-the-top wild about me! And in order to avoid reminding myself of these things over and over again I’ve been avoiding blogging.

I’ve been avoiding blogging so that my self image doesn’t take a hit each time I try and fail at making the conversion. I’m not proud of this. I’m not proud that not being able to accomplish this technical task makes me feel stupid (there, I said the word instead of couching it kindly as “lacking in intelligence”). I’m not proud that my approach has been to avoid the issue altogether.

One maxim I’ve learned is that when things seem to be happening in an unusual way, look for what’s behind it. Is God at work? (Well, the answer to that one is always “yes” because God is always at work in our lives.) Perhaps better stated, the question should be “What is God trying to teach me by getting my attention with these unusual circumstances?”

It doesn’t make sense to me that transferring blog services should be so difficult for me, so this morning I am asking “what might God be trying to teach me?” I can come up with several thoughts on my own, but the answer requires listening for His voice and to His Spirit. Here are my potential thoughts…

• God is giving me opportunities to practice not becoming frustrated when things don’t move as quickly as I’d like or when I’m not able to accomplish what I think I should be able to accomplish — and by giving me opportunities to practice this, He is teaching me patience
• God is reminding me that I’m not as smart as I would like to think I am (a little dose of humility is always good for us)
• God is teaching me about my need to rely on others (after all, we are a Body that is to work together, not just individual parts that work on their own)
• God is demonstrating how little it takes for me to be unfaithful to a task He has called me (revealing that I lack perseverence and that my heart condition is not as undivided as He would like it to be)
• God is teaching me about His faithfulness by demonstrating to me my own lack of faithfulness (His faithfulness so far surpasses my own — and this lesson translates to every other area — His mercy so far surpasses my own, His goodness so far surpasses my own, His love so far surpasses my own, His justice so far surpasses my own, etc.)

Wow! Since all of those possibilities occurred to me in the short span of five minutes or so, I’m guessing that He’s doing all of those things. The one that shouts at me the loudest, however, is the last one. I am thankful that the God I serve is so infinitely more faithful than I am. Praise His precious Name. And if a little technological frustration is what it takes to remind me of that, I’ll take it. Lord, You are so infinitely good to me! Thank You!

(And to my readers…I apologize for “being gone” for the past 6 weeks and I’m working on being faithful to you! Be blessed!)

I’ve spent almost the last hour looking for a quote. It’s a really good quote, but I can’t find it. So I’m going to paraphrase it…”The best thing for a dull mind is to break up the routine.” Now that’s not original, The original was much more eloquent. Unfortunately, I can’t remember who said it, either. I’m guessing A.W. Tozer or C.S. Lewis. Oh well please pretend it’s eloquent and properly cited. (If anyone can find the real quote, I’d be much abliged to you if you were to pass the info on to me.)

Everyone…yes, EVERYONE, has a routine that provides structure to their lives. For some, the routine is easily recognizable and looks (from the outside) very constricting. For others, it may appear that there’s nothing but haphazardness about someone’s life…but upon close inspection, one will find a routine, even if it’s only the routine of sleeping and waking with an obvious eschewing of any routine in between. Even the eschewing of routine is a form of routine that provides structure to the person’s life.

I’ve been thinking a lot about routine lately because Phil has a new job and it’s messing with our routines. It’s a part time job — 20 hours a week — but different hours every week and at least so far it’s been constantly changing. We’re told that it will repeat, but in the 2 months he’s been there that’s not proven to be the case. This new non-routine has caused many of the things that have defined who we are as a couple no longer exist. I’m sure that sounds overstated, but it’s certainly how it feels. (I guess this is where I lecture myself on truth vs. perceptions — perception is NOT reality — truth is reality…but that’s a topic for another blog.) You see, as a couple, we had routines related to when we woke up, when we ate, when we worked, when we played and when we “talked about our day.” Now that’s all jumbled up.

Phil’s new job isn’t the only thing prompting these wonderings about routine. When my dad died, I felt as if all of my internal structures has been shattered. It both made sense and it made no sense. It made no sense because I hadn’t actually depended on Dad for anything over the past 20 years or more (except perhaps the occasional advice…which I usually didn’t follow anyway). Yet it made sense because something that had been truth for 51 years, suddenly, on the first day of my 52nd year of life was no longer true. My dad had existed, had been alive…now he isn’t. And truth isn’t supposed to change. And the internal structure that had existed because of that fact had been shattered. Weird.

So I’m meditating a bit on the subject of “routine.” Routine provides structure for our lives. Yet occasionally it must be jumbled up a bit to bring us out of the slumber it nurtures. A.W. Tozer recognized this when he wrote “Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth” (The Pursuit of God: p. 17).

Undoubtedly, God is a God of routine and structure. He created a world with day and night, high tide and low tide, summer and winter. Yet He recognizes our sinful tendency to not appreciate that which we have and to become self-absorbed when we’re not absorbed with something greater than ourselves. So He built into our lives seasons that jumble up the routines — seasons of mourning and seaons of joy, seasons of success and seasons of failure.

We like to pretend that we should always be at the top of our game, or at least nearing the top with the top just another step or two ahead of us. But that’s not consistent with Scripture — either the teaching or the experience documented in Scripture. “To everything there is a season” Ecclesiastes tells us. Part of “everything” is joy AND sadness, success AND failure.
Enough rambling! Suffice it to say that God has been jumbling my routines. From what I read in other blogs and from what I hear talking to others, I’m not alone. Here’s to God doing NEW things in our lives — yours and mine. May we all be open to them.

Comment by dansdesk
Good thoughts! I’m not saying this about you but I wonder how often God shakes up my routine because it’s a “bad” routine!
Thursday July 19, 2007 – 04:16pm (EDT)

Response by Sandyhov
I’m absolutely positive (for me, not you) that it’s sometimes shaken because it’s a “bad” routine. This current shaking is a prime example. There were many reasons for Phil taking the part-time job at the hospital, but part of it was that we just came to a point where after almost 20 years in business it was a bit unhealthy for Phil & I to be working together at Data Designs as we were. We needed more outside interaction. He needed to be around people more. Yes, God’s shaking is scary but good.
Monday July 30, 2007 – 09:21pm (EDT)