Blessed Assurance

It'd be nice to say that by the time I share something in this forum, I've already not only processed through that truth or concept but also applied it to my life in such a way that I am forever altered.

It'd be nice.

If it were true.

And, specifically with the concept shared most recently, it's as if once I shared it, I no longer had any idea what in the world I had shared. It's as if the idea of living in that tension between patience and desire, between reality and hope, between gratitude and impatient anticipation, disappeared completely and instead, I became a bitter, disappointed, listless, angry, hopeless person.

It's as if.

Too bad it's not "as if"....

It is.

It's funny terribly unfortunate devastating how easy it is to lose sight of truth and thus become the worst version of yourself...someone who has forgotten all of the grace and freedom and promise and space afforded to you and instead, so quickly and easily digresses back to the person you were years ago, to the person who lived in fear and doubt and insecurity and hopelessness and a willingness to settle.

Yet.

Yet, there's then the grace and kindness of a Father who so patiently waits while you throw your tantrums (even when a 33-yr old's tantrum literally matches a 3-yr old's or 13-yr old's), who quietly listens to your accusations and frustrations hurled right at Him, and who gently gives you the opportunities to wrestle and question...and relent, finally seeing the truth...but a truth made so much more true by the wrestling than it ever could have been from merely the thinking and processing.

That's the Father I am privileged and humbled to call my own.

For the past six weeks, I've (kind of) pretended I was doing fine...only to have allowed the seeds of bitterness and entitlement to root and grow in my heart...and every time there was a seeming setback to my dreams (and there were surprisingly more than one in such a short amount of time), instead of seeing it as an opportunity to learn and grow and grasp more of who the Lord is and what He's ultimately up to in and through my life, I'd chosen to see it as further proof that I still wasn't good enough...or worse yet, He was holding out on me just to be vindictive.

How arrogant. How misguided. How stupid. How utterly and completely false.

Yet truly, He took all of my arrogance and anger and entitlement and bitterness in stride, patiently waiting until I'd stop for five seconds and realize just how good He is being to me; how truly not getting the thing(s) I think I want right now is evidence of His vast love; how willingly I settle (as CS Lewis says) for playing in the mud when a trip to the ocean is offered to me; how a setback is only that - a setback, not a failure and not a "no" - but rather an opportunity to learn and continue on in the same manner; and how above all else, He is the Prize, the End and the Point of my pursuit.

I wish I could pinpoint what triggered the digression. But, I can't. More importantly, I wish I could pinpoint what triggered the turnaround. But, I can't do that either. Except to say that it was somewhere in the wrestling and whining and arguing...because, as is true every time I wrestle with God, I'm once again changed and altered...and see God just a bit more clearly, like Jacob did.

May I ever attain to be in this place:
"Perfect submission, all is at rest;
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love."