Seeking God and trusting Him...

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn, wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. James 4:7-10

Isn't resisting the devil hard? It is hard for me. My sins are not usually the conspicuous ones, but one I struggle with at times is trusting God. I keep coming back to the quote by Jerry Bridges in Trusting God that--"our first priority in adversity is to honor and glorify God by trusting Him. We tend to make our first priority the gaining of relief from our feelings of heartache or disappointment or frustration." I've paraphrased this in my mind, that we have to choose to trust rather than give in to despair.

So, how do I do this? I haven't been doing a good job. I have been choosing to think about the things that grieve me and it has been consuming. Rather, I need to choose to focus on the things the Lord has set before me. I feel all off kilter and I can understand why.

36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Matthew 22:36-40

Have I been doing this? No, I've forgotten all about it. In grieving and my heartache that stems from other heartache, I have chosen to feel yucky. Is this what God wants for me to do? No. I know that. So, back to the question of how do I do this? I make choices moment by moment. In the same way that we can choose friends that are good for us or friends that are bad for us. I need to surround myself with the things that I need to think about. I need to write the verses at the beginning of this entry on my heart. I need to remember them, say them to myself, I need to sing, I need to listen to music that points me back to the Lord. I need to remember Who made me and Who is sovereign.

An acquaintance just came to my mind and I realized that in struggling, we have another choice. We can try to think through it on our own and come to the conclusion that we are able to reason through everything--that we are in control of our lives. But, as it says in Hebrews 11:1, "1Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." I do have faith and I know that God is sovereign. I can see that one among many reasons for this adversity is that God is using this adversity to help me see that my faith needs to be in HIM alone--not dependent on other people.

As for trying to reason through it--I think one of the things that the devil tries to tell us--that we are in control. I remember at one moment yesterday, I felt like Eve faced with the decision to take a bite of the apple or not. I didn't bite. But, I recognized it. There are many times in my life when I have bitten and God has forgiven me. I have humbled myself and come before him and repented. I heard a wonderful quote once that science isn't meant to teach us that we can understand everything, but rather to help us realize how much we will truly never be able to understand and how truly great God is. There's two ways of looking at it.

One last and much lighter note, I told my husband last night that I'd like to go be a hermit. He said to me that he didn't think I'd be a very good hermit. He told me I'd be a hermit like the hermits in a Monty Python skit that are all sitting in the same cave talking about how they decorated their caves with moss and chatting away--together. I think that's the kind of hermit I'd be--not a very good one.

In the midst of trials and struggles, there is an impulse inside of me to simply run away--but I'd be a very bad hermit when it comes down to it--and I don't think God wants me to be a hermit. Hermit crabs are an interesting thing to contemplate in light of that, aren't they? They crawl into their shells the moment they get scared. They run and hide from everything in the world. It's a strong impulse--but not the one I believe God would want for us. For hermit crabs--it's the way they were made. God didn't give us big shells to carry around. Something to think about...