So wow, we had our ladies community group tonight and my mom taught. It was so good and it was all about contentment. This is definitely the lesson God is teaching my right now because I am getting it hammered into me from all sides, but thankfully it is now to the point of learning to praise God fully during hard times, learning to be COMPLETELY joyous in Him and the fact that He is receiving more glory and I am becoming more like Him.
Tonight in our community group we talked about the lie women tell themselves about how if their situations were different, they would be different and more holy. Whether little things or big things, it is a game we ladies tend to play and it is a very dangerous game to get involved with. It starts so little, but can grow so fast. We doubt that God is good, we lose sight of the fact that each thing is making us more like Christ, we lose focus of God and starting looking to ourselves and what we think would be best for us right now--and soon we start to blame our circumstances for how we are responding. We start to blame God and say that if only He wasn't making us go through this right now we would be able to worship Him more. What a sinner I am! Think about it... if you weren't go through the hard thing right now, you WOULD NOT be worshiping God more--you would be learning better how to depend on yourself. It makes me think of Job (I just finished Job in my quiet time this morning) and how he went on and on about his situation and how he did nothing to deserve it and questioning why God was doing all of those things to him. We often ask why us. Funny thing is God never answers Job, and He usually doesn't answer us plainly either. He does these things to make us look more like Christ. We tend to play the "if" game way to often... and sometimes it may not seem like your if's are so bad... "If they would stop singing so loud I could worship Jesus more." "If they would stop asking me questions I could just get my quiet time done." "If they would be quiet for two seconds I could serve someone." and the thing is, none of these are truly bad until you look at the heart. We are looking at our situations and what is going on outside and not stopping to look at ourselves and how we are responding. We are not asking how God is working on is through this situation or how we can better show others Him--we our focused on ourselves again. At some point, we once again de-throned God and re-throned ourselves. God has really been showing me lately, that as hard as our situations and trials are sometimes, we should be praising Him for them, not fighting with all our might against them. God loves us enough to send trials our way so that we can look more like Christ. Which is the goal.... right? It should be. So instead of fighting our trials and raging against God and asking why, stop for a second and think of your life and how it would be without any trials. It might seem really nice for a few moments, but then you would start to realize that you would never grow, you would never learn, and you would not need God or depend on Him anymore. Trials lead us to God before we know Him, trials keep us focused on God once we know God, and trials lead us on the path to perfection up until the day we see God face to face.
Our perspective needs to change... we need to stop focusing on ourselves and focus on God, we need to stop looking at the here and now and look to the future prize. You have an opportunity to worship God and praise Him NOW in a different way than you will ever get again. We only have so many days on this earth, and none of us know how many that is... so don't spend the day complaining, being angry, or worrying... trust God, surrender yourself once again to Him and His will, and be joyous that the Creator of the universe LOVES YOU and is crafting you into a perfect tool for His use. :)
I was talking to a friend the other day and I told her to think of me as a bulldozer when I first became a believer and God wanted to shape me into a nail to be used for His glory...... that is a lot of chiseling that needs to be done. I personally want to get to be that nail for the glory of God. And the path is going to be hard and hurt and sometimes seem unending and pointless, but we have to keep our eyes fixed on the end goal. We have to keep our eyes fixed on becoming a nail--on becoming the perfect tool for our loving Lord, to bring Him the most glory. It isn't an easy process, but it is a good one. So I have one challenge... when life seems hard and unending, remember to stay focused on God and that fact that He is molding and shaping you. And remember that there is an end--one day you will be perfect and be praising God face to face. Jesus will return! So don't worry... trust.
~Praying that God is honored and worshiped more.
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