Happy Valentine's Day Becky!!!! For the most wonderful girl in the world!!! Becky, I love you so much!!!! You are my best friend and I just want to thank you for always being there for me. You are very special to me!!Honestly, it kinda cut me. At odds a majority of the time, I hardly consider him my best friend. But to think back on those days…those Fridays when I couldn't wait to spend the night with him. It didn't matter what we did; I just wanted to be with him. And now, I spend every night in the same bed with him, nearly every dinner and weekend with him. There's little novelty left.
This is how I used to feel about God's Word. Oh, I've read this before. But since God's really gotten my attention, since I've decided to follow him whole-heartedly, every day there is newness in God's Word. And every situation I encounter reveals more of His Word and His truths to me. Each morning I ask Him, God what is it you want to teach or tell me? When I am experiencing life (whether it is dirty socks all over the house, dew drops clinging to the bare tree branches or the rain clouds rolling back to reveal a gorgeous sunrise), He reveals to me an applicable spiritual truth.
I am so convicted. How pathetic that I don't look at my marriage with new eyes. Ahg! I feel defeated and clueless as to how to change. And then, in God's foreknowledge, the old Valentine Card saved in my Bible is tucked in James, chapter 1.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whether you face trails of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does (vv. 1-7).I am tempted to throw my hands up and say, Whatever, I give up! I lack wisdom in knowing how to look at my marriage with continual newness. It's seems simple: ask + no doubt that His way is the best way = His answer.
James ends this passage explaining a "double-minded" man. The New Living Translation says, "their loyalty is divided between God and the world." I can't look right and left at the same time and I can't look at the world's (or my) "wisdom" and God's wisdom at the same time. If I ask God for a solution while having my own idea of what will work, it will be my idea implemented, not His and it will fail. I have to be all in: I must believe His solution will be successful and fix my attention on His way.
And like the dew drops clinging to the tree branches in the morning sunshine, I will cling to Jesus while He reveals the how. How much energy that little drop uses to cling to the branch? If it looks the opposite way (down) it's going to fall. If I fail to give God my full attention, I will fall to the world.
Like the clouds that rolled back for the gorgeous sunrise, this season of dullness will disappear too. And as for those dirty socks? Well, those golden heads won't be here forever: love the now. Love the engineer now.
What do you need to look at with new eyes? Maybe your marriage is great and you want newness is reading God's Word. How will you do it? Work? Kids? Will you choose to ask the Lord for wisdom in the how? I humbly ask for prayers of those reading this: that I would see my husband through new eyes, fix my attention on God's idea and love the now.
1 comment:
Dear heart...thanks for sharing your heart. I pray for you & your marriage often. I have a clearer sense of how to do that now. Personally I struggle with the clarity of call, I must keep seeking Him. He will reveal it to me. Love you much.
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