What if thing's never look the way that they appeared in our heads?
I was talking to a friend the other night, and sharing how some things have changed for me lately. That it seems like as i do more things, as I achieve the desires that I have had for years, they never satisfy.
We look at movies, at books, at even other people telling stories of romantic nights watching the sun set in the open countryside. They never mention how you are uncomfortable on the ground, of how you need to go to the toilet, or of how you are constantly looking for spiders and other creepies that are sneaking up on you.
Now this could only be my experience, but I don't think it is, I think it's just that we only tell of how amazing it is, because it is amazing. We choose to ignore the junk, and to simply abide in the goodness of the moment. That while sitting there, you don't care about the other thing's.
But it doesn't mean that they are not there.
I have always dreamed either consciously or sub-consciously that one-day, I would be content. That I would finally be at a place where life is just good, things are working out and I am competent in what I am doing.
What if that is a lie? What if my view of contentment is warped. What if contentment doesn't mean that I have everything that would make me content, but that contentment is the ability to rest in the trial and abide in the presence of God.
That there will always be trials while in this life, but that God has given us the grace to really embrace them, and find security in the fact that we do not have to control our circumstances and environment to be content, peaceful and blessed, but that it is already a part of us, because we have the spirit of God, who ushers us into His peace, living inside us.
How many problems could be avoided by knowing this? How many marriages, friendships, jobs, ministries would be whole and not destroyed because we have not set our strength to manipulate another, to create for us the ideal situation? We are free to love, not because of anything lovely about what we are loving, but because we have love inside us, and nothing can take that away.
I have been very stressed lately, trying to raise finances for the trip to India which I am taking soon, and while there is work that needs to be done, I can still have peace in the middle of that. I don't need to wait for everything to work out to be content and rested, but I am that because of God.
If you would like to help ease my mind and donate towards this trip please let me know, but I hope that this encourages some other people out there. May it even convict us as to the times when we have used our efforts to change others, without understanding that we already have what we seek, and we will never find it in another, or in the perfect environment.
Be blessed!
Daniel