So today has been a pretty bad day. Just one of those frustrating, annoying kind of days that just needs to hurry up and get over with so you can start again tomorrow. I hate those days. They really, really stink. It starts out with just small things, and then those small things attract more small things till you have this giant snowball of stress that is just following you everywhere you go. Which just makes you more annoyed with everything and everyone around you. And so your snowball gets even bigger.
For me, it usually will turn into the comparing game. Well, my day wouldn't be so bad if... my life was like so-and-so's, or I had such-and-such, or whatever I am attributing my bad day to. And I get all irritated with life and God, because somehow I attribute it to being God's fault and doing.
I mean, aren't I supposed to be blessed when I serve Him, and if I'm not as "blessed" as "others" around me, then God, what in the world are You doing? Why do you like them better? Why do you not see fit to let me have some ease and "blessing" in my life? That's just not fair, right? Wrong. Oh so very, very wrong. And I know it in my head, but it's that danged traveling to my heart that always gets derailed and lands in poor-pitiful-me-land. Yes, it's true. Just having a transparent moment here.
It is in these moments that I really allow my focus to get totally off track. I began placing value on the external instead of the eternal. I focus on what I don't have instead of what I do have. And I don't mean "I have my health, a wonderful family, roof over my head, etc." because, bah humbug! Sometimes that just doesn't help. Someone else's roof is always better and someone else's family has it better than ours because they get to do more/have more stuff, and I could go on and on because I am really good at this game.
But what I am talking about is something that became very real to me today. The realization that I have something that no one else has. And it is something I wouldn't trade for the world. My relationship with God. And before you think, but there are millions who have a relationship with God, even me! I do not mean a relationship with God, I mean my relationship with God. My very real and very personal relationship with God. There is no one who knows Him like I do. Wow, what a thought!
No one has been through what I have been through with Him, no one has heard the things He has whispered to me, no one has felt Him like I have, no one has known me inside and out like He does, and because of those things no one can give Him what I can give Him, my heart and my worship. No one has what I have with him, because it's mine. No one else can have what I have with Him because no one else is me. Pretty cool, huh?
How amazing is our God that He can take one thing, like how much He loves us, and spend lifetimes telling humanity over and over again, over thousands of years, multiple times a day, and not once would it ever be the exact same. Because we are not the exact same. Where we were in our life circumstance when He spoke it, what our background is, things we have experienced, or not experienced, what our personalities are like, what did it heal or free in us, our hopes and dreams. All that plays a part. And since we are each our own unique and separate person, our response, our worship, will never be like someone else's. And I absolutely love that! I love that no one can give God what I can give God!
Just like no two snowflakes are the same, not a single fingerprint is the same, and each and every day the sunsets all over the world are unique and never before made. I don't believe for a moment that God has 565 sunsets He just does over and over like a playlist on an ipod. What a creative, amazing, personal God that we have! It is hard for me to fathom.
So yes, there are so many things that I don't have and don't get to do that millions of people around me have and get to do. And while not a single circumstance of my life may ever change, none of that really matters, because I am indeed blessed. Not because I have much in the way of external "blessing" compared to most, but because I have an eternal, prized possession more valuable than any external blessing this life, or even God, could give me. My own, irreplaceable moments with Him. Moments that brought knowledge and revelation of who He is to me personally, the experience of His healing love and power, and moments that have given way to my unique, personal expression of freedom to worship Him. Those things are eternal, lasting forever and ever, they can never be taken away, and they belong to Him and me alone. They are worth anything I must endure while on this earth, however large or small it seems.
Psalm 73:25-26
"Whom have I in heaven but You? And I have no delight or desire on earth besides You.
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the Rock and firm Strength of my heart and my Portion forever."
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