"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:4-7).
"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you " (I Thessalonians 5:16-18).
*****
Taking a fresh look at these verses. More like it, taking a fresh look at God. At myself. At life. Being a Christian for 21 years doesn't mean anything. Sometimes I feel like I'm just starting out, like I just found out there is a God. Sometimes I don't even know what faith is. And most of the time I don't deal well with having to trust. That implies limited or no understanding, and that's hard. But since "control freak" and "Christian" don't go together, I know I can't camp here. Not if I want to be happy, or at least finally grasp what it means to live with joy.
This time I can't bring myself to renew the same promises, nor trick myself into thinking I've repented. It has never worked. I can't just pray and say, "Ok, God, you can have me" while hoping for the best. All I know to do is grab a hold of God's pinkie and pray for Him to get me through this moment. And the next moment. And the next. I have to live in the present. I know I am still going to fail and let my emotions reign, but I can't live like that's a sure thing unless I want to defeat myself. It would also cause me to miss out on moments of peace and opportunities to praise.
This is so not easy for me. To praise when life throws a curve? Are you kidding?! I set out to make something work, and it's gonna work!!!
For so long I've had all the right answers. I've quoted Scripture and believed all the right things. But seldom have I thought about this realistically. Of course all you do is trust and obey! There's no other way to be happy in Jesus! That's sanctification in a nutshell. Two little words even a 5-year-old can quote. Sounds simple enough…until you wind up in a "circumstance".
I would venture to say most people have several "circumstances" on any given day. We make small things big, and big things bigger. We find ourselves stressed or frustrated or hurt or angry or disappointed or just plain ugly! Sometimes I feel all of the above and boy is that is a circumstance! Tell me then. Tell me in that moment to trust and obey! Ha! You'll see me turn m my heel and walk the other direction! I could even read it straight out of Scripture, only to shut the Book and go do my own thing. I'm just being real that it's difficult to believe God amid circumstance. So how can I consider praise?
I realize that I am responding in the flesh with these words. I know all too well that the Spirit provides a wealth of faith if I will just draw from it. Yet in the moment all I can see is the problem and the unfairness of it. Of the unfairness of God. I don't like those thoughts but I have to confess them. It doesn't matter what the circumstance is, whatever I face is big and hopeless and final and "out to get me". I see God as something of a trickster, Who gives only to take away, as if life is just one big test and you can't really fully enjoy anything or it will be snatched away. A God Who wants to pour nothing but difficulty into our laps when we submit to Him. A Being who doesn't really care about our happiness, only our holiness.
What has happened to my understanding of God? Why do I fall trap to these lies again and again?
I'm weary of knowing all the right answers and them not being real in my life. I desperately want a correct view of God so I can fully learn to trust Him with my deepest being and my most beloved possessions. I want to find the link between happiness and holiness, an understanding that stems from more than a textbook explanation. I even want to find, in spite of myself, praise spilling from my mouth in the darkest of moments and with the heaviest of hearts.I really want to get this!
If it ever happens I know that it will be ALL Spirit and none of me, because praise is only natural if I'm directing it at myself. I need to figure out what happened to my new heart and pull it back up to the surface and recover that song that's been lying dormant. And I must not look ahead of this day (often this hour!) or else I will surely conjure up a million negative scenarios that will most likely never take place, and I will spend an hour worrying about it and maybe even crying a little. Over something that is not true! I forecast all these horrible things that will happen and cause misery. A "nothing is fair and nobody cares" mentality; all of it destructive.
It's the lies.
I need Truth!
And so I picked up an old Catherine Marshall read called, Something More. And she has been there! Halleluiah!! I have found somebody with whom I can relate! Most of the time people hide behind their perfect faces and perfect families and perfect schedules. I'm guilty along with the rest of them. Transparency leaves us feeling vulnerable, and so it's much safer to keep our hearts in the shadows and merely socialize instead of experience true fellowship. Can we even find fellowship anymore? Ahh….thank goodness for the blog. He never lets me down and I feel safe with him.
I don't need people to tell me what to believe or do, I need people to tell me they understand.
Something More isn't preachy. It doesn't provide Scriptural pat answers nor a false sense of security like some do. Ms. Marshall fully recognizes that this stuff isn't easy. She's more like, "I'm right there with ya, girl, but let's not give up!" She certainly doesn't claim to completely understand God, nor His ways. I imagine she struggled as a Christian up until her last breath. But she provides hope amid the struggle. The little snippets of her experience (the defeats as well as the victories) and the anecdotes of other saints who also didn't give up seem to be just what I need. She isn't afraid to ask the hard questions, no matter how silly they sound in light of Scripture's clarity. She knows that faith is so much easier to discuss in a Bible study than it is to practice in the real world. "Is God in everything?" is her first question. Even in evil such as death, illness, and suffering? And while Ms. Marshall's answer is "Yes", she doesn't eliminate the struggle to accept this, even after a biblical monologue painting a better understanding of God.
While I am slow in coming around, the answers are making their way to my heart, and I am facing them, as I mentioned earlier, in a fresh way. Learning and meditation is the step I'm on, and it is a process. I know I will fall, so all I can aim for is a conscious desire to get right back up.
*****
"Grim circumstances of quite a different nature faced our Dutch friend Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsie during World War II in Ravensbruck, the Nazi concentration camp. The sisters had been hauled off to prison for aiding Jews in the Dutch underground in their native village of Haalem" (Marshall 28).
Although found in chapter 2 of Catherine Marshall's Something More (pp. 28-29), the following is taken from The Hiding Place (Washington Depot, Conn.: Chosen Books, 1971), pp. 180-181.
At one period of their imprisonment Corrie and Betsie were transferred from crowded cells (where they had been separated for months) to Barracks 28. Within the hour they discovered that their reeking straw bed pads were crawling with fleas.
"How can we live in such a place!" Corrie wailed softly.
Without answering, Betsie immediately began praying, "Show us, Lord. Show us how." Then a moment later excitedly, "Corrie, He's given us the answer! I read it in the Bible this morning. Here—read that part again." It was in I Thessalonians. "Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus—"
"That's it, Corrie! We're to thank Him for every single thing about the new barracks."
"Such as?" Corrie was trying to look with fresh eyes at the half-dark, foul-smelling room."
"Such as being together here."
"Oh yes.""And having managed so far to hang onto that Bible."
"Yes—oh, yes. Thank You, Lord, for that."
"And for the fleas—"
"Betsie, I see no way I can thank God for fleas."
"But fleas are part of this place where God has put us. 'Give thanks in all circumstances,' it says. Not just pleasant circumstances."
So the two women thanked God for the fleas.As the days wore on the prisoners in Barracks 28 discovered that there was an astonishing lack of supervision or interference. Corrie and Betsie used the unprecedented freedom to talk to the other prisoners, read the Bible to them, minister in a myriad ways.
Then one day a supervisor tipped her hand as to why they were given so much latitude. Some of the women had called through the grilled door to ask the supervisor to come and settle a dispute. She refused, as did the guards. "That place is crawling with fleas," the supervisor said. "I wouldn't step through the door."
Corrie's mind rushed back to their first hour in the barracks and to their rueful prayer thanking God for fleas. When she looked up, Betsie was chuckling, her eyes sparkling. "So now we know why we were supposed to praise Him even for fleas. Even the fleas had to be His instrument for our good."
