13 January, 2011

Personal Views

Psalm 13:3
Look on me and answer, O Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death; my enemy will say, "I have overcome him", and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

Temperature is a funny thing; as a mail carrier I start the day pretty early and during the winter it's usually below freezing when I load my truck to start my route. Somewhere during the day, say about noon, the temp rises to about 32f (0c) ,; at this point I start to change from my parka and put on a jacket! I actually consider it to be rather a pleasant day! Most times you can put a glass of water out and the water would freeze, and yet, I consider this same temperature to be pleasant. To be honest, I don't always consider this a "pleasant" day, If I wake up in the morning and discover that it is just that cold, I will bundle up. Should I decide to ride my motorcycle, freezing is not the temperature I would choose to ride in. What is the difference between the weather I'll ride a bike in and the weather I changed out of my parka? Change. To put it another way, perspective. The way we look at things has a huge impact on how we react to these things. When life seems to pile up and appears to stack everything against us, we have a tendency to react with bitterness, sometimes panic, sometimes we strike out in anger; different people react in different ways, but it still comes down to the same thing: Perspective. In my own life, it seems that when I look at "things" that are overwhelming me, they are usually things that are superficial, unimportant; things that if I let them go and not even think about them, much less worry about them, nothing will happen! They are things that mean absolutely nothing. I find that I am drowning in "stuff"! It is at this point that I must take a page from the Psalmist and ask God for light for my eyes; help me see the difference between the things that matter and the things that don't.

Father, during the many times I feel as if the world is crashing down around me and trying to overwhelm me with the things in my life, I ask You to grant me Your light, so I might see what I need to let go of, what I need to hold on to and work to overcome. Grant me Your wisdom to see that difference.

Trust

Psalm 11:4
The Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord is on His heavenly throne. He observes the sons of men, His eyes examine them.

I am not always the most most trusting soul in the world. Not even when it comes to trusting God, that sounds odd considering Faith is based on Trust. I guess that's why I am having such a hard time trusting right now, He's bringing out all the things about trust that I have a hard time with and showing me even proving to me that regardless of all that is so obvious , so insurmountable in my eyes, this verse resounds throughout the trials! He really is in control, and it's okay to trust Him with the things I can't define or control! What a Father! What a Teacher!