So I'm sure you're thinking "Wow two blog posts in one week!" What can I say, it's just one of those kinds of weeks where there is so much in my mind that I just have to get it out, if it stays in I might just go crazy. And whereas Friday's was mostly practical application this is all faith and theology, this life requires the application of both and it requires being pushed to the breaking point because as I learned today we as humans, bound to habit, don't like changing until it is required and I can guarantee that who I am today isn't who I want to be in twenty years, just as I like the person I am today much more than who I was ten years ago. This life is meant and engineered to make us more than we were when we got here, that change will come in many different ways. Sometimes it comes through the application of the grace of our Savior Jesus Christ, His atoning sacrifice truly changes our nature and sometimes it comes simply by being in the presence of the Spirit and our edges are softly wiped away. Other times it comes through the pain of life, some changes only come through learning empathy and charity the hard way, because sometimes the refiner's fire is just that, a fire, a blaze that burns away impurities and gives third degree burns.
Today was one of those blazing days and one of those soft refining days. It amazes me how days can be both, perhaps learning to see with heavenly eyes is accepting that days can be full of good, bad, painful, and peaceful and it is just a part of life.
As I'm sure you are all aware life can be very full of curve balls and can be very painful when those curveballs seem to have an endless shelf life, just when you think that you've gotten past them or that the sun is on its way up you get slammed with another wave and you get sent under the water (I apologize for mixing like four different metaphors), that's been life for the past few weeks. It used to be that bouts of darkness only lasted a couple days, maybe a week and then light would break through and I would have time to stabilize, bask in the light, re-energize and be ready for the next set. That hasn't been the case this time, I might get a moment to breath or two, but they were few and far between. I found myself gasping for light, hope and some place where I could feel safe and relax and feel like my world wasn't crumbling away from me. This morning was just such a morning where I felt like my world was crumbling and I was going to go crumbling right along with it. All I saw was a dark corridor stretching before me, no light, no change, just dark doorway after dark doorway and some fiery darts of the adversary mixed in. And that's when the doubt started, I wondered if I really was ready for this, if I was capable to keep doing this day after day, I worried, I fretted, I freaked out and I was scared. I began wondering if the Lord had really placed me here and if He had where was He, where was the sunshine breaking through the clouds, where were the tender mercies to help me through, where was the hope I so desperately needed. And in my doubt and fear, pain and tears (in the middle of sacrament meeting I might add...awkward) a little voice inside my heart asked a question "do you trust your Heavenly Father?"......
And I realized that my whole life comes down to that very straightforward question, when it isn't just about coming home from a mission early, when it isn't just about delaying a masters, when it isn't just about getting a job, when it is about my eternal salvation, when it is about gut wrenching fear, when it is about the person I love and facing darkness everyday, when it is those things on the line, do I still trust? Trust isn't rooted in answers of prayers, it isn't rooted in getting what we want, it isn't rooted in immediate light or deliverance...
Trust is rooted in knowing that our Loving Father in Heaven is in control, that nothing comes into our lives except by His divine design, it is rooted in that if He gave a direction He has a purpose.It is rooted in the knowledge that all things are for our gain. Once we realize we do trust our Father in Heaven a peace can come into our lives that can come in no other way. No circumstances don't miraculously change, life still brings refining with grace and with blazes, but in trusting we take away one of Satan's favorite tools of doubt. It is when we doubt our circumstances and then doubt God's perfect love that the darkness overwhelms us, because then the light rope we are holding unto disappears. I think we often overlook that our entire existence is based on the knowledge that our Heavenly Father loves us, so that is what Satan attacks, that is what he goes after, because if we lose hold on that, then he can get us to lose hold of covenants, righteousness and purpose.
So if moments come to you in your life, if you are in one of those moments right now, where you feel your hold on that rope is loosening and your hope and purpose are crumbling hold onto the idea that there is purpose, there is a reason. Our Father isn't a wizard behind a curtain just messing around and experimenting to see what will happen, He is a divine being who loves us with His whole heart, any direction He gives has a purpose, a reason and will bring brightness and light into our lives. This doesn't necessarily make life easier, but it does bring peace and that makes all the difference in the world.
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