To borrow an idea from a friend (Thanks Jeff), here is a cool quote from Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis:
You must ask for God's help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important [the virtue] may be, this process trains us in the habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.
Amazing, right? Many times I have wondered why I have to keep asking for the same thing. I keep messing up the same way. Over and over and over again. I am beginning to realize that God might be up there saying, "Erin - you need to learn to depend on Me. You need to know that you can come to Me every time you mess up, even if you are repeating the same mistakes. Erin, come to Me." God doesn't run out of patience. God doesn't run out of love. He just wants me to keep going to Him. I get so down on myself and it must come from Satan. Satan doesn't want me to depend on God, so the king of lies whispers in my ear that I'm a loser and a failure and that God is sick of me messing up in the same way.
Another quote, this time from George MacDonald:
That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, "Thou art my refuge."
Perfect in faith - it's not the perfect Christian - that doesn't exist. It means we come to Him at our lowest and ask Him to be our strength. Haven't you felt that way - "without a glow. . . with the weight of low thoughts, failures. . . ?" Sometimes I feel like such a failure as a parent, as a woman - those are some low thoughts! God wants me to crawl to Him anyway.
"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble." Psalm 46:1
God, help me to turn away from the king of lies and listen to Your truth. And keep giving me the patience to wait for Your pefect plan for my life. I have a feeling I'll be asking for help with that one a lot.
1 comment:
Sometimes it is just that stirring in us, that ability He gives us to fall to our knees, even when we don't feel like praying to Him...but somehow, we still do. Maybe that's better evidence of Him working in us than actually having feelings of Him doing it. Good feelings will come from Him if and when He decides we should have them.
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