I know to beware the weeks after a mountain-top experience. And even in re-reading Spiritual Depression by Martin Lloyd-Jones, he says he always watches someone very closely after such an experience, for the almost inevitable crash and depression that comes after.
Yet, I didn’t think I would forget so quickly. Or even worse, rewrite my interpretation and my plan of action so quickly.
Work has not gotten any better. And to hear me talk, you would think it has gotten much much worse since my week of vacation in March. Mostly though, the only thing that has changed is that I get even angrier and more frustrated quicker.
Where is the Trust in all of that?
So what have I been telling myself (and others)? Why, that God must be trying to get my attention and get me to move on. I’ve become complacent and tolerate much more than I should. Oy. I can rationalize just about anything I guess.
Really, I don’t think I’m complacent. When I really stop to think it through, right now I am being financially responsible, and I am being sanctified. And I have a good job in many ways. And I am doing a good job in many ways. Sure, I’m not able to get it all done, we are all trying to do the work of a few people these days. But I get a lot of it done, and much of it is done well. It is really just about my attitude (especially since that is the only thing I can really control). The days that I am patient and calm and understanding are much easier to live with at the end of the day.
I pulled out my copy of Trusting God by Jerry Bridges and intend to work through it again, chapter by chapter. I am also re-reading Spiritual Depression by Lloyd-Jones. Both remind me that not trusting God, not believing His word, is a sin. The other day I was asking what difference it makes. The day to day is just so hard, how does it make any difference to be saved. But I know that it does – and the critical thing I need to remember is that I am not alone. I don’t go through it all alone. I don’t do it in my own strength (although when I try, that’s when it all fails and gets painful).
Maybe I should pull out another book, The Secret of Supernatural Living by Adrian Rogers. To be reminded of the truth I first realized in these pages.
It is so easy to miss what Paul is saying. He does not say to be filled by the Spirit but with the Spirit. We must not get the idea that the Holy Spirit is waiting outside of us to place into us what we need. p50.
It isn’t more of my own patience that I need, but to rely on His patience.
In the first chapter of Trusting God, Bridges compares pursuing holiness with trusting God. He admits that
obeying God is worked out within well-defined boundaries of God’s revealed will. Trusting God is worked out in an arena that has no boundaries. We do not know the extent, the duration, or the frequency of the painful, adverse circumstances in which we must frequently trust God. We are always coping with the unknown. p16.
He follows that with a reminder that “In order to trust God, we must always view our adverse circumstances through the eyes of faith, not of sense.”
Three truths to believe:
- God is completely sovereign
- God is infinite in wisdom
- God is perfect in love
In that same chapter he quotes from Ecclesiastes 7:13
Consider what God has done:
Who can straighten
what he has made crooked?
If God has brought a “crooked” event into my life, only He can straighten it. I must trust God whether he does or not.
