Sometimes It Really Does Need To Be All About Me, But Not In The Way You Might Think

Have you ever been going through something and you just don't seem to be able to get through it?

Have you ever been in a difficult relationship at work or church or even in the family?

I have.

Sometimes it's been an event, by event I mean something that happened that I didn't like or hurt or I didn't want to be.

Sometimes it's been a person.

What I've discovered is the same thing many of you have discovered.

It's never the event and it's never the person it's always me.

Now that isn't to say the event wasn't bad or the person wasn't wrong it's just to say I can't control that but I can control me.

I remember one event in particular, when the house burned and I was so busy doing okay with it and seeing the protection of God in it which is a good thing but I failed to stop and ask what I could learn from it.

What could God work out of me or into me through the losing of our home?

So I asked him and God being God he showed me.

There have been other things, things more to do with people.

I, like a lot of you have been criticized and discouraged.

I have listened more than once to someone tell me about something I or my family did that they didn't like and I have felt that feeling shoot through me that wanted to say, "Well yeah let me tell you about you"  but I knew I couldn't.

I knew while what I wanted to say about the other person may have been true, it might have even been more true of them than me but at that point it wasn't about them.

It was about me.

What was I going to do with what they said?

Would I bull up and sulk and not listen and learn or would I feel embarassed, ashamed and convicted and learn?

Now this doesn't mean everything a person says is right but it means that I need to be honest about myself and trust God to show me what I need to see.

The Bible tells us we are to examine ourselves. In the Old Testament King David asked God to search him and see if there was any evil way in him.

King David wanted to be right with God and that meant he was going to have to face what was ugly about himself and let God work on it.

That's what I want to do.

So often I will be driving down the road or standing at the sink and I ask God to give me a good look at myself.

Sometimes I can't believe what I see.

If it wasn't for knowing he loves me and sees me with the eyes of grace it would be to much to bear.

So I have said all of that to say this.

When we are going through difficult things are dealing with difficult people, things we can't change and people we can't change we might take the hint that it's us that needs to change.

Not saying that the other person isn't wrong or that the event wasn't bad but saying that I won't be a victim of it.

I guess I'm saying life is like sandpaper.

It's meant to rub the rough stuff off of us and if I never get rubbed the wrong way I will never be smooth.

I don't want to get to the end of my life and be just as "knot headed" as I ever was, I want to be smooth and ready for the finish.

I want to be ready for the laquer or the seal  you could say.

I want to know I yielded and became what it is he had for me to become.

I want to get my eyes off of everyone else and hear him say, "Well done my good and faithful servant. 

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