distracted

I think we like to blow up our problems a lot.

Some part of us deep down has an innate sense that life will always be a struggle, and so we trick ourselves into seeing little things that we're going through into big brick walls that need to be broken down. Of course, there is validity and a sense of humanness that comes from the occasional freaking-out, but really, if we completely trust God (which we should), then any struggle that comes is nothing to worry about.

Too often we forget Phillipians 4:6-7

6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I remember awhile back I wrote a post on how Jesus could have entrusted himself into the hands of man, knowing that we would crucify him and the like. And someone responded that, rather than trusting in man's failure, perhaps it was God's grace IN men that Jesus trusted (on top of simply being obedient to God and trusting in that, of course... wait, maybe it was just that. Blah.)

But I think this is the most challenging thing to me; trusting God's grace, God's sovereignty in and through others. Personally, I don't (think I) have a problem with trusting God's grace in my life and His sovereignty over me and the things that I go through. (This used to be more of an issue in regards to understanding/living through his forgiveness, but more later... maybe.) But really trusting God to work through all of the people around me? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Which basically means no.

And I believe part of the reason is that I like to blow other people's problems up bigger than they actually are, which I'm pretty sure we all do once in awhile. Because we see that someone is struggling with pride, and even if we're not, we see it as something working against us, not something that God can (and will) have His way with and use for His glory. Or we see that someone is young(er) in their faith, so they're not ready to serve to a certain capacity.

I'm not saying any personal issues that people, you, or I may have aren't legit, but it's just so, so easy to get stuck on those and have this desire to just fix them.

It's a fine line between ignoring problems vs. seeing them, understanding them, then turning to God, vs. getting stuck in our storms (and other people's storms) and being consumed by fixing and repairing. I simply think we tend to Jooho's late message seems fitting; we see our storms, then cry to Jesus to pull us out. He meets us where we are. He meets him, meets her, where they are. Can we all just make sure we cry to Jesus first? Everything, by prayer and petition... with thanksgiving...

Let us not only lift our own burdens and struggles, our anythings and everythings, to the Lord, but others' as well.