Sometimes I can feel so selfish if things aren't going my way and certainly for the last while now, they haven't been. I was saying last night at Life Group that I have always been able to have anything I wanted pretty much. God has been better to me than I have been to myself.
I have a wonderful husband, daughter and son-in-law and grandkids (even if Tristin did take my wig off today and laughed). He's so funny!
I have felt as if most days lately that I haven't been very good to God. I realized that as I was praying, I wasn't praying sometimes, I was ordering Him what to do. The audacity of me! I didn't mean to, but when I stop and think about it that is how I feel. I have apologized to God for that and I am moving on. I could feel condemned over it for a long time, but that wouldn't get me anywhere. Instead of asking Him to heal a certain area I would say I need this healed.
I want to make sure that even though I am going t-h-r-o-u-g-h this time in the valley that I will still walk up that mountain and be who God wants me to be.
There's another old song that Ronnie Hinson wrote that always touches my heart and it says:
I’m not on an ego trip,
I’m nothing on my own
I make mistakes I often slip,
just common flesh and bones
But I'll prove someday, just why I say, I’m of a special kind
For when He was on the cross, I was on His mind.
FOR HE KNEW ME, YET HE LOVED ME (That's so amazing in itself)
He whose glory makes the heavens shine.
So unworthy of such mercy.
Yet when He was on the cross, I was on His mind.
11 comments:
I think that it is right and good to remember that when you are in a vulnerable posistion that God looks past our human kind of praying and looks right into our hearts and responds to what the heart is praying - which is on such a different level than the rest of us, that sometimes struggles to control things we cannot control!!!
Give yourself some GRACE!!!
dear arlene, I 'm going also going thru a valley. its my aunt 's declining health and mind. i feel so desperate at times and feel a depression sweep over me. I got victory over depression some years ago, but its making a come back.
in my prayers today i thought of Job and asked God to give my mom and me faith and patience like Job. We have to take one day at a time.
God bless.
I love that song,
huggs
I love that song!! Haven't heard it in years, gave me the chills to read those beautiful words.
Arlene, God is our Father, it's only natural that you would speak to him like his child.
Don't feel guilty, pour out your feelings to him. He knows them before we even speak them and when we hurt he is there.
It must be old song week - they are so good. There are so many songs to feed our soul, I was thinking of that song, "Oh, how he loves me, Oh how he loves you - Oh how he loves you and me"....He does love us Arlene- no matter the words we use to form our prayers, he knows the cries of our heart and loves us. Keep walking THROUGH that valley, He'll hold your hand and walk you UP that mountain!
Rebecca---Thanks for your kind comments. You are right, I am thankful for God's Grace and need to lean more on him so I can allow myself that Grace. You made me feel so much better as did Trish and Pat.
Amrita---we will be praying for you. I kept both my mother and father before they died and it wasn't an easy thing to do. It is hard to watch (neither of them had Alzheimer's) but just watching the day to day struggle was hard.
Jel---me too! I kind of had forgotten about it and then all of the sudden...
Oh yes I love this song! I agree with Rebecca...give yourself some grace...HONEY...have have been through the fire and has stood faithful...God is a rewarder for those how seek him and you seek him!!!
Oh, the temper tantums of the flesh. It so fights against the Spirit and our new nature. It is self orinated, self-willed and at times strong willed. That is why the scripture says that we must decrease that He may increase. That is why Paul says he dies daily. That is why Jesus said that we are to deny ourself, pick up our cross and follow Him. It is so easy to forget when we are going through the times that bring suffering to us, that there is a greater purpose at work. Our Father's purpose is to conform us into the image of His Son, which when He looks upon us as His children, He sees His Son, He sees the blood that He shed from Getheseme to the Cross, every aspect our human condition covered. He sees what the trial and it's suffering is working in the heart and soul to accomplish the increase of His Son in us. From 1 Cor 13 we learn about our Father's kind of love, the Agape love of God, so different and so much greater than the love we have as human beings, which is pretty strong but does have it limits. This kind of love is called Philio love. Then there's another kind of love the scriptures speak of and it's called Eros, this is sensual, of the body, and is actually lust, not love. It is the Agape love that we are to climb the mountain and partake of, to be filled with in our heart and souls and is to come forth through us. Well we are only able to give what we receive and able to understand. It is a growing process in relationship with Him first and foremost, than with ourself and others. The Father hears the intercessions, the prayers, the petiions, the supplications of His Son on our behalf. He hears the cries of our spirit, heart, soul as it reaches out to Him. He knows exactly where we are and why and He alone knows how to reach us, even in the midst of the temper tantrums of the flesh. He has given us the Holy Spirit to pray in us and through us according to the Father's will, which our weakness prevents us from knowing how to pray as we ought. We do not deal with weakness well at all. Even Paul prayed 3 times for a particular problem to be taken care of and what was he told? He was told that it is in our weakness that Jesus is made strong. That His grace is sufficient for us. Paul learned to be glad about his weaknesses because he realized it was then that he is truly strong in the Lord and the power of His might, not the power, might, strength of our humanity. In the valley the soul is restored. The soul that so hungers and thirst for Him, His righteousness, His peace, His joy is undergoing the needed steps to bring it back to Him who loves it so. Great is the Agape love, nothing can seperate us from it. We are made more than conguerors through Him that loves us so. We are conformed into the image of Himself, an overcomer, which He is. We do not merely survive, living a life of existence, we go further and overcome as He enables us to. He is our Victor over all things and He gives us His victory each and every moment of the day and every inch by inch step of the way. The suffering of this earthly life leads us to the cross where we find that we have died with Him on the cross, the old man is dead and the new man in Christ is alive. He leads us through the cross, the death, buriel and resurrection and continues to lead us beyond the cross, raised in Him. These are a living reality in our walk with Him, our relationship with Him and our following Him. The flesh is dead and we go forth in the newness of His life.
Arlene there are times when you write things that open up a resevoir within me. I begin with a simple thought and out comes this flood, like running water rushing over a dam or like a waterfall. It's like you turn on the facet with what stirs within you and from there others are able to express from what you share, what comes from within them. The trickle of the water from a turned on facet opens up to a gush. This is the over and above and beyond all that we could ask or think in Ephesians. You keep on keeping on for there are many climbing up the mountain with you.
Dear Arlene...I love this song.
Whenever the Flordia Boys Quartet sang it on the Bill Gaither and Friends video. I could just picture the Lord's eyes looking for me in that big crowd and showing me the look of tender love that I cetainly never deserved.
Thank you so much for posting this Arlene.
I have lost my long wind but I will be better next week when things have settled down a little in my parents present trials.
I just had to take this lovely post of yours and put it into Pilgrim Pals.I hope you don't mind Arlene... Love Terry
Debbie, you are so right and it is good to be reminded of the agape love, the phileo and the eros. I want to live in His agape love. I thank you so much for your encouraging post. I am glad that I am able to open up the flood gates for people. That is awesome. Your last comment made me humbled and made me cry. I so appreciate that, you and others could never know how much! God bless!
Ms. Terry, we will continue to pray for you with your parents and thank you for always posting such nice comments. Of course I don't mind if you put my blog into Pilgrim's Pals! God bless!
Post a Comment