Disappointment

Yesterday wasn’t starting so well.

To be honest, it seemed like the day from H-E-doublehockeysticks starting out. I got up later than planned because I’d missed/slept through/ignored the alarm on my cell phone. Already more than an hour late, I was rushing to get ready and make it to the hospital in Asheville, about 30 minutes away, to be with the family of a church member during his surgery. Predictably, that was the time when Satan started throwing it all at me—first, I couldn’t find clothes to wear, then I changed three times because I didn’t like what I’d already put on. Then, I realized I had to take Schatzi (our miniature schnauzer) out before I left. I was cranky because I was trying to get ready with one of my contact lenses killing me. Apparently, it had something on it when I popped it in, but I
was determined I would get some clothes on before I attended to it. While stepping into my pants, I managed to trip myself, and you can imagine the stream of words that came out when I fell face-first onto the bed.

To put it mildly, I was in a very bad mood.

As I drove up the interstate, I punched absent-mindedly at the buttons until the local Christian station chimed in. The words of praise and the well-timed reminder of grace broke through the hard shell of my temper, and my outlook began to soften. I even went so far as to send a text message to my prayer partner (yes, I sometimes text-message while driving 65 mph on the interstate—straight up the side of a mountain, to boot! Sorry, but I’m being honest. I don’t recommend it, and I don’t do it when I’m in heavy traffic, but I still feel embarrassed to
admit it.) Anyway, I sent a message to my prayer buddy, saying “Please pray for me. I have a bad attitude today, and it needs to change.”

Little did I know that what God needed to change involved a lot more than my frustration at the morning’s turn of events.

By the time I’d made an extended hospital visit and shared a time of fellowship and prayer with the man’s family, I found myself with a much more positive outlook on the universe in general, and was satisfied that I had taken a true step toward godly obedience. Oh, foolish me!

As I rushed through the rain, headlights trained on the bumper in front of me, I let my guard down for a moment, stopped patting myself on the back for my renewed sense of “peace”, and was silent for just a moment.

…and in that moment, God spoke!

I don’t know what your walk with God is like, but mine often feels sort of random! I’ve read lots of great books that set forth how God will respond when I take a step toward Him, how He will provide when I make my need known to Him, and how He will forgive when I repent. Sadly, God appears to be less well-read than I might have originally assumed. In fact, I would go so far as to say that He often appears completely ignorant of the principals and formulas set forth in the works of the great Christian authors of our day! How sad that the Almighty is not
better informed!

I don’t know about you, but the biggest thing I have learned about God in my now 29 years as a Christ-follower is that I don’t know much. Every time I or someone else think we’ve figured out just how God works—think we’ve discovered the “secret formula” that dictates how He will respond in any given situation, He then proceeds to ruin my insight by acting in some way that defies what I think I have just learned. In fact, to be honest, God is forever ruining my understanding. He stubbornly refuses to let me get a grip on Him, or to give any ground to my struggle to comprehend His ways.

As I drove down that mountain, rejoicing through the driving rain at what I thought was a glorious and thoroughly successful step forward in my walk with Him—conquering my poor attitude and realigning myself with the accepted principals of discipleship—in that moment, God spoke—and He ruined my celebration.

Perhaps you have a different sort of experience of God’s speaking into your life, I don’t know. I’m not you. But for my part, I find that God’s invasion of my peace and quiet—this intrusion of the Creator into the life of the created—this meddlesome micro-management of my life that He insists on…I find that in those moments, He often pours into my life whole years worth of insight and understanding in an instant. And that’s how it was yesterday.

What God taught me in that moment was that my back-patting and self-congratulation were pitiful; that my perceived “step” toward Him was in a fact a gift of His Spirit, given to woo my heart back to Him. What I thought was good about me, turned out to be God’s goodness peeking out at a moment when my broken, needy self let its guard down.

Did I need to correct my attitude? No. I needed to COME BACK. I needed to relinquish my claim on self and will and once again assign to Him the Lordship He paid such a high price to purchase.

God, WHY?? Why do You insist on ruining my “progress”?? Why do You refuse to let me make any strides for myself?

Why can’t I for once chart the course? Why won’t you allow ME to do something good for once?

Oh, yeah.

I remember…I begged You to take all that away, didn’t I?

I laid on my face in a gravel-lined ditch on a night in 1989 and screamed at the darkness, demanding a reply…and I told You I wanted it to all be yours: depression, fear, talent, ambition, goals, hope—the whole kit and caboodle.

Lord, grant me that I would not win this struggle for my life. Promise me that You will never let me get the upper hand. Give me some assurance that my will is always going to fall to Yours, and I will live happy in the knowledge that it is ONLY You who can live this life of mine. Live it well, Lord! Glorify Yourself! Make me less, so that You may increase in the eyes
of the world, and please, PLEASE Lord…never let me win!