FULL: embracing the life you have; not the one you want

 

All I want is a nice life.  I don’t need a fancy car, or a maid, or a mission named after me; all I want is a nice life.  How a nice life looks to me is different than how it looks to you.  I’d like more kids (preferably the non-rebellious helpful kind); not everyone wants kids, some people want solitude, some health, some prestige, what some actually want is the fancy car.

 

What I mean when I say I want a nice life is that I want life on my terms. To wake up to sunshine and go to bed with a gentle breeze.  To not want...anything.  To not have to contend with pain, heartache and deep disappointment.  To be free from physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual challenges, and if not, to be okay with life even when it’s not okay because I’m ever mindful there’s more than this life I’m living for.    

 

“Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.  In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”  Philippians 4:11,12,13 (ESV)

 

If I can't have Eden here, I want to learn like the Apostle Paul, to allow God to redeem the brokenness.  I want to learn as He did, contentment, even in a broken world.  I want to step out of my flesh and into the spirit enough that contentment is something I really grab hold of and not just something I wish for.  The storms of life abound within me and around me...I am quickly swept away by pride, anxiety, selfishness, desires of all kinds.  I realize contentment isn’t something I am going to happen upon, it’s something I'm going to have to fight for.  I am not alone, God is with me everywhere and all the time; still, like the disciples caught in the storm on the sea, sometimes I doubt He really will deliver me out of these storms.  

 

Yesterday in the quest to surrender all to His Lordship, I wore out.  I got tired of hurting, of giving, of trusting.  In the midst of my storm I asked the Lord the same question the disciples did when the waters got rough.

 

“And they woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’  And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace!  Be still!’  And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.  He said to them, ‘Why are you so afraid?  Have you still no faith?’”

Mark 4:38,39,40 (ESV)

 

He answered me like He did the disciples,  “Why are you so afraid?  Have you still no faith?”  (Mark 4:40 ESV).

 

Maybe that's my fear, that I don't have enough faith.  Part of facing my fear is disowning the doubt, and embracing the hope that I do have...that I do have faith and that it is enough.

 

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."  Hebrews 11:1 (ESV)

 

Part of being "full" is resting on the promise that Jesus is all He claimed to be and we hope Him to be.  It is knowing He has a plan to fill every empty cavity of my soul even when I don't see Him filling in the holes.  It is looking at everything that spells F-E-A-R to me and doing with it what Jesus told the synagogue ruler to do with his fears when the messenger came and announced that his daughter was dead.

 

"'Do not fear, only believe.'"  (Mark 5:36 ESV)

 

Jesus is always enough, but until I believe that Jesus is enough for me, I will never feel full.  Until I believe that there is nothing I can't handle with Him, in this moment or in any moment to come, I will fear that I lack something and I will want more. Until I believe that He is and is the fulfillment of my ultimate desire, I will yearn for things other than He Himself.  

 

Yet even as I learn to yearn more for Him, life brings pain, heartache, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual challenges.  Being full doesn't make them go away, it just takes away the power they have to hold me captive to the fear that He won't deliver me from or bring me safely through each storm.  Faith is knowing I will make it through, not because my strength but because of His.

 

"I can do all things through him who strengthens me."  Philippians 4:13 (ESV)

If I have His strength (which He promises me), I do have a nice life.  Now I just need my heart and mind to catch up to this truth.  It's not a one time catch up, it's more like moment to moment.  Grace for the day.  It's not life on my terms (which would actually be a disaster), it's life on His terms which is actually the best life I could ever have.  More than not wanting anything, it's wanting everything and then finding it in Him.  I am closest to the nice life when I embrace the life I have and internalize the truth, that the life I have is actually the life I want (even when it doesn't feel like it).  Paul learned to be content and I am learning.  I'm a slow learner, He is a patient God.  Some days it's kids, other days it's health or solitude; some moments by His grace,my longing for more.... is simply for more of Him.  I open my heart and He fills it.  I open my mind and He transforms it.  In those moments He gets me, all of me, and I.....get a nice life.