Skip to main content

An Uncomfortable Truth


God comforts us not to make us comfortable but to make us comforters. John Henry Jowett

I woke up this morning thinking about how tricky it is to live in reality, continuously. Reality is a very shifty entity, for it is only right now. At any given moment, I can be living in the past, living in the future, living in a fantasy. Now, there is a subtle difference between living in the past, future or fantasy and experiencing the past, future, or fantasy. It's sort of a difference in how those non-nows are held. Living in them is sort of like being beheld. Experiencing is more like we behold. Not sure if that exactly clears it up.

But staying in the present requires constant assessment. Where am I now, what am I doing? Why? These questions must be asked quickly and responded to quickly. Ideally in fragmentary seconds. Of course, sometimes it is necessary to dwell on such questions, but in the day to day to dwell on these questions, given the context of what is happening, for too long is not necessary. Example, I set out to pray and find myself searching wikipedia to support my thoughts, to explore. Well and good. But I could get stuck there, exploring, and not come back to finish this devotional writing. If I spend too much time in this, I have no time for anything else before my wife and daughter wake up. Living in reality is very practical. It seems to me almost utilitarian.

Therefore, in all his utilitarianism, the realist must come to a deep seeded indwelling of the need for respite, reprieve... restoration. This restoration may take all kinds of forms: music, projects, family time, rest with two feet off the ground on a bed. And finally I come to the quote atop: we need rest not so that we can be well rested, but so that we can give rest; comfort not so that we are comfortable, but so that we can comfort. If we too quickly attend to our joy with our moments of reality that we live in, we miss the opportunity to live in the blessing that God truly has for us.

Heavenly Father, help me to live in this day's reality, to reflect and consider what I am doing, why. And by Your Spirit, Father I pray, I would be able to walk to blessing and not detour on being blessed. Oh, let me be blessed, Heavenly Father, I know I need it, but let it be on the path, as I walk toward what you have set before me, and not what I pursue as my portion. You are my blessing and in You I will be eternally full.

In Jesus Name,

Amen

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No Time for a Hasty Decision

This morning, I awoke reflecting on yesterday. What I've been complaining to my wife recently about is that I'm always feeling attacked by my bosses. Like all things, there is some truth to it and some error in perception. I felt I should read a bit about defensiveness, just to get an idea of how it's happening with me and what I can do to stop it. I came up with the following diagram: from these really simple and straight forward articles: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/love-cycles-fear-cycles/201805/why-do-people-get-so-defensive https://www.amazon.com/Love-Cycles-Fear-Connection-Relationship/dp/1590794400 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-be-yourself/201805/how-stop-getting-defensive I see my problem, it's that I assume that people are coming from a bad place, and I just can't shake that. But even if people are coming from a bad place (whatever that means to me), I still have to find ways to turn it around. I have to work with a...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Do of Potential Energy

James 4:17  New Century Version (NCV) Anyone who knows the right thing to do, but does not do it, is sinning. Romans 7:15-18 For what I want to do I do not do, but  what I hate I do . And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.   The tension between my wife and I is coming to a breaking point. And that breaking point is either going to turn out for better or worse . The formula for distance is as follows: Matt (mistake) = Jess (distrust). And so it has gone for these 10 years. Notice that the formula does not include mitigation; in other words; Matt (good things) = Jess (approbation/trust) seems to be of negligible effect compared to the mistake coefficient. Thinking in terms of Gibbs free energy, the state of our relationship seems to be much more governed by mistakes (enthalpy) than be any good (entropy)....
Post a Comment
Read more

Mind Fullness

I don't know if I'm altogether down with the notion, but it certainly makes sense. SitD for today is all about the prerequisite of being in a place of rest to hear God. The contention from me comes when I see all manner of Psalmist saying, "I cried out... and the Lord heard me", or "in the midst of my storm". But I guess that the answer could have come in time of calm after the storm, and the Psalmists reflected back and realized that God was there all along. Being amateur as I am in faith, and to some degree untested, I hear CS Lewis in the back of my mind with words from Mere Christianity. To summarize and paraphrase: we may have all manner of experience with God, as the man in the desert, but without theology, without systematic study, application, learning and wisdom in the things of God. George Matheson writes, and I read, that calm is needed to hear God. That God will not speak amidst the turmoil of a frantic and busy life. I think, fretfully, w...
Post a Comment
Read more