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Topic: Angry (08/02/07)
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TITLE: Lost & Found | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jamie Rohde
08/05/07 -
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I spent the last two years playing the blame game. She did this to me so I have the right to feel this way or do this thing or say that thing. Or worse yet, God let this happen to me, so I have the right to yell and scream and turn my back. Not that I think being angry with God is a bad thing. In fact, as I look at some of the men in the Bible that God calls Beloved, Men of God, Men After His Own Heart, they said some pretty harsh things to God. The difference was in their knowledge of God and His purposes. Being honest with God takes knowing who God is. Therefore, being a man after God’s heart takes constant communication with God so that when we are honest with God and get angry, it is not blasphemy, but rather a searching for God as He really is. In our anger we are admitting that we do not understand what is going on and are giving back to God what is rightfully His – the power to be God.
“Love the Lord your God with all your soul, mind and strength.” It is really hard to do this when all you are thinking of is yourself. I deserve to be happy. I deserve to have my way. I…I…I…. In reality, I deserve death. It is a humbling experience when you really begin to understand that you are nothing and deserve nothing without God.
Our only job then is to be content to dwell with God wherever we find ourselves. Whether that be married, single, divorced, widowed – “God, what do you have for me to do today?” should be our mantra. Everything we have, every talent we possess, every relationship we cherish needs to be used for the purpose of furthering God’s Kingdom. Everything is His anyway. And in the end there is only you and Him.
A couple of months ago I was going through the motions of another church service, not expecting much; not giving much, when I got more than I bargained for.
“It’s only you and me here now.”
The words to this song flashed on the screen and I immediately began to cry. The words hit like a personal message to me; foreboding and terrible and hopeful and wonderful at the same time.
“Only you and me here now.”
This at first seemed sad to me. You have nothing else in this life going for you. You and me is all you got. In this sense my tears were intense grieving over what I already knew would be the loss of my wife, someone who knew everything about me – the good and the bad, and the really ugly. In the end I was left feeling like I was not really worth knowing.
“Only you and me here now.”
And yet with my pursuit of God in a more relational way, looking for Him to be real, these words were more of a comforting voice that in spite of everything going on around me; everything falling apart; all of the swirling chaos and darkness – He is all I need. He is there for me, calling me to Himself. He says that I really am worth knowing, and He knows me better than anyone – all the secret things I have done, all the disgusting things I have thought or said.
I am 30 and this is the first time I really, truly understood this. I am learning that God takes great joy in the fact that I give up just a millimeter of self, even if the next second I am two feet deep in a mire of hubris. Entrusting your talents, your possessions, your relationships back into the Lord’s hands; giving them back to Him (they were His anyway) is freedom and joy.
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