Angry versus Joy

I am continuing to read Ann Voskamp’s book, One Thousand Gifts, and here is another paragraph that hit a little too close to home, a little too close to my reality.

Really? I lay my head on the table.  Do I really smother my own joy because I believe that anger achieves more than love? That Satan’s way is more powerful, more practical, more fulfilling in my daily life than Jesus’ way?  Why else get angry? Isn’t it because I think complaining, exasperation, resentment will pound me up into the full life I really want?  When I choose – and it is a choice – to crush joy with bitterness, am I not purposefully choosing to take the way of the Prince of Darkness?  Choosing the angry way of Lucifer because I think it is more effective – more expedient – than giving thanks?

~~Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, p 126

 

Still diggin',

Is she reading my mind? Is she living my life?

“Funny, this.  Yesterday morning, the morning before, all these mornings, I wake to the discontent of life in my skin.  I wake to self-hatred.  To the wrestle to get it all done, the relentless anxiety that I am failing.  Always, the failing.  I yell at children, fester with bitterness, forget doctors appointments, lose library books, live selfishly, skip prayer, complain, go to bed too late, neglect cleaning the toilets.  I live tired.  Afraid.  Anxious.  Weary.  Years, I felt it in the veins, the pulsing of ruptured hopes.  Would I ever be enough, find enough, do enough? But this morning, I wake wildly wanting to live.  Physically feeling it in the veins trembling, the hard pant of the lungs, the seeing it in the steady stars, how much I really want to really live.  How I don’t want to die.” 

~~Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, chapter 2.

Still diggin',

God’s Secretive Plan

From the very beginning, that Eden beginning, that has always been and always is, to this day, His secret purpose – our return to our full glory. Appalling – that He would! Us, unworthy. And yet since we took a bite out of the fruit and tore into our own souls, that drain hole where joy seeps away, God’s had this wild secretive plan.  He means to fill us with glory again. With glory and grace.

~~ Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, Chapter 1.

 

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We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature,

but not the wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age,

who are coming to nothing. 

No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom,

a wisdom that has been hidden and that God

destined for our glory before time began.

1 Corinthians 2:6,7

 

 

 

Still diggin',

Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

     Doubting God’s goodness, distrusting His intent, discontented with what He’s given, we desire . . . I have desired . . . more.  The fullest life.

     I look across farm fields.  The rest of the garden simply isn’t enough. It will never be enough.  God said humanity was not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  And I moan that God has ripped away what I wanted.  No, what I needed.  Though I can hardly whisper it, I live as though He stole what I consider rightly mine; happiest children, marriage of unending bliss, long content, death-defying days.  I look in the mirror, and if I’m fearlessly blunt – what I have, who I am, where I am, how I am, what I’ve got – this simply isn’t enough.  That forked tongue darts and daily I live the doubt, look at my reflection, and ask: Does God really love me? If He truly, deeply loves me, why does He withhold that which I believe will fully nourish me?  Why do I live in the this sense of rejection, of less than, of pain?  Does He not want me to be happy?

Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, Chapter 1

 

 

Still diggin',

What If Your Best . . .What is God’s best for us

 

I used to find this song annoying when I heard it on the TV, until I listened to the words and got thinking about it a little a lot.

What if HIS best for us doesn’t look like we expect it to look like?

What If Your Best by FFH

I'm trying hard to keep from falling off this wheel
Trying hard to keep so still
As you’re shaping, and remaking
Something new is bound to surface
Something bound to bring you fame
Something sure to make you great
Something you can use
But I am only clay and clay doesn't get to choose

I want your best but what if your best is brokenness
Would I be broken?
I want your best but what if less than what I ask
And what I'm hoping?
What if your best is here in the waiting, here in the going thru the motions?
I'll still be trusting all I am, and all have, and nothing less to Potter's hands

I'm trying hard to keep from giving you advice
It’s like teaching Shakespeare how to write
Or Monet, the way to paint another scene
But there's just something in this amateur that thinks
That my opinion's what you need
On how to work in me
But I am only clay, and clay probably shouldn't speak

Chorus

Take my life and let it be consecrated just to thee
Take my voice and let me sing for you my King
Take my moments and my days and let them flow in ceaseless praise
For You always, for You

Chorus

Only here for you to mould, I'm holding on, because I belong in Potter's hands

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The part that got me the most was this:

I want your best but what if less than what I ask And what I'm hoping?
What if your best is here in the waiting, here in the going thru the motions?

Maybe, just maybe, HIS best for me is “going through the motions”.  It is going through the day by day by day.  My life may be a lot of work.  My life may be a lot of dirty diapers and scrapes and bruises.  My life may be sticky fingers and runny noses.  On the days when my day to day to day takes over my JOY and my anger rides to the surface yet again, I try to remember that HE is in control and that HE wants the best for me.  I try to remember that I am the clay, being moulded into the person, the woman, the wife and mother that HE wants me to be; I will be HIS best for me, if I remember.

 

A close friend of mine and I were talking the other day.  She doesn’t often share lots from her past but the little snippets of her history that she shares always amaze me.  She came from a world of abuse and neglect.  I have nothing to compare the experiences to in my own life.  I see the woman she is today and I think to myself, “if God can change that woman . . . if God can show Himself through her . . . if she can show so much JOY and LOVE to those in her life after all the horrid things she experienced . . . if she can love herself, and be happy with who she is . . . if she can, then surely, I can!”  If God can do such a great work, and create such a beautiful person from those experiences, then surely, I can allow Him to work in me and do similar in my life and in my family.  Surely, I can be willing clay, in the Potter’s hands.

 

 

Still diggin',

JOY

Joy is lacking in me and I am sad about that.

 

How’s that for an opening statement?

 

So I’ve been doing some reading on blogs and other websites about joy.  I want to be joyful.  Here are some quotes:

 

Joy is a choice; it is commanded. If you were to command your three year old child to complete an assignment of advanced algebra, he or she would not be able to do it. They could not keep your command. A good father would only ask you to do what is possible for you to complete. God is a good father. He commands us to “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4) Those instructions are written in the imperative form, meaning they are commands. God wants us to consistently act with joy. We are to rejoice in spite of our circumstances and mood. Since he commands it, we must be able to choose to rejoice.  ~~~ Pastor Ed, Olivet Baptist Church

 

Joy is also a perspective; it is based on the mighty works of God. I am sure you are well of aware of Paul’s imprisonment in Philippi. They cast a demon out of the fortune-telling slave girl. The owners got upset and had Paul thrown in prison. Paul and Silas were stripped of their clothes and beaten. Then they were thrown in a cold prison cell to await their trial. If there ever were a time to be down in the mouth, this is it. Instead, they are singing songs of praise to God. Their joy is irrepressible. Shortly, after an earthquake the jailer and his family come to Christ. If Paul and Silas had been grumpy, complaining people, I doubt that would have happened. (Acts 16:16-34) ~~~ Pastor Ed, Olivet Baptist Church

 

Well, that’s just a couple notes on joy.  What it comes down to is that I want to have more joy and less stress and frustration.  It is something that I’m going to be working on this year.  It is something that I will be reading more about and sharing with my readers.  (At least that’s the plan; my follow-thru has been lacking.)

 

Still diggin',

Thinking on Scripture - Joy

Hebrews 12:2 (NIV)

²Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

John 17:13 (NIV)

¹³"I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.

John 16:22-24 (KJV)

²²And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,