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In the Face of Real Life
By admin | May 29, 2009
Philippians 4:13 “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”
Thomas Merton, a great spiritual leader said, “God’s love is so great he wants us to stand on our own two feet.” When I first read that it seemed wrong. I thought God wanted us dependent on him. However, I realized that God does not want to make us so that we don’t have a choice about not loving him. We must have the choice of not loving him to ever come to the choice of really loving him. God wants us to love him freely, independently, and with strength.
As Averette and I raised our children I knew there were things we could do that would manipulate our children to constant dependence on us. However, we wanted the girls to be independent adults. We wanted them to have a choice about wanting to return to our home and love us freely. We did not want them to be so dependent they could never find their own way. In a like way, I believe God wants us to stand on our own two feet and know that he embraces us as we choose to embrace him.
That may mean that life is difficult. William Cullen Bryant said, “Difficulty my friends, is the nurse of greatness.” In difficult times we find our center. God is our center and he helps us in moments of greatness. The week the World Trade Center fell an actress on Broadway said, “My fellow actors and I felt ourselves galvanized by a moment in history.” She said, “We felt a very special obligation to give our audience our very, very best because of everything we had survived.” She said, “Our perspective about why we do what we do has changed.”
It is easy when our lives fall apart to be a baby, to lament, “Poor me, poor me.” Yet, life is about living. There are no guarantees. God does not promise us if we follow Him, it will be like flowers in the spring. In point of fact, Jesus sets the example that doing the work of God could get us crucified. If we find yourself hurt, it is in that hurt we discover the depth of our love for God. It is easy to love a God that gives us all the blessings of life. It is more problematic in loving a God who demands that we stand on our own two feet.
Martina McBride has a song entitled, Anyway. Two of the lines I love are, “You can spend your whole life building something from nothing. One storm can come and blow it all away. Build it anyway.” Also, “You can pour your soul out singing a song you believe in that tomorrow they will forget you ever sang. Sing it anyway.” The refrain of the song is, “God is great but sometimes life ain’t good and when I pray it doesn’t always turn out like I think, but I do it anyway, yeah, I do it anyway.” This song so struck me the other day. It speaks to my life now.
God wants us to love him freely, standing on our own two feet, not so showered in blessings that we do not understand what it means to freely love God.
Prayer:
Dear God, help us to love you freely. Amen.
Topics: Epilogue |
June 13th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Hi, very nice post. I have been wonder’n bout this issue,so thanks for posting