Saturday, October 22, 2011 - Surrender Ease, Comfort
This morning - email that Mother in Law may have lung cancer for the third time...in laws' dear Christian neighbor in her late 70's lying weak & bed-ridden with bone cancer...the timing of my morning not going as I thought it would...none following the "smooth" plan we plan for ourselves...all suffering to (very) varying degrees. All calls to surrender our striving for ease and comfort. We don't need to go and look for suffering; living in the Post Eden World is enough to live with suffering (whatever varying degree it might be that life is not matching up to your "smooth" plan.) Does anyone plan out their course to be intentionally difficult?
My study of 1 Peter is continually reminding me that we are exiles in this Post Eden World and we shouldn't feel comfortable. Maybe when we feel comfortable we should ask "What's wrong?" instead of when we face suffering.
For the first 5 years of my marriage, it would rock my world when my DH would (unintentionally) do things that made my life "not easy." My perspective was that having a husband would make my life more comfortable, rather than adding difficulty to it. Grace would be slow because his action (or lackthereof) was an assault on my striving for ease and comfort. In this last year, the LORD has been refining that perspective and I am starting to learn how to surrender the striving for ease and comfort. This morning I was reminded that life is not so much about "smoothness" but about SUFFERING WELL, and that involves surrendering ease and comfort and ABOUNDing IN THANKSGIVING.
For a list of all the daily lesson titles in the 40 Days of Surrender in one place, Click Here.
Suffering well - good perspective. I hate that it happened, but somewhere along the way, I began to believe that having money in my savings would lead to ease and comfort. As if I didn't have enough on my plate! Why do we do this to ourselves? We cannot make a pit a home, right? Well, we can, but it's a paltry one at best. We have much to be joyful for and our needs are met; we don't need to manufacture ways to have our needs even MORE met.
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