Yesterday's blog was a re-creation of a blog I wrote that was "gobbled up" by some anomaly just as it was primed and ready to post. The recreation wasn't quite as good or quite as complete as the original... but it'll pass...
The frustrating thing is that there was more information in the original, and I keep remembering some of it. So, for what it's worth, yesterday's blog should have had something like the following in it...
When you develop a personal relationship with God, you will always feel loved by One who loves you more than he loves anything else he created (which may be why he put man in charge of a lot of it, to share the glory of his creation and protection/dominion), and more than anyone on earth can love you. He's the Original Love-r.
But when you decide once and for all to live with Him, it'll pinch at times, even as it pinches when you live with anyone else you love here on earth. His ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts. Whatever he does is right, even on days when you disagree vehemently. Once you get to know him (and I'm not quite there, or haven't had an anxious or significant emotional experience yet to bring me to this point), you will sometimes become livid and shake your fist and ask him, out of anger or an inability to understand, "Why are you allowing this (disaster, crisis, loss, challenge) to come into my life?!"
If you expect your life with God to forever be a bed of roses, consider this: roses have thorns, and even a bed of roses will make you bleed at times.
I don't want this to scare you away. I have learned that when I am under God's proverbial wings, in the way a hen protects her chicks, I will sometimes get overly warm, I will be tucked back underneath his breast by a strong, loving beak, I will be clucked at and corrected time and time again, but all during these inconvenient, uncomfortable, trying times I am aware that it's these very "insults to self," these "impingments to freedom" that build trust in God, that build patience and forebearance and character.
No experience will be wasted. Last year's disaster is this year's blessing. It is what we learn during disaster that allows us to help someone else facing a similar challenge; it is what we become during and after grief or trauma or addiction or conviction by the Holy Spirit that matters, that is an achievement carefully wrought by the hand of God.
God doesn't give anything but good, but he will allow Satan to rough us up a bit (or a lot) if we give him any kind of invitation into our lives. Satan is the prince of this fallen world, and he's sneaky, insidious and powerful (all to often masquerading as a really fun, enormously compelling companion). But you don't need to fear him, because Christ's sacrifice on the cross has overcome the world and Satan is a defeated prince awaiting his day on the gallows. And he's pissed and hoping to take as many others along with him as he can.
But you know better, or you will. You have ol' pointy-ears' number and his address. (Not Spock, you guys! Get a Life! hee hee hee)
We are living in days of grace. You will stumble, and fall, and get into the muck and the mire even after you give your life to God... But here's the thing: each day you love him more, you will stumble less. There will be a Lamp that lights the way so that you can see the stumbling points before you get to them, and it will be easier to avoid them. Your walk with God will ensure this, and the trek, in tandem with the Holy Spirit (paraclete), will be an adventure, not a tedious, treacherous, or fearful journey -- and as an added perk, it will be a long way from boring!
As long as you stay under the Blood and do your best to foster Light in the world and live by that Light, you will be victorious along the way and in the end.
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