Thursday, January 2, 2014

What's next?

It seems like I'm always waiting on the "what's next,"
with squirming with discontentment and restless living that really only becomes the thief that desires to steal, kill, and destroy me.

I reflect on the last 24 hours, on the sweet hours of conversation with a best friend over warm caffeine and lot to catch up on, trying to poke at our futures that we really could not know even if we tried. 
And oh, do we try sometimes. 

It's the same poisonous thoughts that have been circling my mind, especially in the days like these when futures look so bright, and let's set all these plans because we've thrown out our old calendars and there's a new number to write in the corner our papers and journals.

Only when I know when I am able to graduate, then I will have peace.
Only when I know what job this degree with get me, then I will have security.
Only when I have that godly husband, then I will have deeper joy.
Only when I find this devotional, then I will be able to dig deeper into God's Word.

I laugh today at these thoughts that have been regulars in my mind.
I throw them out with the 2013 calendars.

Waiting in the perpetually discontented state like this, it's a state always hungry.
It's the hungry that promises starvation.
I want a different hunger, the good hunger that ferociously seeks the Lord like a soul starved for years.

"I know I will live to see the Lord's goodness in this present life." -Psalm 27:13

It's here for us to know.
That in all the questioning discontented, there's one thing that's for sure, and it will not disappoint like all the other for-sure's we long for will: it's God's goodness, and it's here, today, this second, this breath.

Because no circumstances or number of uncertainties robs us of the ability to praise God and to feast upon His overwhelming mercy;
it's in this discontentment of waiting for the "for-sure's"-- the job, the husband, the money, the plans-- that we are robbed of the Mightiest for-sure who promises to reign surely forever and ever.

I read it in the way Mary responded to the greatest wrecking of all the for-sure's in her life-- her promised marriage, her future, her reputation, her standing in society, her role in life-- only to birth the greatest for-sure to promise His goodness in our lives.
To her uncertainties she could only praise. To her uncertainties, she said:

"My heart praises the Lord;
My soul is glad because of God my Savior,
for He has remembered me, His lowly servant!" (Luke 1:46-48a)

"He has stretched out His mighty arm and scattered the proud with all their plans.
He has brought down mighty kings from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent away the rich with empty hands." (Luke 1:51-53)

Could it be?
Could it be that in the scattering of our plans, that's the real feast of God's goodness here and now?
Could it be that the fullness of joy is to be experienced this very minute, that it flourishes in the uncertainties that muddle those who belong tot he world, but inspires wild praise in those who have the gift eternal?

Let us never be fooled, no circumstance, no uncertainty, none of it robs us of anything because we can forever praise, and we can forever know the Lord's goodness everlasting, without fail.


 


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