People talk about God not letting us have the things we want sometimes because they aren't part of His will for us or because He wants us to grow closer to Him. Usually they're talking about boyfriends, husbands, jobs, or money... things like that.
I'm in the fortunate and strange situation of wanting none of the typical things people are looking for when they're yearning for the next thing. God has given me all the things people typically pray for without much thought or effort or waiting on my part. Why? Who knows? I feel guilty writing this knowing others are waiting for so much, but I write it out of gratitude and amazement, not boasting, that God gave me Jason, seemingly out of the blue, brought me to Shafer Middle School where I was offered a job by one of the world's best principals on the spot the Monday after graduation, and has blessed Jason and me with an easy and comfortable lifestyle, easily provided with everything we need. There is so little need to worry in our lives. I have a dream husband, and we as a couple have the dream life and dream marriage. Seriously, it's sickening. It's that good. We're not even pining for or worrying about children yet. We don't even have that burden of so many young couples. We are perfectly happy where we are with what we have.
So why have I been so wretchedly dissatisfied and miserable? Why am I always complaining about my job and my busyness? Why am I often so grumpy and ungrateful (always in my mind if not always out loud) about so much of my life?
I wrote recently in August (what? it was that long ago?) about the rush of my miserable life Speed and how disgusting it is that I have the nerve to be unhappy with my life when I have so many wonderful things.
I have called it a "lack of perspective" and ingratitude, and I have berated myself, and I suppose many people would say that what I have needed to do all this time is to count my blessings. That, of course, is true, but I think I am realizing something even deeper than the need to count blessings...
This may sound radical or it may sound so normal one would wonder why I would bother typing it-- I'm having a hard time telling the difference these days-- but what I'm realizing is that I have been so unsatisfied because none of the "blessings" I have is God. Counting the blessings and looking for the positives has not helped because, honestly, all the positives are mere idols at best anyway. To look at a school day and try to find the good that was in it, for me, is just further idol worship of myself, my craft, and the way I measure my success and my value as a person.
And what I'm realizing is that God has been trying this whole time to get my attention, making me unsatisfied with all the unworthy lovers in my life that this world praises rather than calls out for the demons they are. If I were feeling the way I want to feel about school, my job, my importance in the classroom, I would be missing out on this message God has been putting together slowly but surely in my life... that none of the things I have been looking for to reassure me of my value will ever do it. I have thought for so long that I am just broken, the wrong personality for teaching or maybe for anything involving other humans because I am so jaded and so dissatisfied, so unable to see the good along with the bad, so unwilling to look at the bright side. But now, oddly, miraculously, I am praising God, my Father, for keeping those ooey-gooey good feelings away because I know myself, know that if I had been feeling fulfilled all this time it would have not been in Him but in me and my kids and my belief in books and education and a system that is just a human system and nothing like God...
People talk about turning away from drink and drug and sex and swearing for God. How many talk about turning away from trying to be a good teacher or from wanting to live life right?
That's what I've needed to do all along, and I am so filled with joy right now, seeing a little bit more of God unveiled knowing that He is holding me saying, "Daughter, I Am all that is good. I Am all that is worthy. You are only worthy because I love you. That is it. You could never be more or less worthy for anything You ever accomplish or don't."
And I sit here, filled with joy. Joy! Joy? What is this feeling and where has it been?
And the answer is not just that I had a good day at school or that my students suddenly blossomed so much that I got to see the fruit of my labor but that I am crucifying again the belief that I can ever even bear fruit.
Lord, YOU are the vine, and I am the branch.
Again with these feelings that are either radical or maybe fundamental and commonplace-- I cannot tell because they're sparkling so with so much joy and new light-- There is such joy in looking at Jesus and knowing that He is the only good. So much joy in realizing that it is right not to be happy and fulfilled even in a wonderful marriage, even with wonderful friends and family, even with a wonderful job, not because they are not good gifts from God for which I should be thankful (because they certainly are! All good things come from above!) but because they are only shadowy glimpses of the good that God is, hollow and pale in comparison. So much gratitude in a God who would whisper to me, "There is room for more desire in you because you were made to desire something so amazing and beyond your comprehension-- ME."
I am not fully satisfied-- may I never be!-- because the fall of man has separated me from the only good, has put distance and distraction between me and the only value, the only love, the only light. Jesus has covered the sins that would have separated me forever, and the Holy Spirit has given me birth into a part of Jesus's bride now.
Oh, but now we see only dimly as in a mirror! Now is only the reflection.
What joy! What joy in seeing more of Jesus now, what joy in knowing even a life as good as mine is is only a tiny taste, and even, if it were gone, it would not matter. Only Jesus. I think He is starting to teach me what that means...
And my heart is so full of love for Him, and I just pray that it grows and grows!
He is jealous for me
(even when the things I love above and in addition to Him are good things, like kids and school, when that love is human obsession and not the Love that comes from Him)
He is jealous for me
(and wooing me back to His heart so beautifully)
He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane,
I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight
Of His wind and mercy.
Oh, how He loves us
Oh
Oh, How He loves us
How He loves us
Oh
We are His portion,
And He is our prize--
Drawn to redemption
By the grace in His eyes.
If His grace is an ocean,
We're all sinking!
Heaven meets earth
Like an unforseen kiss,
And my heart beats violently
Inside of my chest--
And I realize just how
Beautiful You are and
How great Your affections are for me.
Oh how He loves us.
(David Crowder Band)
It's a Hosea kind of love. A death-defying kind of love. So supernatural, so undeserved, so awe-inspiring.
"Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow."
James 1:17
Oh, how He loves. Hallelujah!
