Continuation of the early March journal entry I posted in Constantly Vigilant, this part written at the end of the same day:Quigley had another great day. I just decided to stop trying to figure out all the timing and arrange everything around him, and just put him in the crate when I needed to go somewhere. If he howled, oh well. So I went to the store and to the Y. And it was fine...
Bible class was great -- echoes and refinements of my conclusions this morning (see Constantly Vigilant below). Pastor is teaching on Abram and how he had to go "to a land which I will show you." He was given a general direction, but no specifics, and especially no specifics of blessing. "There are many commands we must obey without God telling us what type of blessings we'll receive if we do."
We desire happiness, peace and contentment. We think success (or marriage or a nice house or good kids or a well-behaved dog or...?) will provide it. So we want success (or the other things). We pray for it, strive for it. But success doesn't give happiness, peace and contentment. Nor do any of those other things. They're all time-oriented and therefore transitory. None are things we can control, but things God gives or takes.
Success can be taken. (Shaken?) So by definition, it cannot give peace and contentment because at the back of your mind will always be the sense that you could lose it. And if circumstances come where it appears you will lose it, goodbye peace.
Peace and contementment have to come from something stable and eternal and unchanging. Like God. Like His word. Like the fact that He is for me, not because of me, but because I received His perfect righteousness at salvation and will never lose it. When He looks at me, that's what He sees. He will never leave me or forsake me. He will provide my needs, because He has promised and He cannot lie. He loves me. He blessed me in eternity past. I can't begin to imagine the blessings that he has for me. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He's omnipotent, wise, cannot make a mistake, never wavers, never wanders, never for a moment loses control of the situation. All my problems have perfect solutions.
Let me say that again: ALL my problems have PERFECT solutions. In Him. I am nothing. I can do nothing. But so what? He does it all.
Grace,
Karen
