God won't give us a happy little life ....

A few days ago I got in a funk. That is what Kari and I call it when you don't have real good reasons but you just feel blah and there is no sign in the near future of not feeling blah. I prayed and asked God to help but I was out to eat with the fam and I couldn't really get any quiet time to focus and pray. The whisper prayers that I was praying weren't lifting the cloud either.

When we got home I told Kari that I needed to take a walk and she had already discerned that I was in a funk (cause women are awesome and pick up on that kind of thing). So I went walking and just talked with God and listened to Him and tried to get unfunky.

Basically the funk boiled down to a few things that had been going on. I was feeling like the harder I was trying to work the less I was getting done. My inclination was to work even harder and see what happened. I had been doing that and it wasn't working by the way, but that is exactly what I was wanting to do. So I am out with my family and I should be enjoying a meal with them and just really be in the moment with them. Instead I am thinking about how to cram more work into spare moments and what I need to do.

So I begin asking myself and the Lord the question "Why am I doing this?" "Why can't I just be content?" God began to show me that even when I couldn't work my natural inclination was to be busy. I wasn't okay just sitting still. I wanted to be calling, on the computer, doing something even if it wasn't work related. I wasn't content to just be still.

So I find this new place to walk on the golf course behind our house and it is beautiful. It was as if God was showing me all this beauty and had planned the time just for me. There were no golfers and the sun was setting and radiating off the water. There was a flowing creek just to my left. I could hear birds singing. I mean I know all this sounds pretty sound of music like but I really feel like God prepared it for me.

So as I am spending time with God I start realizing that I am becoming more content just being with Him. I asked, "How can I stop this? What can I do so I don't get like this again?" God says to me, "You can't stop it!" Then I'm like, "Well what am I supposed to do just be discontent?" God says, "You will just have to follow me!" There will be times in this life when I need to just take a walk with Him. Maybe I'll need to just go into another room and pray. No program, no structure, no Bible studies, no thing besides following God in all the moments of my life will work against this desire we have that keeps us discontent.

That night I tried to find my Bible and I couldn't. Not only could I not find my Bible but I couldn't find any Bibles really. I didn't even bring the computer home so I couldn't get online and go to an online Bible (which is usually how I study and read devotionally these days). So I find this New American Standard Bible finally because I wanted to do some study on a particular subject. The next day I went back to that Bible to read my devotion for the morning. I was in Psalm 17. I have been reading through the Psalms lately. This is what I read:

"Deliver my soul from the wicked with Your sword, 14From men with Your hand, O LORD, From men of the world, whose portion is in this life, And whose belly You fill with Your treasure; They are satisfied with children, And leave their abundance to their babes. 15As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake."

It appears that this text of Scripture is pretty hard to translate from the original. There are tons of footnotes in the NASB and when I read it in the NIV I hardly recognized the text. In fact the NIV attributes the blessings of children to the blessing of the Lord instead of the way it reads here where it is something the Lord makes the wicked content with. It is a tough text to translate but I also think it is a tough concept for us to grapple with.

God won't give us a nice little happy life where we can be content with the stuff of earth! That is what we all want. We want to be happy! We want our kids to be happy! Here is the catch though .... We want to be happy in this life! We may have moments of spirituality where we claim that we are living for the next life but down deep we want to be content in the here and now. God didn't create us for the here and now though; He created us for eternity! He is willing to destroy our comfort so that He can develop our character! Our character goes with us into the next life; our comfort doesn't.

The Psalmist says in the passage I read that the wicked find themselves content with children, their material goods, and leaving a nice inheritance to their kids. He will be content only with looking intently into His makers eyes in eternity and knowing God and being known. God is the satisfier of our souls! Nothing else brings true contentment. We all drift from that. We also must constantly wrestle with the desire to be content with the stuff of earth.

In Jesus Name

Jarrett Jamieson