I wrote this post a week and a half ago. But I couldn’t post it then. And I’m going to tweak it now because I’m not in that place I was back then. Still, I’m going to be honest because honesty is better than the lies we believe.
Truth is? This has been a hard year. It has for all of us. Each one in a different way. My struggles are not your struggles because we are all in different seasons of life. But no matter the season, all of us can hold the glass too long.
I’ll explain that in a minute.
I have a tendency to be a lot like Jacob. I want to be like Mary who just sat at Jesus’ feet and listened and learned. But I am a stubborn red-head (call that a stereo-type—it matters little to me because of me it is true.) And I have a wrestler’s nature when it comes to me and my relationship with God.
I know if I was a more compliant person, I could just accept things. I know people like that. But that’s not me. I grab hold of the questions and I wrestle with them in prayer because I have to. I need to understand, and when I don’t, I ask. And sometimes I ask a lot of why questions.
You too?
Some people never question God or His reasons behind the scenes. I know people like that too. I admire people that can trust Him no matter what. But not only am I stubborn, I wear my emotions on my sleeves. And I wish I could get past that.
Writers are supposed to have thick skin. Trust me. With all of the rejections we face, all of the criticisms we deal with, we need the ability to take all of that. Sometimes I wonder if people realize that a real person is behind that email address or social media page. As one writer put it—do they pray before they hit send?
Thick skin. But we also have to have “thin” skin, as in a tender, empathetic heart that feels deeply, so we can understand the people in our stories. If we don’t relate to other people in general, we can never relate to their reality.
So we hurt. And we bleed all over the page.
And sometimes we bleed in real life too.
My struggles with God are always personal. I grow impatient with His timing, which my mom continually reminds me is never wrong. That doesn’t stop me from wanting Him to hurry. And I struggle with His will, His plan, His decisions on things. Call it what you will, but I pray hard and I battle over the longings of my heart. I may lose hope. Happens a lot. But something about God always makes me get up and fight again. Don’t give up, He tells us. Keep praying, keep seeking, keep asking.
So I do.
Even when I don’t understand.
Of course, just because I don’t understand delays or circumstances I don’t like doesn’t mean that God doesn’t. He is not a man that He should lie. He is sovereign and all-powerful and beyond my comprehension. Yet He tells me to pray without ceasing and to ask Him until I wear Him out because He wants to hear me pray—he wants to hear my voice in prayer. That’s rather astonishing, isn’t it?
And maybe, as has happened in ages past, my prayers might change His mind or make a difference in some way. He is a God of great mercy and compassion and He knows we are made of clay. He loves that about us. Don’t know why but it’s true!
I’ve been a girl/woman of prayer for most of my life. I used to walk home from school all alone, so I talked to God as I walked. Looking back, I wonder what made me love Him at such a young age and always come back clinging to Him for answers to things I didn’t understand. And I’ve seen answers. I have. Big deal answers. Sometimes almost instant answers. And I’ve been amazed and thanked Him and been oh so grateful.
But there were also the struggles that came in the dark times. The times of silence. Times like we are living in today.
You feel it too, don’t you? This is not a normal year. And I would like to replace it with something far better, please.
Sometimes, though I might wrestle like Jacob, I can feel a lot like Job. Read his book. I can bet a lot of us can relate to his groaning.
And isn’t that what the world has done since the beginning of time? Even creation groans because it was subjected to sin when the world fell into chaos. If you don’t think sin exists, you are not looking at the world through the lens of truth.
And if you’re like me, you want the hard times to end. But they’re not going to end. Not permanently. Not as long as we live in these mortal bodies.
One day God will make all things new. But that day is not this day. It may come at dawn or in a thousand dawns from now. But while we wait, we struggle, and we groan.
And we hold the glass too long. You’re probably wondering what that even means.
Look back at the photo with the glass of water that is filled half-way. You may have thought I was going to ask you if the glass was half-empty or half full? We’ve all heard that scenario. Negative thinking is “glass half empty.” Positive thinkers have their glasses half full.
A friend told me that if you hold a half-empty or half-full glass too long, it doesn’t matter whether you see it as empty or full. It matters how long you hold it. If I hold out anything with my arm outstretched, my whole body is going to complain pretty soon. I’m not strong enough to hold the glass. Or the grief. Or the chaos. Or the world in which we live.
I can’t carry the struggles that I wrestle with in prayer. I can’t hold this year that I’d like to do over. I can’t hold the problems that just seem to escalate or the fear or the lies vs. truth, or any of it.
Only God is big enough to carry this load.
While I might have times where I feel like I’ve lost what used to be. Like I’m missing what I love the most. Like the world is falling apart and I don’t know if it will ever be right again. I don’t have to keep holding the glass.
I might still deal with emotions over things I cannot change. But I am also learning that I can use this time, this year of unprecedented happenings that are changing the way we look at everything, and shift my focus.
I can let God hold the glass and fix my gaze on Him instead of on what was filling that glass half empty/full.
That’s not easy for me. Just being honest.
Yet I know God is in control and that He isn’t going to abandon us here.
Job didn’t feel like he deserved what happened to him, and I imagine we don’t feel like this world deserved what’s happened to it this year either. What we do or do not deserve is not the question.
The question is are we looking at the One who sees the big picture and has way more power than anyone on earth has ever wielded? Even Job, the most honest, godly person of his day, could not stand up to a holy God who controls all things and who created all things. When He heard God’s voice and saw way beyond his personal circumstances, he fell on his face in repentance.
Maybe that’s what I need to remember when I’m feeling like he did or struggling with things I will not understand in this life. God is bigger than my woes. He is greater than what frustrates me. He is smarter than any evil design brought against Him, and He is not surprised nor hindered by any pandemic or threat we face. His love conquers our fears.
If we let Him. If I let Him.
If we let go of the glass, be honest, and trust Him to handle what we can’t. One day we will understand. In the meantime, we will feel a lot less stress if we can learn to trust Him.
~Selah
#honesty #halfglass #heldtoolong #trustGod #struggles #ayearwewouldliketochange
