Eat more ... ice cream!!

On a good day, enjoy yourself;
On a bad day, examine your conscience.

God arranges for both kinds of days

So that we won't take anything for granted.

Eccl. 7:14

 

Still hanging with Solomon.  Some days though ... it just gets a little discouraging.  Maybe his cynicism and hyperbole and just starting to wear on me. 

 

Basically the whole of chapter 7 reminds us that we don't get God.  We just don't.  His ways are not our ways.  His thoughts are not our thoughts.  He doesn't owe us an explanation.  We can only know what He reveals about Himself.  Yes, there is evil.  Yes, it will touch our lives.  Even pain, God can use in His plans for our lives.  As a matter of fact, pain, God especially uses for His good in our lives.

 

 

So, if its a good day, eat chocolate ice cream cause a bad day's a coming. 

 

TN makes a couple of good points today that have kind of stuck wtih me:

 

1. God will do His job in directing the universe.  The question is, will you do your job?  To figure out life, I don't need to know what God's doing.  What I NEED to do is avoid evil and do right and please God.

 

2. God will always give us struggles in life.  He makes sure that we are always facing things that we can't quite figure out.  And the reason He does it is so we will remember this world is not our home.

 

If I've said it once, I've said it 1000 times, "If God would just tell me ______ is coming, then I would be content."  Hmmmmm ... who am I fooling?  Every little bit God reveals to me I match with my own meddling contribution to His plan.  I say I wouldn't, but I would.  I'd still try to figure it out, help him out, speed it up.  We're just like that as humans.   We are never content to leave well enough alone.  Going back to Psalm 119:11 ... you word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.  Yep ... and that light shines just far enough for the next step.  God's no dummy .... tell us the whole plan and we stop coming to Him for the next step.  He lets us understand a little less so we will depend on Him a little more.  He makes us a little needier so we will need Him a little more.  He has us in a place where we need to depend on Him because we really can't depend on ourselves.  And that's not a bad place to be.

 

As TN said, it reminds us that this is not it.  This is not our home.  I think about when we travel for missions, how dependent we are on our hosts ... for where we are going, how we are getting there, what and when we will eat, where and when we will sleep, what is appropriate ... and we are at their mercy.  We wait on their instruction.  We do what they ask.  If we could only learn to relate to God with such simple trust that He is doing what is best for us and taking care of what we could never do for ourselves!

 

I heard Carrie Underwood's new song, "Temporary Home" about two weeks ago.  Soooo true.  So today as I head into the longest day on earth (Tuesdays are such a struggle!) ... I'm humming along with her this morning ...

 

"This is my temporary Home
It's not where I belong

Windows and rooms that I'm passin' through

This was just a stop,on the way To where I'm going

I'm not afraid because I know this was

My temporary home."