Welcome to my blog! For a woman like myself, almost 62, right brained rather than left, and not used in any way to social networking, this is a BIG step in my life. Honestly, I will be dependent on my long suffering sons to help me navigate this new forum. But I have written a book, and they tell me that I am now required to maintain a social networking presence. Why exactly that is, is beyond me, but I do know that God has given me a story to tell, so here goes! This blog is going to explore on a sometimes daily, sometimes weekly basis, how the reality that GOD IS ENOUGH works out in day to day life. What do I mean by "God is Enough?" That is what we will explore together. I hope we will have great dialogue around that truth, and all the other questions raised by it.
I have had to learn afresh that God is enough, because my husband, Mike, and I screeched up on retirement age with our house in foreclosure, a resulting bankruptcy, and the very live reality of perhaps having to live in our car...(no small feat since the only car the bankruptcy left us is a Scion XB.) You can read our story in my book "Is God Enough?...one woman's journey through gain and loss" which is available on Amazon.
The point is, life is chaotic, restive, painful, exhilarating, tenuous, fraught with misery, riddled with joy, sometimes all in the same day. How does one deal with this without going nuts, going postal, or succumbing to despair. How do you make sense out of life hunkered down in your home awaiting the wrath of Hurricane Irene? How does my co-worker make sense out of life as her husband battles stage 4 cancer? How does my son make sense out of his life as a single dad, alone with 2 beautiful children who have been abandoned by their mother? How does the retiree watching the gyrations of the stock market, feeling every downturn like a taser to his heart, make sense of his increasingly meager nest egg? How does my older son, who has been unemployed for over two years now, and who watches his wife's commission be cut again and again by corporate greed, who never knows if there will be food for dinner for his family that night, how does he make sense of life?
I invite you to explore these issues with me, to dialogue, and rant. Let's discover together if there is a God, and if He is enough.
Hi Becky, It's been a long time. Mike Dunn remembered you to me. He mentioned you wrote a book. Apparently he just finished reading it.
ReplyDeleteSounds like life has been treating you as life does for many of us. I am glad to read, by inference that so many things are going right with your life. Having been self employed for 21 years in the construction business, I know from where you cometh.
It's just a giant Monopoly game, the money isn't printed by Milton Bradley but it is worth only as much as we believe it to be worth. It is never fun to play Monopoly with someone who takes it seriously anyway and like you have implied, when you were pushed out of the game, you turned around from the table and there were your friends and family.
Is God enough? Very good question. Without the benefit of reading your book, if God isn't enough, we want too much.
In fact, your provision for me when I drifted up to Washington in 1974 with no friends, no job and no direction provided a launching pad that has never been forgotten. You introduced me to my first friends, some of whom I still keep in touch with.
I will put your book on my list. I have drifted towards fiction more than anything these days as I seem to find more encouragement there.
I am as honored to be your first commenter as I was for you to be my first friend in a new place nearly 40 years ago.
Alan
I am also constantly battling with this question. My head knows the answer, it's my heart that has trouble falling in line. I'm prone to fits of despair as I think about my future, but then I get excited when I remember that God is in control and will always give me exactly what I need.
ReplyDeleteThe assurance doesn't last very long, though. I know God is enough, but how do I know it all the time?
Jason, you ask a very important question! "I know God is enough, but how do I know it all the time?" Here are just a few thoughts on an enormous subject - I hope they will be helpful as you consider them.
ReplyDeleteWe all need regular reassurances of the basic truths of life because we are prone to forget what's true in this world that is shrouded with the fog of lies and deceptions. I often think, when discussing this subject, of The Silver Chair (I think it was) by C.S. Lewis, in which the children are given signs to remember by Aslan. He tells them that up where they are - in Aslan's country - things are clear, truth is obvious, their thoughts are not muddled. But when they get down into Narnia, things are foggy and obscured, and truth is difficult to ascertain. So Aslan says to remember the signs. Recite them every day - morning, afternoon, and evening, so you don't lose touch with what's true, and what your purpose is. To me, this has always been a great explanation of why we Christians need certain disciplines like memorizing scripture and meditating quietly on the truth. They help to dissipate the fog that settles around us in this truth-deprived world. If we're pro-active in these things, then we're training our hearts and minds to perceive life from God's perspective, becoming more settled in the truth (of God's "enough-ness" for example). Another way to say it is that we're learning to WALK by faith - to believe moment by moment that God is with us and that He is enough, and to live so that that truth permeates and influences every square inch of our lives. When we're new at it we "hop" or "stutter-step" by faith. But God wants to mature us so that we WALK by faith. Discipleship is apprenticeship in faith, and just as with any apprenticeship, the skills we need to grow into don't come by neglect, but by gracious discipline. The Bible is pretty clear and helpful about this subject. For instance, Ps.119.11 - "Your word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you." Or how 'bout Ps.1 - "How blessed in the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night." The apostle Paul exhorts us to set our minds on the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God - and not on the things on earth. And he tells us to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. So, in order to know that God is enough "all the time", I can't just sit around and hope that someday, by luck, or providence, or some combination thereof, I'll just suddenly graduate from stutter-stepping to walking by faith. God gives us specific things that we can apply ourselves to which, in combination with his power and grace, will eventually produce an "all the time" kind of faith. Don't be discouraged by failure, but persevere in at least one thing that gets your heart and mind wrapped around the truth on a daily basis. And then choose to believe the truth that God gives you that day. ("Today if you hear my voice do not harden your hearts..." Somewhere in Hebrews.) The Narnian children had to not only remember the signs they were given, but had to trust them - to believe it was safe and right to follow and obey the signs even when it meant danger and peril. So with us and God's truth...we need to remember it daily, and believe it...in order to grow into an "all the time" reality with Jesus. (This is actually my preacher husband responding, I am very glad he is joining me on this blog.) But Jason's comment has triggered what I want to blog about next, "the discipline of thankfulness". Stay tuned!
I know this is backwards, but it has taken me this long to figure out how to comment on a comment.....like I said, this blogging thing is really a stretch for me! Anyway, Al - First, it was so excellent to hear from you, talk about a voice from our past! Second, buy my damn book! I believe you will find it entertaining and painful, and honest, and encouraging. And I'd love to hear what you think.
ReplyDeleteMike and I were chatting about your comment that if God is not enough, we want too much. I think that is true, but I also might say it this way: If God is not enough, we want too little. I am reminded of CS Lewis - ok, you all might as well know up front, I LOVE Lewis, who said in his book "The Weight of Glory"... "If we consider the unblushing promises of reward, and the staggering nature of rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with things that do not satisfy when infinite joy is offered to us, like a child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
Lewis nails so succinctly the point. You gotta love him!