today

Today I am looking down. Disappointed to not be pregnant this time around (how do my friends do it, who wait years to conceive??). Discouraged to have kids (sick again!) with colds enough to stay home from Sunday School, maybe church. Wondering why God put me here instead of on the mission field. Why God put others in the US who would rather be overseas. Doesn't He want missionaries? It's humbling to remember that God doesn't need me to get His work done. That He chooses my place and has put me here.

It's so hard to live here. Hard to escape the materialism that sucks me in. So easy to live my comfortable life and not want to be bothered by those in need, whether here or overseas. It seems easier to be a real Christian in a foreign country, where you have to trust God more every day for everything; where poverty stares you in the face on a regular basis and doesn't let you stay comfortable in your (relative) wealth.

Of course, God doesn't put you anywhere where it is impossible to obey Him, to be Christlike, etc. So obviously it must be possible to live as an on-fire, real Christian who lives sold-out for Jesus, here in America. I just wish I knew how. It feels like "my stuff" and "my life" just sucks me in like quicksand, and I don't know how to keep my eyes on the Kingdom.

Chalk it all up to "that time of the month" if you will, when emotions are more unstable anyway. But my guess is that those emotions and thoughts are really always there, under the surface somewhere, just kept from expression during the more emotionally stable days.

I know I'm supposed to be looking to Jesus, and resting in His providence, and His care for me, and the fact that He will complete what He began in me. That He put me here, and will teach me what He wants to teach me, here and now, in these circumstances. But at the moment I'm just human and being myself.

But will I ever change? Will I ever have the self-discipline to go to bed early so that I'm not tired and cranky the next day - especially on Saturday night? Maybe I need to pray more deliberately about things like that.

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Maybe God knows that if I were a missionary, I would think myself to be doing something good for the Kingdom, rather than accepting a humble place of "nothing" where He has put me. Maybe if I had more children then I would be proud to have more than three (which I am so glad He has given me!). Maybe self-discipline would make me proud to be self-disciplined. Or health would make me proud that MY family was healthy.

What He really wants of me is to make me run to Jesus. There is no fruit without clinging to Him, resting in Him, trusting His righteousness. When will I learn this?!

"Many times the Lord loves you too much to give you the things you are praying for, because He wants to give you something better: Christ-likeness." (Paul Washer)