Tonight...I Have Peace In My Heart

This morning I had planned to go to church, but when I woke up I just didn't feel right about going. I thought that's what I was supposed to do, but I prayed for God to close the door for me so I couldn't go if that wasn't His will. Well, last night I had a case of insomnia and couldn't sleep. My mother would probably say it was the coffee...oh yeah...I remembered not to tell her so she wouldn't say well that's her problem, she's drinking coffee at night. I happen to really like coffee especially in the evening when it's cold and it definitely had nothing to do with my insomnia, because another individual had a whole lot to do with it.

Yes, my husband and I have are moments. Unfortunately, he's not near as forgiving as I am face to face. I have to cool off...breathe...pray that God will bless him not hurt him. Usually once I get to that part, I've forgiven him and it doesn't matter anymore that he might never even say he's sorry. Most of the time I can go to sleep, but not last night. Last night I thought might last until I had to get ready for church.

I ended up falling asleep around 4:30 a.m. or so and when the alarm went off at 8:30 a.m. I felt okay and I even sat up with a clear mind and full intentions of getting out of bed. Then I thought about it a second, wanting to make sure it wasn't just me wanting to go back to sleep. Nope, I really don't think I'm supposed to go. My husband said, "are you going to go?" and it kind of startled me because I wondered if he had heard my thoughts. Normally he would ask if I was going to get up and even if he would have said go 6 months ago, he would not have been referring to church. I found out that when I would give him over to God to heal his wounds, not hurt him as bad as he's hurting me, the argument would stop. Of course it takes two to argue, but how do you become the one who stops arguing when you really want to yell your lungs out at them, but to find that place in your heart that Jesus felt when he said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" and then ask God to heal their hurts. Why else would they be arguing with you in the first place unless they were hurt.

One thing I am not good at is winning an argument. There is a difference between standing up for yourself and arguing. Just sometimes someone's definition and yours may fall under rebellion or caring more about yourself than someone else. He allowed everything in our lives to happen. At anytime He could have changed things. It doesn't matter if we didn't pray enough, if we should have fasted more or if we didn't tithe. We don't know for certain what His will is. All we know is what He has promised us.

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day [is] the evil thereof.

-Matthew 6:31-34

He knows what we need to do His will and has never failed to provide for us up until this point. No matter where we were in our lives. If we failed somewhere along the way, He forgave us and we need to forgive ourselves. We aren't worthy enough to be able to rejoice in our troubles, but He says to go ahead and do it. We're not worthy enough to stand up and say, "My God is a whole lot bigger than that", but He says "I am" go ahead and do it.

We've been so indoctrinated...(is that even a word?) with in the Body of Christ we each have our own separate functions and had it broken down even so far as some people are supposed to be givers and some people are supposed to be singers. He gave us talents so we would use them and He would give us more. I think that some of us are content with doing are one talent and even do it to the best of our abilities, but might be dodging Him knocking at our door with a gift of another talent for us.

Wow...that's going to take a little and it's really going to hit me what I just said. Would that not be like telling someone you'd rather them not give you a gift at all than to take what their offering you? Think about it, a talent! Something that He doesn't just give away to anyone that asks. He's not the least bit worried about whether we feel like we deserve it or not. He forgave us when we asked, but we even have a hard time accepting that.

We've tried to figure God out. If we do this, then He'll do this. Job said that He was beyond our understanding. I seriously doubt that we would see Job crying if he bounced a check. Can you imagine the conversations Job and God must be having about us! Think Job is saying, "Come on! No fair! You would have handed me over to Satan if I would have told you that!" Actually, I have a feeling Job is probably saying, "If they only knew."

Think about what the different denominations of our churches are based on. I think the only thing that keeps our churches going is that at least they're doing one thing right, they're bringing believers together three times a week. I realize that it is impossible for a pastor to individually make sure that everyone in his congregation is "doing their job" so to speak, but is that not his responsibility? Would you not win more souls if you trained your members how to serve in some sort of ministry using their talents and abilities?

If we would just light the way, God will at some point take them the rest of the way. Unfortunately, some people just want to stand at the gate and point down a dark path. Some people will get so far and run back to the gate only to turn around and do it again, so much so that they're in a rut. God's standing holding out His hand and we get scared and run away or pretend we don't see it. If there were only more people with the courage enough to go and light the way for them. I wonder if some of us will be disappointed if we don't have any rewards in heaven when we get there. Will we have received our own rewards and then look at what the person behind us gets saying, "No fair!" I want to be the last one in line when I get there, because the only thing I want is to be able to stand and look at His face and Him take eternity to judge me.

Do we really need bigger buildings so that we can at least get more of them into heaven by the skin of their teeth? Somehow I think He is more impressed with quality than He is quantity. It's not because He'll take what He can get, it's because He loves us as individual people beyond our understanding. Like we're the only person on earth. We can't comprehend it because we're jealous. God doesn't have anybody to be jealous over, except when we pick another god that we believe can make us happier than He can. I could be wrong, but when He's been jealous in the past, has He not attacked what it was that He was jealous over, not the person. How long does it take us sometimes to figure that out because we think that if we have something, then we will be happy? If God will just give us this, then we'll be okay. Silly us, He knows what we need and what the desires of our hearts are. When are we going to trust Him enough to give Him the quality He deserves?

When you finally get that, He must breathe a huge sigh of relief and that must be the peace that we feel. When He's so close, we can feel His breath on us.