Exchanging Bitterness for Strength

I have a confession to make.  I recently found myself greatly disliking someone. They didn't measure up to what I thought they should be.  They did things that I didn't like.  They said things I didn't think needed to be said.  So, in all my Christian fervor, I decided I didn't like that person.  Did I mention that I go to church with them?  Isn't that great?  To dislike someone that you go to church with?  I think it makes God really sad when His children don't like one another, but for some reason I felt like I had the right not to like this person.  After all, the things they were doing and saying were wrong.  I spoke to this person as little as possible.  I avoided them whenever I could.  Whenever their name was mentioned in a conversation, I rolled my eyes to myself.  Even when they did things right, I found fault in them.   

Of course, all of my actions really hurt that person, right?  Nope.  My dislike and (dare I say) jealousy only affected me.  Rarely a church service went by that I didn't think about what that person was doing.  As I sat in my pew and thought what a hypocrite they were, I received pretty much no help from the messages at all, even when Preacher was preaching about exactly what I was doing!  What they were doing wasn't right, but now I was losing my joy, because I only allowed myself to dwell on their actions. 

So one day, after much struggling and, yes, arguing with God about my feelings, I decided I wasn't going to feel this way any more.  Many times before I had said, "I'm just not going to let it bother me any more."  But this time I went a step further.  I prayed for that person every day.  I tried to find things they did that were good, and remind myself of those things, instead of the things I saw that were bad.  It didn't take long before things changed.  Did that person change?  I don't think so.  But I had changed the way I thought about them, and that made the difference.  I could sit through a service, and have no bitter thoughts towards them at all.  I think I knew all along that would be the outcome of giving this issue to God, but in my stubbornness, I chose to hold on to my wrong feelings.  There is so much liberty and joy that comes from letting go of jealous, bitter feelings!

I wish I could say that I learned my lesson for good, but I'm ashamed to say that it's something I still struggle with.  Sometimes those feelings of anger and bitterness come back with a vengeance, and it's not always towards that one person.  It's so easy to let the wrongs of others, whether real or imagined, get under my skin and steal my joy.  It's a battle that I have to fight constantly. It's not enough to give it God one time.  I have to give it to Him over and over again.  You see, once Satan knows that he can use something to hurt us, he won't give up.  He'll use the same tactics repeatedly.  Since he can't have our souls, he'll settle for seeing that we have no joy while serving the Lord.  I'm so happy that He that is in me, is greater than he which is in the world!  I am learning (slowly, due to my stubbornness) that as soon as I recognize those feelings of bitterness and jealousy creeping in, it's time to give them to God. 

I say along with David, "Create in me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit within me.  Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit."  (Psalm 51:10, 12)  When I allow Him to create a clean heart and renew a right spirit in me, I will find joy in my salvation.  The Bible says, "the joy of the Lord is your strength." (Nehemiah 8:10)  What better way to have weak, powerless Christians than for Satan to make them sad and joyless?  How hard is it to have the joy of the Lord?  Pretty simple.  "...ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full."  (John 16:24b)  I don't know about you, but I'd rather give up selfish, bitter feelings in exchange for joy and strength any day.  And every day.           

Sleeping Through the Hurricane

Did you hear about Hurricane Arthur?  If you live in the United States, chances are that you did.  He swept up from the south last week, and wreaked havoc on Independence Day celebrations all up the east coast.  Well, I experienced Arthur first-hand.  Billy, Jaxon and I were on vacation in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina when Arthur came through.  The storm started in our area a little after midnight.  We could hear the rain and gusts of wind through the night, but we fell into a fitful sleep.  Around 5:00 am we really woke up and a quick look at the radar on Billy's phone showed that we were very close to the eye of the storm.  Our house shook and the rain beat against the outside.  So, what did we do?  We laid back down and went to sleep.  At that point there was really nothing else we could do.  The storm raged until after 8:00 am, and, even though we slept through most of it, we were awakened several times by the shaking of the house. 

On our trip home we talked about the Sunday School lesson that Billy was planning to teach on Sunday.  He decided to talk about storms in our lives and how God uses them to lead us.  One of the things we discussed was the waves on the beach.  Now, you should know that when it comes to the ocean, I'm like a big kid.  I love to get out and play in the waves.   But I noticed while swimming early in the week that if I wasn't paying attention to what was going on, the waves would carry me further and further up the beach.  On Friday, after the storm, I noticed that the surfers were walking up the beach to catch the waves, which then carried them down the beach in the opposite direction from the days before.  Billy pointed out to me that as the storm was moving in it pushed the waves in front of it, but after it passed, it pushed the waves back behind it.  It essentially changed the direction of the water.  

In his lesson on Sunday morning Billy illustrated how Jesus has the ability to calm every storm in our lives, but sometimes He chooses not to.  Why?  One of the reasons may be that He is using the storm in our life to change our direction.  We may be riding high across the tide, and thinking everything is going great, but He has a bigger and better plan.  "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9)  When times get hard we have to trust that this is true.  When life is at it's darkest, and times are almost harder than we can bear, we have to trust that His plan is better than our plan.

I can honestly say that Billy and I are in the middle of a storm.  So many things seem to be falling apart at one time.  It feels like our own personal hurricane.  We would love to be able to wake Jesus up in the back of the boat and have Him say, "Peace, be still," but that may not be His plan.  A storm like this happened to us once when we'd only been married a few weeks.  The first months of our marriage were very hard as we struggled to make ends meet.  Ultimately, God was leading us to move back to my hometown where Billy was able to get a better job.  We bought our dream house here, and started our family.  Looking back now, we can see how that storm changed our direction in life, and brought us much better things than we dreamed.  So now, we can only ask, "Lord, are you changing our direction again?  Is there a different plan that you have for us?"  We aren't sleeping through this hurricane.  The wind is blowing, the rain is beating and our house is shaking.  And we are awake.  We are watching.  We are praying.