What to do When Your Circumstances aren’t Perfect
This week on The Whole House Podcast I spoke of what do when your circumstances aren’t perfect. Obviously, we have imperfect circumstances right now due to COVID 19 and all economic, physical, emotional, and other side effects. Let’s face it, life is imperfect and it was before all of this happened.
This is a great pivotal point for all of us, we can pivot towards the Lord and wait expectantly for Him to show up or we can shut down, let fear win out, and seek only our personal comfort. I know. There are days I want to hunker down with a book and coffee and just tune out the world. That’s okay for a short while, but God is asking us to trust Him. We need to trust Him to be our strength when we are exhausted with carrying the weight (and the wait) of the world on our shoulders. If you are a creative with a burden bearing personality, you know what I’m talking about. We feel as if we are carrying the burdens of our family, friends, and sometimes the whole world. It’s just to heavy. We can’t expect ourselves to carry the circumstances. We can expect God. Just EXPECT Him.
On the podcast I break down Isaiah 30: 18:
And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship.”
PERSONAL PEACE AND COMFORT
Our society is big on personal peace. I’m not talking about not engaging in a war or conflict. Frances Schaeffer speaks of this concept in How Should We Then Live? It’s the ideology of peace and affluence for oneself. We live in an age when many of us have every earthly item we need to make us comfortable. We can hunker down with our Netflix, our Keurig, some chocolate, and all the toilet paper we have (if we were lucky enough to get any). All of our comforts give us a false sense of sufficiency. Of course, for many of us, the foundation of sufficiency is tottering like an old dead tree, ready to fall in the slightest gust of wind.
WHAT DO WE DO?
Our circumstances aren’t perfect. We don’t have complete control. How do we handle things when things feel out of control? The truth is much of our life isn’t in our control, to begin with. We practice a sort of pseudo control, making lists, planning our days, checking items off our list, and taking credit for it along the way. Some days that works just fine, but what about the days that we have no say. We don’t know how to move forward and we are stuck in survival mode.
I share many more tips on the podcast, you can listen below, but let me leave you with this – if you are a control freak (like me), there is something in your control – your expectations. When you expect God to intervene, to guide you, to comfort you, and you seek relationship instead of personal comfort, He promises to show up. Not only does He promise to show up, but He’s also been expecting, waiting, longing, to be gracious to you. He wants to give you grace!