Raging Against The Gloom
In the two years that we have lived here in this house, in the country, in the beautiful woods, i have mostly been in a beautiful state of everything-is-wonderful-and-happy-and-getting-even-better. Well, there were moments. When my entire flock of chickens died one by one to woodland critters that i couldn't seem to guard against, there was some definite gloom. And i think there were some other moments, but other than the chicken thing, they were pretty easy to shake.
But the past few days, there has been an unhappy, unreasonable, sticky gloom hanging out at my house, and i'm getting ready to take it out!
Some things that aren't very fun have happened. My dogs are ill, and that makes me sad. And then yesterday, my husband's wallet decided to go for a walk in the grocery store parking lot with our grocery money and was kidnapped by some party that didn't see fit to return it. That kind of stinks. But we can deal with all that stuff. We've dealt with much much worse, for sure.
Something i know about gloom. It can't survive the Word of God. It also has the benefit of making me more desperate to get into the Word of God. Silly gloom, working against itself.
I've started stapling scriptures to my wall again. (When i lived at home with my parents, there was a period of time in which i had one whole wall of my room covered in scriptures i had read and written down on construction paper).
"...Hope in the Lord; for with the Lord, there is unfailing love and an overflowing supply of salvation." Psalm 130:7
When i read that scripture, i remembered one of our pastors at church sharing with us that salvation also means provision, healing, peace.
Then yesterday, i sat down and watched a show on t.v. that is normally just background noise. It was a re-run of a Christian talk-show from 1996, made in Canada .... and the guest was talking about how God wants us to pursue our dreams - or to find out what His dreams are for us and pursue those.
And i realized that i have stopped hoping for my dreams. Not entirely stopped.....but having some trouble maybe. Hope is so important. If you let go of hope..... well, i don't want to go there.
You've heard the scripture, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Proverbs 29:18
Other versions of that scripture read, "...the people cast off restraint." I think that has to do with knowing your path and staying disciplined to follow and take the steps to reach your goals.
Of course, none of that can happen until you learn Psalm 37:4,
"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."
I think that means that when we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will insert His dreams for our lives into our hearts and make them our desires, and then He will fulfill them.
Then there's this one: "It is pleasant to see dreams come true, but fools will not turn from evil to attain them." Proverbs 13:19.
If we don't believe that God wants those dreams for us, we'll never get to walking the path to get there.
So i'm working on something called a "dream board." There's a part of me that rebels against the dream board. It's just pictures that represent my dreams, put together so i can look at them regularly. The overly practical side of me thinks this is just fun time and unproductive. But in the words of Richard Roberts, who used to be my university president, in an illustrated sermon he shared with us 15 years ago or so, "what you focus on will develop."
But the past few days, there has been an unhappy, unreasonable, sticky gloom hanging out at my house, and i'm getting ready to take it out!
Some things that aren't very fun have happened. My dogs are ill, and that makes me sad. And then yesterday, my husband's wallet decided to go for a walk in the grocery store parking lot with our grocery money and was kidnapped by some party that didn't see fit to return it. That kind of stinks. But we can deal with all that stuff. We've dealt with much much worse, for sure.
Something i know about gloom. It can't survive the Word of God. It also has the benefit of making me more desperate to get into the Word of God. Silly gloom, working against itself.
I've started stapling scriptures to my wall again. (When i lived at home with my parents, there was a period of time in which i had one whole wall of my room covered in scriptures i had read and written down on construction paper).
"...Hope in the Lord; for with the Lord, there is unfailing love and an overflowing supply of salvation." Psalm 130:7
When i read that scripture, i remembered one of our pastors at church sharing with us that salvation also means provision, healing, peace.
Then yesterday, i sat down and watched a show on t.v. that is normally just background noise. It was a re-run of a Christian talk-show from 1996, made in Canada .... and the guest was talking about how God wants us to pursue our dreams - or to find out what His dreams are for us and pursue those.
And i realized that i have stopped hoping for my dreams. Not entirely stopped.....but having some trouble maybe. Hope is so important. If you let go of hope..... well, i don't want to go there.
You've heard the scripture, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." Proverbs 29:18
Other versions of that scripture read, "...the people cast off restraint." I think that has to do with knowing your path and staying disciplined to follow and take the steps to reach your goals.
Of course, none of that can happen until you learn Psalm 37:4,
"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."
I think that means that when we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will insert His dreams for our lives into our hearts and make them our desires, and then He will fulfill them.
Then there's this one: "It is pleasant to see dreams come true, but fools will not turn from evil to attain them." Proverbs 13:19.
If we don't believe that God wants those dreams for us, we'll never get to walking the path to get there.
So i'm working on something called a "dream board." There's a part of me that rebels against the dream board. It's just pictures that represent my dreams, put together so i can look at them regularly. The overly practical side of me thinks this is just fun time and unproductive. But in the words of Richard Roberts, who used to be my university president, in an illustrated sermon he shared with us 15 years ago or so, "what you focus on will develop."
What are you focused on? The set-backs? Or the goals?
Thanks for the reminder to focus on the goals, and not the setbacks. I needed that today.
ReplyDeleteo m g so needed
ReplyDeleteGood word, Beth! I needed to be reminded, too.
ReplyDeleteWe all go through valleys. It helps us to have to look up toward where we want to be and to Whom can take us there.
ReplyDeleteBTW, to encourage you in your future beekeeping endeavors, I would like to share some honey with you that we just harvested from our bees. :)
Your new friend,
Robin
Oh! How exciting, Robin! Thank you! I get very excited about honey and bee things. In fact, someone i've never met, just yesterday offered to give me a colony of bees! Now i have to get a hive for them to live in! =) Maybe, just maybe, we'll get started on that a little sooner than we thought.
ReplyDeleteI love you
ReplyDelete