It seems that God knows better than to talk to me about prices when we are out shopping.
Ok, yes, that's a bit weird. I don't mean shopping, I mean praying. When I'm expressing my desires to Him. He is wiser than to let me know what the cost is of anything I want. Really, though, He knows (because I've told Him over and over again) that I'm carte blanc-willing towards Him. He can have, ask, require anything of me. He knows what I'm made of, and I'm not worried about Him asking for something He's not able to get from me, since it sorta all comes from Him in the first place, right?
But even with the carte blanc thing, I realize that when I go to wanting something, He doesn't generally let on about how much it will cost.
And I've noticed another funny thing. I can really, sorely, desperately want certain things from God, like achingly so, and then when He gives them to me, I'm not really sure I want them. Or at best, I go gee, thanks. At first at least. I barely know the value of anything. At first at least.
I was thinking of all this in the context of a memory of one of those sorely desperate prayers to God, in which for emphasis, I banged a book on my knee and said it all out loud. Way back when, I wrote a blog post about it called In Which She Admits That Which Brings Freedom. The thing that I yelled out as I prayed was "I want this freedom! I need this freedom! I have got to have this freedom!"
Read the blog post to get the context. In classic me style, it took me tons of paragraphs to say that my freedom comes in admitting that I love my friends.
But I tell you what: Today was the day. Today was the day that I found this reality in me. I have that freedom I longed for and over which banged the book on my lap.
The love I am talking about comes with detachment. A love not rooted in possessiveness, and all the anxiety and fear that comes with it. Detachment was the price tag I was clueless about at the time. I struggled to even mouth the word love; you could forget any hope of me loving freely. God knew that I wanted this more than I wanted comfort, even though I sure didn't know how much discomfort I was in for. The good thing is, what I failed to grasp in the days I was kicking and screaming, He allowed me to take a second shot at with a more willing and trusting heart later on. God is patient and awesome like that.
I'm writing about this to formulate thankful thoughts and to remember my earnestness, because I admit that my response today was, you know Lord, is this really going to be good? I mean, peace and freedom are great, but wasn't there something actually pleasant about anxious bondage? See, sometimes I need to put these things into words to catch myself being ridiculous.
The more graces God gives me, the more I realize that His gifts are really cool and they are absolutely not connatural to me!
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