How do we make a way forward is the question for today. There is an ideal and something short of ideal. Our lives represent a certain percentage of either of those in our day. The ideal being a mode of love, joy and peace and the less ideal being things that lead away from the above. On good days we experience more of what God intends for us and on bad days the opposite has overrun us.
Like an athletic contest there are runs of either of those. How do you weather the storm and continue in the better of those.
The instruction from the book is one of focus. Do you spend time rooting out the destructive feelings or do you learn how to cultivate this Love, Joy and Peace in such a way that the destructive feelings begin to have no root or home in our lives?
The bible warns us to not let a root of bitterness grow up in us. I think that we have to acknowledge that we do have roots that feed us. Roots that say we aren’t capable, not good enough, don’t belong. They don’t feed us well but when you begin to wrap an identity around those messages it isn’t easy to let them go. So, we are called to make a transition from one destructive root to a healthy root. Cutting off the bad root means that the good root needs time to grow to feed our hearts as well as the old root did.
I believe it is important to discover the messages that come from God that center on His love for us, joy that can be ours when we are reconciled and aligned with Him and a real peace that isn’t rooted in an ideal set of circumstances, but in an awareness that envelopes us and steadily rejects all of the things the world would speak over us to keep us from peace.
I love the word choice in the book, “drenching ourselves further in God’s love, joy and peace,” then that life soaked in those truths, begins to pass that life onto others, being the salt and light that Jesus talked about. Drenched is such a great word as it leaves no doubt about the quantity. Not just a little moisture to get out a stain on a shirt that you still have to wear to the business meeting, but rather everything about it oversaturated, running over, beyond wet.!
It is a time thing; it takes a while to uproot these destructive things that lie deep in our hearts. It’s also a one day is better or worse than another day. Don’t beat yourself up or get too proud, just keep walking in the love, joy and peace of our God so that the world may know!!!
Here’s to being drenched!!
Truth, Grace, and Time 