Feeling Lost

I was going to write this email to my friend Sara today but decided to write it here... thinking that maybe someone else is battling and growing in a similar way. I'm not "gifted at" being vulnerable on a blog but my heart is heavy today.

She and I had a great conversation this morning about how lost we often feel in life. How do you balance out what God has for you each day? How much time should we spend investing in our children... and how do we balance that out with time spent pouring into the lives of unbelievers in our neighborhood and communities? How radical should we be about these things? Or is it... that we are to be open and ready for what God does bring in our lives each day? Who knows what will happen when I go to the store, or a wedding or to the park. Am I ready with a humble heart for what may come? Am I soft and open to what God may put in my path? Whether that be a teaching opportunity with my children or an amazing conversation with someone I meet at the park... OR... is it how I respond to seemingly tragic situations? It seems that every day lately I am hearing stories of "awful" situations- death, chronic illness, natural disasters, loss of children, health issues... disappointments all around... even in my life. Yet I know God is behind all of this and in His holy perfection.. it is what He sees as perfect at this time.

I would hope that this would do nothing more than bring me to my knees with a heart of humility and a heart that desires to worship the Lord. Here is where I am left with more questions. How do my prayers really affect God? Am I really making a difference? Is prayer merely changing my perspective or it part of God's ultimate plan? Does He really want me to cast my anxieties on Him... is it really true that he cares for the sparrow that has fallen from the tree?

Are you tired of my question marks? These are questions I have asked myself years ago and felt I knew the answers too... yet God continues to challenge me and expose my pride. My head has been spinning for weeks thinking through of all this and I have been deeply affected by a few different books. In hopes of making a little more sense and stopping myself from babbling with a thousand questions... I want to quote them. The first is from, A Call to Spiritual Reformation" by D.A. Carson:

"Two truths that must be held together if we are to think biblically about rayer:
1. God is absolutely sovereign, but this sovereignty never functions to reduce human responsibility.
2. Human beings are responsible creatures- that is, the choose, they believe, they disobey, they respond, and there is moral significance in their choices; but human responsibility never functions in Scripture to diminish God's sovereign or to make God absolutely contingent." (page 148)

I'm tempted to quote the rest of the chapter :) -but I will leave it as a strong recommendation to read! Another quote out of Piper's, "Battling Unbelief:

"When something drops into your life that seems to threaten your future, remember this: The first shockwaves of the bomb are not sin. The real danger is yielding to them. Giving in. Putting up no spiritual fight. And the root of that surrender is unbelief- a failure to fight for faith in future grace. A failure to cherish all that God promises to be for us in Jesus.

Jesus shows us another way. Not painless, and not passive. Follow him. Find your trusted spiritual friends. Open your soul to them. Ask them to watch with you and pray. Pour out your soul to the Father. Rest in His sovereign wisdom. And fix your eyes on the joy set before you in the precious and magnificent promises of God." (page 130-131)

I am blessed by and have learned from friends who pray with me.

I feel that all I have written is jumbled and chaotic-- which would match up with how I feel. Yet I find a peace in feeling "lost" before the Lord. What a sweet thing it is to come before the thrown of God in prayer. How could a just, holy, supreme God actually want a relationship with us? Yet, He does... and I find my hope there. I put one foot in front of the other... tell God how lost I feel... and rest in His mercy and lovingkindness. I pray He is pleased with my little life.