weight will help..revisited

*I came back after my class to revisit this morning's earlier musing.

Friend #1: I am not happy with Jesus. He won’t give me what I want.

Friend #2: Jesus is a Rolling Stones fan (and he proceeded to sing) “you can’t always get what you want.”

You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you might find
You get what you need

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you. (I don’t know, I think this quote relates somehow…)

Jars of Clay sings in Sunny Days **“the weight will make their hearts grow stronger…” The weight of unanswered questions that nag me, mountains I’m trying to climb, patience I’m wishing would develop…and sometimes that weight, that pressure and resistance I have to work against, is exactly what I need to help me grow, though at the time it is not pleasant. Since it is for my good, it would behoove me not to complain about it.

**Actually, the lyric is "the wait will make the heart grow stronger"...which is equally appropriate in the challenges it raises. If we get what we want exactly when we want it, is whatever has been gained really worth it, do we really appreciate it, are we really able to distinguish what's worth having from what's not? By "we" I mean me, I just use "we" as a way of distancing myself from the tendency mentioned. Nothing worth having is easy, isn't that what I've been told?

And if ya try sometime ya just might find, you get what ya need…Ah,maybe this is where the quote ties in. In Eat Pray Love Liz Gilbert remarks: "Prayer is a relationship. Half the job is mine. If I want transformation but can't even be bothered to articulate, what, exactly, I'm aiming for, how will it ever occur? Half of the benefit of prayer is the asking itself...there is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under my jurisdiction...I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and my life and money and energy with...and most of all, I can choose my thoughts."

So thank you Jesus for these "weights", these trials, though they weigh on my heart and make it feel heavy. Thank You for not giving me what I want when it's not what I need, or, when I'm not ready for it, or because I need to work with these weights to get stronger (like a body builder, though that analogy is obvious), and be faithful in a few things so I can be ready to be entrusted with further blessing, for keeping doors closed until your time. Help me to trust your timing because it always has been best and perfect.

I can choose my thoughts. My friend's mom would always tell us "choose kindness" or "choose joy", I don't remember which. I can choose to be thankful for the weights not bitter, and follow the example of Paul whose thorn was not removed. Because it was not removed, Christ's strength became an even more intimate reality in his life than before, and Paul learned just how sufficient that strength was because he had to rely /lean/depend on it. Would he had learned that lesson without the thorn? Hmmm.

I can choose to look to one of the great leaders of the Christian faith for wisdom.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10: To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.