Waiting For Morning

I had a good night's sleep and a little energy this morning for which I thank God. Three toilets which had things growing in them got cleaned and two loads of laundry got done. That is major progress. Now I am being wise and taking a rest. I am having to relearn how to do life....at a slower, more relaxed pace. This is extremely hard for me because I am a driven perfectionist who needs order and feels best when accomplishing things. I feel like God is putting a bridle on me and reigning me in....slowing down the racing steed to a nice steady trot. I pray I will learn the lesson and not have to go through this again.

Needing rest has allowed me to take time to read again and I am happily engaged with James R. Kok's book, Waiting for Morning: Seeking God in our Suffering. It is a small book....only 111 pages but it is full of wisdom from this director of pastoral care at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. I was fortunate enough to have sat under his teaching at a seminar in Grand Rapids a couple of years ago. I bought the book then but it sat unopened on my bookshelf till need presented itself.

Here's an excerpt......... "Wise prophets in every age observe that God rarely finds people useful to His purposes who have not been broken by life. Our suffering, so insidious and pervasive, so unwanted and despised, holds the franchise to unlocking closed hearts and opening barred minds. When the illusion of being in control of our lives shatters, then spiritual empty-handedness begins. That condition spurs us on to spiritual usefulness. Usually that takes one kind of smashing or another. The lovely paradox here is that this is precisely where joy and hope enter. The road to joy always seems to go through sadness and suffering. It's hard to get there any other way.........Ironically, spiritual growth involves our personal regression to that childlike dependency Jesus talks about: to become "poor in spirit." Then we are in Paul's words, "hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed" ( 2 Cor. 4:8-9 ). Healing and renewal come to Jesus' people sooner or later: "Weeping may endure for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning." ( Psalm 30:5)

It's the old adage....no pain, no gain. I am encouraged that I am in a place of privilege....being smashed so that I become more fruitful....more useful to God in the end. Now for the patience.......