Sudoku

I’m not good at writing on the fly.  I need time to write, then re-write, edit some more and then… post.  And even then, I want to re-write what I just posted.  This all makes for a reluctant blogger, which can be a bother because so much is coming at me to which I want to respond or address, that I quite often just quit trying and go off and do something else for a while, like sudoku… or a play.  Of course, that doesn’t stop the flow of information coming at me.  I just let it pile up in a corner for a while. 

I’ve actually been wanting to share about another blog that I read.  I subscribe to it so it comes to me in my email each day.  There have been several posts since the first of the year that I’ve wanted to share, but haven’t had the time.  Today’s post reminded me that I still wanted to share the blog with the readers here.

The blog is Desiring God Blog.  The specific post that prompted this post is Sometimes He Kills Us to Save Us.  Painful, gruesome and powerful.  That post prompted me to think of the lumberjack and bird story of which Jim spoke on Sunday.  To the bird, the lumberjack is dangerous.  He’s scaring the bird, time and again, until he drives the bird to a place of safety.  Now the bird thought it was in a safe place, the trees.  They’re comfortable, familiar.  The leaves offer shade, the nest that the bird built is soft.  The lumberjack comes along and drives the bird from that comfort, to a hard place, a rock.  Where’s the shade, where’s the softness?  But that is the better place.  How often God does that to me.  I’m clueless to the dangers that surround me, the impending dangers, and God wreaks what seems to be havoc in my life, to drive me to safety.

He drove me to the safety of Oakdale, though at the time I didn’t see it as a safe haven.  I thought of it more as a desert, removed from all that was familiar following my divorce.  I hated it at first, so remote, so backwater in my mind.  So necessary, as I see it now.

That bird story and my relocation to Oakdale bring to mind what we discussed in our community group last week.  We talked of suffering, how we try to avoid it, to endure only enough to get to whatever reward we’re looking for.  Mainly, we try to avoid it, but I believe by doing so, we miss out on so much blessing (as well as the training needed to endure what is yet to come).  I’m not saying that I seek to suffer.  I’m just saying that if that is the path by which I might attain that greater reward, then, please God, help me endure.  Bring it on!  (Oh, how cavalier!)  But should we not embrace the suffering, rather than shy away from it?  Is this what you were talking about, Jon?

And that brings us to this week’s message and tonight’s community group.  I’ll confess that I’ve let my life decisions be determined more by circumstances than my own intentional efforts.  I like to think I’m getting better…  I liked what Dr. Todd had to say about remembering that when it’s all said and done with regard to trying to figure out the whats, wheres, and whys in my life, God loves me.  He is working things out for good in my life.  This course that I have charted, determined, considered is where God is working.  At least, that’s what I think Doc was saying…

So, there, it’s posted…