good

For the last week or so I feel like I've finally gotten over a hump in a lesson about trusting God and accepting His goodness.

I have a hard time with expectations (the Snow Cone Theory being a prime illustration). Nearly everything disappoints me at some level. Just doesn't meet expectations. Every holiday, everything I bake, every time I play music (the bad times and the good, because there's always a better in my imagination), every time I write something, every time I look forward to an event.

For a long time now I have been battling this in my walk with God. Somewhere along the way I've developed my Unassailable Ideas of How Things Should Be (UIHTSB, for short). And I'd pray in accordance with that UIHTSB. And build expectations around whatever happened to be part of the UIHTSB at the time, and be happy if it looked like the UIHTSB was happy, and sad if it looked like the UIHTSB was thwarted.

It has been a long lesson.

Early this year I started thinking a lot about valleys. Peaceful valleys. Shadow of death valleys. And shepherds. Shepherds leading dumb sheep through peaceful valleys, along still waters, into green pastures. Just sheep. Sheep without a UIHTSB. Dumb sheep just following, accepting good things.

Then I started thinking about promises. A friend described God to me as "the Faithful One Who never breaks a promise." Never. Not since Abraham. Not since Adam. He Who promised is faithful. In Him is no variation or shadow of turning. He promises good gifts, and He means it.

The catch is -- He's the one Who says what's good.

Not me and my UIHTSB.

The incredible mercy is that His good is so much better.

Which brings me to James. For about a week this summer I had a dialogue with James. I don't think I've ever talked with a book of the Bible like that. One day I was in James 3, needing badly to hear about the dangers of the tongue, and came upon chapter 4 (which really should be read in context).

You do not have, because you do not ask.

And I thought, What in the world? I ask all the time. I have my UIHTSB right here. I ask for clarity about this thing, I ask You to show me should I keep doing this, start doing that. What does this mean, "because you do not ask?"

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly,

Wrongly?! If I could only publish these prayers. "Lord, please glorify You by following this agenda. Let me repeat it: . . ." This is high quality stuff. Textbook material. What could be "wrongly" about this?

to spend it on your passions.

Thud.

It's not about you.

But somehow that has been the starting point for learning to accept. Learning to receive. To follow, like that sheep in the valley. These months have held so many rich gifts of profound goodness -- goodness purchased by the blood of Christ -- but nothing I could ever have anticipated to write in my UIHTSB. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard . . . there is no way I could ever come up with a plan to rival God's, no matter how much holy-speak I stuff into my pharisee prayers.

And somehow when I was wrapped up in my own plans I had this idea of holding back, not really abandoning myself in any task until I was sure that it was God's plan, always keeping one eye somewhere else, just in case. But that's not a sheep thing to do. And it's not the lifestyle of someone who believes that He is Faithful Who promised. That person is all there all the time, seeking God and not outward circumstances.

No doubt tomorrow I'll be learning this all over again. But He gives more grace. What He gives, do I receive?