While I have much, I expect much more out of life. In fact, I have realized of late that I expect too much and am not grateful enough for what I have.
By that I mean that... I think I have questioned God with Him not having given me at least two lives to live. That sounds strange, I know. Yet in my always managing to fill up with too many things, I have begun to realize that somewhere in me deep down is the resentment that I have not been given more lives to live. There is indeed so very much that I want to do and accomplish... so many needs and pain and hurt in the world... that I want to do and fix it all.
I am faced daily with the reality that I am finite. However I fight my limited nature far too often. I WOULD be... a teacher, an aerospace engineer, photographer, journalist, multi-linguist, nurse, and doctor. Hahaha. Oh but for the limits of time I would fill all the seats in Congress, too!
God perpetually reminds me of my frailty and humanity. Watching a movie last night called, "In the Shadow of the Moon", about astronauts, was humorous in how I was again reminded that ordinary people do extraordinary things. It's not like I need to do a million things.... but when my heart's set on glorifying God that one thing fills an eternity with a life well-lived.
May I be so content to live this ONE life well. To live meekly, humbly, resolutely even. I can't resent not having more lives to live. I must rest in the sovereign grace that this undeserving wretch got more life, in having been given one breath even, than she ever could deserve.
How could I fault God in lavishing me so much as it is?!
3 comments:
Good words, Abbs! I often need that reminder that I can't be everywhere and do everything. It's easier to be resentful, but so much more fulfilling to be grateful.
"Whatever you are, be a good one." --Abraham Lincoln
Thanks for posting.
I think the problem is that, in order to gain inspiration for our own lives, we look at other people's lives. Which is fine, but when we try to do *everything* that everyone else has done, we forget that they were only one person, too. And living everyone else's lives makes us forget what our own special life is and we lose focus.
"An abundance of the good is often the enemy of the best." That's what a college mentor told me, and it has stuck with me ever since. There are som many good things I want to do, so many changes I want to be a part of. That discontentment can creep in, for sure.
But contentment, ironically, will come most profoundly when we are fully living out the one purpose, the one legacy, for which God created. The unique mark we can make on the world. Perhaps the real tragedy is how little time we spend asking him what that is, because we are running around doing everything else.
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