God is constantly saying don't look at life, look at Me. He is saying don't look to yourself for the solution, look to Me for the solution.
I almost didn't post today because I have so completely lost focus on Him in the past 24 hours. The external pressure of my financial situation has really come to bear on me. There is a lot of fear and criticism that is being heaped on my shoulders as a result, and so once again I sought to quantify the problem in hopes of finding a simple solution.
Once again I looked at the minimum monthly budget of which there remains a significant shortfall. In my mind there is only one solution. But the solution is not the resolution of the finances. The solution is what will stop the pressure, fear, and criticism most quickly. Forget that it will create a whole other set of issues to deal with.
It is hard to wait on God, I don't care what you say. It's hard to stay in faith to what God speaks softly in your ear while the world you have known is crashing around you.
Thoughts enter your mind when you try to reconcile the tribulation of the world with the joy of the spirit. Thoughts like, "am I just being an ostrich and putting my head in the sand, hoping this will go away. Or is this really faith?" Thoughts of anger turned towards God like, "look what You are doing. In not providing my daily bread you are creating turmoil in my family. You are hurting the ones I love."
I don't know why I have to struggle financially. I don't know why others have to struggle with diseases like cancer. I don't know why some father's rape their children, or why others beat them mercilessly. I don't know why couples split, or why nations starve. I don't know why God is so ever present and moving in every life every day, and yet so much evil exists, and so much pain is endured. I don't know why some have it so easy, or why their life seems so perfect. All I know is what I am going through, and it hurts like hell.
And as I go through this God sends a word to me through T. Austin-Sparks that says, "Keep your eyes outside. Refuse introspection, dwelling upon yourself, your condition, your feelings, your symptoms. Look not for hope in yourself. Seek no virtue in your own heart. Cease to expect any good of yourself, but remember that He is your righteousness, your surety, your acceptance with God, your merit, your Intercessor."
Then He follows it up with this from Oswald Chambers, "Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once and ask Him to establish rest. Never allow anything to remain which is making the dis-peace. Take every element of disintegration as something to wrestle against, and not to suffer. Say - Lord, prove Thy consciousness in me, and self-consciousness will go and He will be all in all. Beware of allowing self-consciousness to continue because by slow degrees it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is Satanic."
In the end it is a very hard thing to un-learn strength. It is in our weakness that He is made strong. But to face that weakness, to bear the cross of Christ in your soul, can be a painful thing at times. Particularly when it is you trying to bear it, rather than allowing Christ in you to do it.
