Dog Tired

You know that feeling when you're searching for something that's very important to you.

You search and search until you don't know what else to do and want to just give up.

I am sure many of you have faced questions about God's ability or willingness to answer a prayer (big or small) at some point in your life.

That was me this week.

Our chocolate lab got out of the fence...again and decided to go on a lil Ferris Bueller's day off doggie adventure. (If only there was a way to hear and see how unamused I am as I write that)

 

I ran inside, grabbed some dog treats (necessary), my dog whistle (pointless) and my car keys and set off like Christopher Columbus to explore our neighborhood...only there was no ocean blue and I wasn't sure if when I found what I was searching for I'd be anxious to claim it or not.

Nevertheless I prayed and started looking. I wasn't really worried. It had only taken maybe 10 minutes the last two times this happened to find her so I had no reason to doubt God would come through for me again. After all He had been faithful before. He knew how much it meant to me. How much that dog has helped me through some of the worst days with my health.Judge me if you want but she's more of a friend than an animal. A really hairy,slobbery friend but still.

Well...
10 minutes passed and No Koa.
20 minutes passed and No Koa.
30 minutes passed and No Koa.
45 minutes passed and still No Koa.

Let's just say my optimistic "I know God will bring her to me again" response morphed (Transformer style) into "God where the heck is this turd of a dog and where are you?!?"

I was tired of looking...dog tired...not because she wasn't worth finding but because I was growing more desperate feeling like I had exhausted every possibility with no result. Frustrating!

How often does that happen to us in our lives? We hope for something.Have faith it'll happen.Pray for it.Believe for it. But then the longer we have to wait the harder it becomes. We begin to lose patience. We lose hope. We lose faith. And all because it isn't happening the way we want it to. The way we hoped it would.The way we expected it to.

We get so caught up in how we feel about what the situation looks like to us that the frustration begins to take precedence over the truth. 

The truth was...God was still in control no matter what the conditions of the situation were or appeared to be. The truth was...worrying would do absolutely nothing to help. The truth was...God had proven faithful before.

I realized my faith had been misplaced from the moment I grabbed that doggie whistle. It was in my expectations of finding her my way not in God's faithfulness.Because if it had been in God's faithfulness my attitude wouldn't have changed when my expectations weren't met. And I wouldn't have almost busted a lung blowing the crud out of that stupid dog whistle... (note to self: train Koa to actually come to me when I blow it)

About an hour later I found Koa in another neighborhood. There she was just sniffing around in some oblivious person's front yard without a care in the world. Nice. But I wonder if that's how God is with us? Just faithfully doing his thing while we freak out searching for him. He's always right there, not worried, knowing things are under control and he'll show up when the time is right.
  
"Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, do not despair, for these things will surely come to pass. Just be patient! They will not be overdue a single day!" Habakkuk 2:3

I know you may think it strange comparing finding a dog and praying for something from God but regardless of the situation the truth remains. God is faithful even when our circumstances aren't. No matter what things look like, no matter how you may feel about it. Don't give up. Keep pushing through. Keep believing. Keep trusting God will bring you to whatever you're hoping for.

It's not easy to wait, believe me I know. I face it every day with my health and Jeremy and I wanting a baby. But I don't want a dog tired faith that runs out when things don't go how I hope. The good news is we can have unshakeable faith and joy while we wait knowing God's got it under control and will deliver in His perfect timing. 

 "I trusted in, relied on, and was confident in You, O Lord; I said, You are my God. My times are in Your hands..." Psalm 31:14-15

All the frustration and worry didn't matter when I saw that goofy brown eyed dog. Oh don't get me wrong she still got put in time out when we got home but I was just so happy to have her back. It was all worth it and I found myself wondering why I ever freaked out in the first place.

You may be dog tired waiting for whatever it is you're praying for but it's imperative that our hope remains in a God that doesn't change despite the conditions. He is always good and always faithful. Just like the dog whistle, He hears your cry He just isn't ready to respond yet. He does things his way and His way is far better than ours!

 "A man's mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps and makes them sure." Proverbs 16:9

Un-PUNYfied!

Even as an athlete growing up I never fully understood the true value weight lifting. But when playing sports in high school "let's hit the weight room" is a term you learn to expect. I could get on board with just lifting light weights here and there but that doesn't quite fly when you have a football coach for your soccer coach!

He was always pushing us to "add more weight" and to someone as puny as me that seemed like an absurd concept. But as important to me as it was to become the best athlete I could I realized that was a part of the process.Growing pains isn't just an old TV sitcom folks!               

Muscles are something I think we often take for granted but are extremely important. It would be impossible for us to do anything without our muscles!

When most people think of "muscles," they only think about the muscles that we can see. But did you know we have over 600?! No seriously, I googled it!;)

They help our body function the way it was created to.The stronger they are the better our body operates!

Did you know God wants to helps us build muscle too?....faith muscles. The most important muscles we can have.The muscles we may not be able to see but are crucial to the life He has for us.

  "The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace."Psalm 29:11

Just like weight training the process of building faith muscles can be painful.

As someone who has fibromyalgia my muscles are in a constant state of pain and tension with often weakness, so the last thing you'd think I'd want to do is lift weights and cause them even more pain.right? But you know what's crazy? I actually love lifting weights now!Is it always easy? No way Jose! But I know the pain I get from it is for a reason. It reminds me that the pain has purpose.

I know each time I lift that weight it’s making me stronger and it gets easier. Not because it becomes less heavy but because my muscles are being strengthened to handle the weight better.I know gradually I'll be able to handle more weight. Just like each time we face a test or trial in life it can make us stronger as a person and in our faith. It doesn’t mean the trials will always get easier it just means we’ll be better equipped to handle them when they come.

A strong faith is not an overnight thing and there will always, always be room for improvement.Building muscles is a process and it won’t always be easy. In fact more often than not it will be challenging and painful but that's the only way to get stronger.It will be worth it! 

"I can do everything through him who gives me strength."Philippians 4:13

 Just going to church doesn't make you spiritually fit any more than simply walking into the gym gives you Arnold Schwarzenegger-fied muscles! It takes more than that.

It takes discipline...Praying, studying God's word, and focusing on Him when everything else around you has you feeling like a frail,baby kitten fighting a beast of a lion!

Even when your circumstances scream you have every reason to fear,doubt,or to just give up. God will give you the strength in those trials to push through. He's always at work even if we don't understand it!

Whether it’s your trial or someone close to you. We are either in a trial, just coming out of a trial, or will soon be in a trial. In the words of my favorite singer, Frank Sinatra, "That's life" But don't let that discourage you! God told us we'd have troubles in this world but He's already overcome them! Can I get a raise the roof HALLELUJER?! That's why it's important to build faith muscles., so we're more prepared to handle them when they come.  We push through the pain, we push past the discomfort knowing the results will be more than worth it. That’s how we build hulk-like muscles.

For so long I thought I was okay with a mediocre faith because it was comfortable, but not anymore. I don't want a puny faith!Do you? I want to be challenged because I want to be as strong as I can possibly be to face whatever comes my way.God's giving me strength to fight the limits of my health but more importantly than that He's giving me the desire to pick up those weights in the midst of a trial, building my faith muscles in the process. 

He knows how much weight we can handle. I know sometimes it feels like it's too much but who knows better what we're equipped for than the one who created us? God wants to show us just how strong we can be through Him. So let's pump some iron and get Un-PUNYfied!

  “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” (Romans 5:3-4)

Trusting Folding Chairs?

So today I thought it'd be wise to stand on a folding chair to reach something. It didn't work out so well. Shocker I know.

Now I realize there are two ways people can choose to react to that. The more realistic group (my husband) may say,in a loving way of course, "That chair wasn't meant to be used to stand on. What'd you think would happen?" And the more unsystematic group (myself) might choose to give me the benefit of the doubt and say they understand "It was closest thing to you and everybody makes mistakes."

Now before you decide which group you're in let me add a small piece of information, this is the second time I've done this within the last two weeks.Same chair. I chose convenience over common sense and was left to deal with the inevitable consequences...Pain.

It got me wondering how often we do that in our every day life.Depend on unstable things to keep us stable. Whether it be a job, a habit, a relationship, money, a feeling, or the opinions of others. We rely so much on unpredictability. I'm not saying those things are bad. They were created to be good,positive things... if rooted in something unmovable. But those things in and of themselves are constantly fluctuating. They may sustain us for a little while but sooner or later they'll let us down. Not always because they mean to but because just like the folding chair, they weren't made to stand on.

It may seem like a stretch to compare a folding chair to say, a relationship but that's how my crazy mind works. Think about it. I was pretty dang disappointed when that chair decided to be rude and fold causing  me to attempt and fail miserably to keep myself from falling. FYI, Balancing, not my strong suit. No career in the circus in my future. But in all honesty, it wasn't the chair's fault (even though it got a good scolding). It was my choice. I trusted the chair to hold me up when I knew that wasn't it's purpose, it's not what it was created to do.

We hear people say all the time I just want a stable job or a stable relationship. We're all looking for a sense of security. We want something we can bank on. Something we can trust for the long haul. We're all searching for lasting stability are we not?

It's not a bad thing. We were created that way. We weren't hardwired to handle life alone. We were hardwired to find rest in something that's loving and dependable.  God created us to desire that stability.The only problem is so often we search for it in the wrong places. We attempt to stand on countless God-replacements that, like the chair, with the slightest movement end up folding along with us and disappointing us in the process.

I don't care what age you are at some point or another, in one way or another, you've experienced the reality that people and things in this world will disappoint.Can I get an Hallelujer? Don't we wear ourselves out daily trying to stand on things that are constantly slipping beneath our feet? But there is hope in the midst of the weariness! Hold on,that calls for a happy dance y'all! Those countless let downs from people and things are meant to encourage us to quit looking around for stability and start looking up for it. The disappointments in life are God's tools to show us that situations, people, locations,possessions, and positions in life can never fully satisfy the desire of our heart. The desire for something dependable. The bible says to seek God first and everything else will be added to us. (Matthew 6:36)

When we let go of trusting in the unstable folding chairs of this fallen world and start trusting in the stability of God He'll give us a peace we can't find anywhere else. Just ask him and you'll see that He'll set your feet on solid ground that can't be moved. You can choose to keep trying to stand on folding chairs or you can choose to stand on the only stable thing that never moves. Jesus Christ.The satisfaction you're searching for can only be found in Him.The Solid Rock.Unmovable, unfailing, and always stable.

"He lifted me out of the ditch, pulled me from deep mud. He stood me up on a solid rock to make sure I wouldn’t slip." Psalm 40:2