On Vexation and Healing

Over the past few months, I’ve struggled with various vexations and concerns:

• No time and space to write on my story.
• No pregnancy.
• No house.
• No confidence in my writing skills.
• No confidence in my conversational skills.
• No laptop not dependent on its power cord (which also needed to be angled just-so to receive power).
• No internet connection when my new laptop needed registration and updates.

After the initial flurry of obsessive and impatient thoughts, lasting from days to weeks, each concern has eventually receded (to varying extents and with varying permanency) with the remembrance that God is sovereign.  What will be, will be in HIS timing, not mine.  I can only do so much to expedite them, and if the timing’s not right, it’s either not going to happen, or I’m going to push through something that is less than God’s best.  My inner voice coaches me, Be content where you are.  Focus on the higher priorities--like your relationship with God.  Breathe.  Enjoy your blessings.  It’s not the end of the world!  You’ve done your best--now leave it in God’s hands.  Move on; stop those negative thoughts and feelings!  Sit down, shut up, and let God work. 

My inner drama queen is hardly new to me, and I’ve taken measures in the past to curb her, but I’ve only recently recognized (re-recognized?) the sin in this pattern of impatience and fixation on one thing after another that are largely out of my control.  Even when I don’t blame God, my anxiety implies, “I don’t trust You, God.”  

It’s humbling to realize just how immature I still am, how lacking my faith is, how insecure I feel despite knowing that I belong to the God whom scripture and experience should convince me is loving and all-powerful and present with me in all my troubles, petty though some of them are.  

Today’s moral: Practice relying on God and have joy in all circumstances.

And God has proven He works in mysterious and providential ways:

A friend recently praised God on Facebook for “healing” her fridge.  An acquaintance of hers criticized her assumption that God had anything to do with it, but she responded that if God could heal the sick and raise his Son from the dead, he could, through prayer, heal a fridge she couldn’t afford to repair.

I don’t think I’m wrong in believing God temporarily “healed” our internet connection just when we needed it to help us prepare our Sunday School lesson on Google Drive and to let me read my online devotionals.  The connection didn’t work reliably before or after, but we never experienced a problem while using the internet for those purposes. 

God will provide what we need when we need it.  If you don’t have something, if you’re inconvenienced, if you’re suffering, pray and do what you can do while you wait patiently for His help.  You’ll live.  Your faith will be stronger for trusting, and your attitude will be brighter.