This topic comes across my consciousness all too often. It is a topic that elicits emotion in me, it exposes my impatience with others on matters that, although I've been given a grace to deal with in my own life, I am not immune from any more than anybody else. So I'm going to write about it, because it might help me process those emotions, which have got me in trouble on occasion, and hopefully help others as well.
We each have been given gifts, one of mine (I think) is the ability to self-analyze and process my own soul and spirit issues and dialogue with God about it to get through to the other side of whatever the issue happens to be. I say that, because some of what I might write next may sound proud, it's not coming from a place of pride, though, it's coming from a place of experience and observation. I've been there, done that, and I am attempting to pass it on so that others can spare themselves the discomfort or agony or time wasted, that I have experienced and/or observed.
So here goes.
Any time the lack of something you want whether in your life or in someone else's or in or from another person (including God) elicits a negative and ongoing emotional response in you, you have a problem. You might be thinking, "yeah, duh", at me right now, but hear me out. If something is bearing bad fruit in your life it doesn't matter how good the tree looks, or even is. If there is bad fruit (like negative and ongoing problems) the "tree" (whatever the desire is) is growing in the wrong spot in your life. You've planted it between you and God, between you and another person, between you and the right thing to do.
That may also seem like a no-brainer, but in reality, it is not. I have witnessed many, including myself, who have had a whole grove planted in the wrong spot. The wrong spot being between you and God. The more you have planted there, the harder it will be to see God clearly, hear Him clearly, or even recognize Him. Some of our trees look very Godly and we think God put them there. He didn't. These are often the worst kind, the hardest ones to see for what they are. These Godly-looking trees. These Godly desires. These God-given desires. If planted in the wrong spot they will bear bad fruit. Bad fruit for you. Bad fruit for others. Bad.
How can something that feels so good, feel so right, feel so... God, be bad? I think it may be dawning on you now. Why do some people get drunk? Why do we like to shop? Why do we watch movies too late and eat too much chocolate? We do these things, because they feel good, they suck us in, we want something from them. Later, after we reap the fruit of our actions, do we realize an important truth. What we did was took something that in itself might not be a bad thing, might even be a good thing, but by what we did with it turned it into something that bore bad fruit. The same thing is possible even with a "God thing" or a "God-given" desire. We take it and put it in a space that feels good, fulfills something that is lacking, but it is in the wrong space, between you and God. No way? Yes way. Seen it too many times. Sorry to say.
To be continued...
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