I just knew somebody had tricked me. 

With legos strewn across our living room floor, my son and I worked at assembling a parrot that was driving us mad. Every time we got stuck, I had a feeling that the manufacturer omitted a piece I needed from the box.  The moment would pass, we would find the piece, forget about our troubles, happily make progress, only to again bump up against the same urge to conclude that we don’t have what we need, and we should quit the lego project.

I don’t know what lie you might be believing these days, but here are a few that try to take me for a ride: 

1. I need something else.

Like the missing lego, one of the first thoughts to enter my head when adversity comes is the urge to assume I need something different: a new idea, a new plan, a new something to combat whatever problem has come my way. And this is true even outside of troubles—even on ordinary days, discontentment tempts me to see most areas of life as problems that must be solved. But how many problems would be reframed (or eliminated) if instead of churning or straining for a fix, we trusted that God has given us “everything we need for life and godliness”? (See 2 Peter 1:3.)

One of my elder sisters in Christ once commented, when talking about her church: “Everything we need is under this roof.” What a secure and confident perspective that translates to life in general. Everything I need, God has or will provide. Not because I, in myself, am capable or sufficient. I have an omniscient God who cared enough to put His Son in my place. Won’t that God—who gave us Christ—graciously give us all the lesser things? (See Romans 8:32.) Bread of Life. Living Water. The Resurrection. The Way. The Truth. The Life. Jesus, the God-Man, coming so we might have life and have it to the full.

If we are saved from God’s wrath, and if we can approach the Holiest of Holies because of the riches we have in Christ, we surely also find in Christ fruit enough to endure ordinary thorns and thistles. But we should plan to more than endure: to flourish, to know sweet friendship with Christ, to share in the joy that was set before Him on the cross. It is possible to have a complicated set of facts and to still amass the sweetness of Christ.

What does it look like to taste and find God good right here, right now, just like today looks? Lord, thank You for what You have or haven’t put in our hands. I trust that You are here—even in this—and this is an opportunity to know and love You more.

2. This can’t be good.

Another subtle lie that sneaks in during hard days is that this can’t go well. When hardship or battles with sin come, it’s easy to let the condemnation or bitterness sink in and ruin the days God has given us.  

Last Summer, I arranged a babysitter for our four kids, and I eagerly planned to have a day! As I went to grab our dog from the groomer, it was intensely raining. Do I go home or push through the flooding to grab the pup? You can probably guess what I chose. In the downpour, I hurriedly put the dog in his crate, zipped it up, closed the door, and locked myself out of the vehicle. 

The shop owner and I began frantically calling locksmiths. We would get a hold of one who would commit to helping before eventually cancelling because of the flash flooding. (Thankfully, the weather was cool.) Long periods of waiting on locksmiths meant Mama’s free day was spent watching a parade of dogs get fluffed and buffed. 

As I spent hours sitting in the groomer’s lobby, I fixated on the split-second thought I had to go home. I could have avoided the entire mess had I listened to that nudge instead of going headstrong about my business.  But what was initially frustration caused by my stupidity and stubbornness became a sweet couple hours of stillness where I witnessed the hospitality of the shop owner, who fed me pizza and told me she’d like to cover the locksmith fee. 

How often I receive hardship as God’s rejection of me instead of seeing it as a gift from a sovereign God that turns a thorny path for my good—life with and conformity to Christ. He leads me along still waters. His rod and his staff comfort me. He has prepared a table before me. He anoints my head with oil. He is a kind God.

Because of Christ, even the thing God withholds, the suffering He allows, or the discipline He gives is for our rehabilitation and never for our destruction. This hard thing, decision, or path—whether my doing or not—is never not under God’s unchanging goodness and mercy toward me.

We absolutely must turn away from ourselves and from wrongdoing, repentant before God. (“Be killing sin or it will be killing you.” —John Owen.). That Summer day last year, I was foolish, and my foolishness meant getting stranded at the dog groomer. But God was still there, and He cared for me there. Even when I’m a fool, God still supplies my daily bread. Will you “take, eat” of this Bread and find Him to be exactly what You need, or are you still busy chastising yourself? 

3. The best is over there.

Did I mention that in the monsoon dog grooming debacle, my precious husband left work to go home to look for our spare vehicle key? Due to the flooding, he had to pull over and sit in a random parking lot for part of his workday. When he finally made it home to look for our spare key, we could find it nowhere. By the end of our tailspin, we couldn’t even remember if we had a spare key. 

After the locksmith opened the driver’s door of my car, I contorted myself into a pretzel to get past the third row of our SUV because the rear hatch would not open, and the keys were by the rear hatch. The sweet gentleman locksmith had to be dumfounded as he watched me slither over three rows of seating. I don’t know if you ever fight feelings of being too big for your britches; this was not one of those times. I was sadly appearing as accurately myself as I’ve ever been.

Months after this spectacle, we were driving in my husband’s car, when we noticed a key on his key ring, staring—more like dancing—back at us. A sort of dangling that looks like mocking. “What is this key?” Drew asked. We both paused, appreciating the degree of our silliness. How did we miss something right in front of our faces? 

We—yes all of us—do this often. God has not only given us salvation in Christ, but the Holy Spirit, the Helper, is alive in us. We have a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path through His word. He has given us the life we have—not the life we want. Yes, God has put limits on us and requires obedience to His laws. But there is this whole wide world of feasting and richness that will one day make the things that didn’t go like we want look like fraudulent carnival toys that break tomorrow. 

We cannot live for ourselves. We are not masters of our fate. We cannot possibly attain enough wisdom, power, or influence to grab life by the tail. Yet for everything we thought we’ve lost, we have a Savior—and a life in Him—to which our losses can’t possibly compare. Scripture specifically says not worth comparing. Don’t even put that one speck of bird seed on the scale because on the other side is a gargantuan-sized gift in the person of Jesus. Immeasurable riches in Christ Jesus.  Immeasurable. We want that one thing that’s missing. We want our old life back. Or we want the solution that seems like it would make everything okay again. We want our plan. We want to make it all fit our thinking, comfort, control. And Jesus is here, knocking at your door—yes this door, today, right now. Not that door over there.

Do we believe God begrudgingly saved us? That’s just not true. If we believe God delights in saving us (He does), would it make sense for His sanctification (His transformation of us) to then destroy us? He already gave us the best, the hardest, the most loving thing—His perfect Son unjustly dying for our sins. Yet, so many of us live like God is holding out on us.

If we are interpreting sanctification like it’s God’s wrath, we are not believing right about God. If the goal is complete fellowship with God, won’t this change our view of our facts? What freedom! Nothing—not this, not you, not her, not him, not sickness, not failure, not weakness, not pain, not yesterday, not today, not tomorrow is out of His redemptive grasp. Eat and be filled—in this very moment. 

Come, everyone who thirsts, 
Come to the waters; 
And he who has no money, 
Come, buy and eat! 

…

Seek the Lord while he may be found; 
Call upon him while he is near;
Let the wicked forsake his way
And the unrighteous man his thoughts
Let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God for he will abundantly pardon.

…

For you shall go out with joy
And be led forth in peace;
The mountains and the hills before you
Shall break forth into singing,
And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
Instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
And it shall make a name for the Lord,
An everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.    

Isaiah 55 (portions).

***

Months ago, I read through the book Known and Loved by Glenna Marshall.

This is an encouraging read for the perfectionist or overthinker who struggles to see God’s delight in us. Here’s a quote reminding us that God does not fight feelings of disdain for us—

“He sent His Son to lay down His life for you because He wanted to. God is not like us in that He can be bribed or convinced or coerced to do something He doesn’t want to do. His ways are pure and holy and just and good. When He saved you, it was because He delighted to save you. You do not have to now convince Him to keep loving you. He has already loved you with the kind of love that He has for His own Son. And His love endures forever.” 

***

And on the book proposal front! There has been progress. My proposal writing course instructor connected me with a wonderful literary agent. We’ve chatted three times now, and we are planning to move forward. This book may grow legs, or it may rest in a box in my basement.

Either way, I am smiling about the literary agent the Lord brought to me. It’s not that I expect her to have a publishing contract in hand this year (though God can do that if He wants!)—it’s that after many conversations, I feel safe with her. Why? She cares more about my personal standing before Jesus than she does my book. If we are united on that, I can trust she will not encourage me to follow myself. Thank You, Lord, for the right door at the right time.

Here is the messy process of editing my manuscript. Let us keep working the work in front of us. There is certainly enough Bread for today.

Thanks for reading—

Paige