calling it like it is!

I am currently using the Flip Bible Method of study. That means I flip open to whatever page I want and read until something catches my eye. I know this sounds less Christian than say, my disciplined husband's method of reading one book until he's done, but it's worked so well for me lately that I really have little motivation to change at this point.

So today I flipped open to Isaiah 59. I was captured right away:

"Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ears too dull to hear.

But your iniquities have separated you from you God;

your sins have hidden his face from you,

so that he will not hear.

For your hands are stained with blood,

your fingers with guilt."

Don't mean to be a Debbie Downer on this one. The truth is that I was actually really encouraged by these verses, and here's why...

I have been suffering with my friends lately. In the midst of a season of relative peace and tranquility in my marriage, I have had lots of excess emotional energy, which I have been using to over-analyze the trials and troubles of my friends. Betcha they're excited! Now, whether they need or appreciate my help is up for debate, and I'm not even sure that it's actually intentional on my part. But at this point I am just telling you how it is.

On one hand, I have been praying with more passion and learning to love them in this way. Good. On the other hand, it has been making me crazy, and straining my relationship with God. Not so good.

I tend to blame God for everything. When I see people struggling and hurting my first question seems to be, "Why, God?!" I act as if He is the one who sins and causes problems in our lives. Oh, wait...

Credit where credit is due! We, for the most part, don't require outside help to cause trouble in our lives. In fact, doesn't it seem to come naturally? If I'm honest as I look at my marriage or anyone else's, I can easily trace the issues back to people and sin, not to God.

I need God. I need Him for comfort as I'm overwhelmed by struggles I don't understand and don't know how to counsel. I need Him for wisdom as I try to speak and even to pray. I need Him for understanding, to sort things out in my head and my heart. And the second I start blaming and accusing Him, I cut myself off from all of these things and start to get so confused. The truth is that my iniquities separate me from God, just as my friends' iniquities separate them from God. It's not God's fault.

Oh, the relief of calling this like it is, of rightly labeling what's good good and what's evil evil. There is a peace that came with knowing the truth that we sin and God is good in the midst. So simple! So easy!

A pastor once told me that the Christian life isn't complicated, it's just hard =)