The Painful Best

Learning to live without money is one of those blessings from God that looks like it's gonna hurt...and it often does.
C. S. Lewis says this:
"We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."

Everyone I know has made adjustments during this recession.
When I talk to my family and friends about it, they've got lots to say about handling these tough economic times.
But the most wonderful thing is what I don't hear: I don't hear a single complaint.

Not one.

Quite the contrary, I hear hope and excitement.
With looming foreclosures on their houses, I hear excitement to learn how the banking system works.

In the humilty of showing strangers their money problems, I hear about new relationships being formed with the faceless people who handle their mortgages.

In the empty time-slots where restaurants and movies used to be, I hear how great it is to spend an evening with the kids and watch a show with a cheap bowl of popcorn.

While appliances break down and groceries become more expensive, I hear about how someone taught themselves how to fix a toaster, or make their own bread, or find out that empty side yard full of trash will grow a wonderful garden.

Who knew a recession could be so beneficial?

Well...actually, I did.
This is not a brag. This is a humble confession of living with financial instability for most of my life. I know what happens when you have to hunker down and count pennies.
I've lived the feast and famine cycle for so long, I now have the luxury of contentment whether I have money or not.
But, I also have great admiration for those who chose wiser and saved their money. The financial wisdom of other people is necessary for the rest of us.
Look at how many money advisors have their own t.v. shows now.
I'm a believer that life always educates us...whether we want it to or not.
But, it's easier if we want it.

...sorry for the rabbit trail.

My point is: I always felt good about myself when I was at my most resourceful.
And I think that's a pretty universal trait in all of us.

It's the "teach-a-man-to-fish philosophy".
It's liberating.
It builds confidence, independence, strength.

But most of all, it keeps us humble.

As strange as it sounds, confidence, independence and strength can only be built on the bedrock of humility.
And trying to fix the broken things in our lives is a humbling task.

Because we know how easily broken our world is.
And in trying to fix it, we know what it takes to keep it going.
And while we are keeping things going, we see that there are some things that cannot be fixed no matter what we do.

We cannot fix a broken spirit,
We cannot fix a broken heart,
We cannot fix the person we love, or fix their broken promises.
And we can never go back and fix our mistakes.
And that is perhaps the most humbling thing of all.

We can fix the broken lawnmower, but we can't go back and stop what broke it in the first place.
We can fix the broken window, but we can't go back and stop the baseball from breaking it.
We can build a garden and enjoy the fruit of our labors, but we can't make it rain, or stop an unexpected plague from destroying our efforts.
And then we have to start all over and fix what we can.

We live out the parable of God's plan for salvation with every broken thing in our life.
We can't go back to stop anything from breaking, but according to the Bible, we don't need to.
It was fixed 2,000 years ago on a wooden cross at Calvary.

God took what we broke and repaired it with three nails and a crown of thorns.

He stood between us and our doom and declared, "It is finished".

The best for us turned out to be God's pain.

Now He offers us Himself and only asks for our hearts in return.
And when our hearts break from the endless entropy of life, He steps in to repair them.

This recession is bringing out the best in us.
It's showing us how resourceful we are.
It eliminates the trivial and shines a light on the wonderful.
It shows us what we can do.
...and what we can't.


redink
http://http//camms.org/images/The%20Cross%20(Ron%20DiCianni)_0.jpg