The Same Old Struggle

We were talking about blogs yesterday at work...as it turned out, I was the only person who really knew/understood what they were. I admitted I had one, and then felt really silly! I've gone from feeling really old at school to feeling like a mere babe at work. Anyway, I also realized how long it's been since I've blogged.

Appropriately, today I was blind-sided by something I feel compelled to write about. My parents were visiting me in this lovely state (shaped like a cracker, as Derek pointed out), and once again made fun of me for all the CDs I own. Dad said it would take me three years to listen to all of them. So I decided to actually listen to all of my CDs to see how long it would take. I have close to 200 CDs, so I figure it will probably take a few months. We'll see. Anyway, the point is that I'm listening to a bunch of CDs I haven't listened to in a while. Tonight I got to Big Tent Revival, which is one of the few CDs I have with only one song on there I like, "Two Set of Joneses." The song is basically a paraphrase of the parable of the wise and foolish builders, applied to two married couples. One of the lines says, "Reuben and Sue they had nothing but Jesus, and at night they would pray that he cared for them each."

Now, Reuben and Sue, as far as I know, are fictional characters. But my eyes welled up with tears of admiration for this couple. What would it take me to be completely reliant on God? Is it going to take a tragedy? When will I just believe and not doubt? When will I have to stop praying "I do believe, forgive my unbelief?" Does the fact that I am so blessed made me less reliant on God? I ask that at the risk of sounding ungrateful...but that's not my intent.

How does one become reliant on God? How many times a day do we have to relinquish control back to God? Why wouldn't we let God worry about all this stuff for us? As a silly example, if I could be somehow guaranteed that someone else would take care of all my finances - bills, paychecks, 401k, investing, giving, etc, etc, and my money would always be absolutely taken care of in the best way possible, without my even thinking about it, wouldn't I turn it over in a second? Like Forrest Gump, "One less thing, you know?" I have the strongest guarantee that a loving God is going to make all things work for good for ME - yet I worry and fret and try to go it on my own. I'm not very smart!!

The good thing is, that I DO have a God who loves me, who I can depend upon even when I'm not depending upon him, and who paid the ultimate price so that he can be with me. And that's something I can sleep on.