Celebrating the Struggle; Watching out for the “easy”
Psalm 85:10 “Unfailing love and truth have met together. Righteousness and Peace have kissed.”
In Jesus Christ this verse is embodied. In Jesus love and truth have met; peace and righteousness have kissed. In this marriage these unions are thrusts upon us in our lives. When Jesus calls us it is love, truth, righteousness, and peace calling. As wonderful as this sounds it is overwhelming to live into this call. There are times of feeling inadequate, burdened, and incomplete in trying to live into the life that love, truth, peace, and righteousness calls us to live. St. Teresa of Avila offers some great insights into this very predicament. St. Teresa says that it would be easier to not hear the call at all then to try to live into the call only to fall short time and time again. She talks of our souls suffering in our own inadequacies to live up to the vision of love, truth, righteousness, and peace. The good news is that my struggle is proof of Jesus’ presence and call in my life. If I didn’t struggle with living into the call or falling short of God’s vision for my life then I would not be in relationship with the God that comes to me in love, truth, peace, and righteousness. The fact that I find myself falling short and struggling with becoming the disciple that Jesus desires for me to be is proof that I am on the right track and right where God wants me. So this morning, I celebrate the struggle; I celebrate the journey; I embrace my failures. Today, I invite love, truth, peace, and righteousness to continue to mold and transform me. Today I celebrate the struggle and embrace this journey of life that comes to me in Jesus Christ.
God, continue to prepare me for this journey. Help me to remember that the struggle is not a symbol of a lack of faith but actually proof of your presence in my life and your working in my soul. Help me to in fact, be aware of the times where there is not struggle and may I recognize that those are the times I should be worried; that those are times I may be farthest from you. Remind me that when I open myself to love, truth, peace, and righteousness that I, in my sinful nature, am going to struggle and wrestle with this call to a different way of living and being in the world. Amen.
chadpullins@connect2crossroads.com
