strength, frustration, and patience (re-post from my facebook note)

"... guilty people, who's own strength is their God." Habakkuk 1:11b

That verse resounded in me this morning. I feel like this is a problem that I struggle with at a very root level of my psyche. The habit has been so engrained that I often don't even think about it. I should be using God as my own strength, but instead my own strength serves as my god.

I feel like I have so much and so little to write about. This is the first journal entry since coming home from summer camp. It's funny cause I was so motivated to come back and talk to people about what I learned and how God was working in my life, but at the same time, I wasn't motivated to continue writing and staying vigilant with daily devotions. I suppose I could throw out the excuse that camp gives people the unique freedom of spare time which seems to be becoming more and more of a commodity these days. But that excuse is filled with laziness and self-seeking. It's not that the "daily grind" voids us of spare time. It is simply a matter of priorities.

"though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crops fail and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, YET I WILL REJOICE IN THE LORD, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. The sovereign Lord is my strength." Habakkuk 3:17-19a

Habakkuk is sort of my "goto" passage when I'm feeling frustrated with my lack of wisdom in knowing God's plan for the world and for my life. I think every Christian, at some point, needs to be reminded that God should be praised at ALL times, even in times of peril. Those times of trial and tribulation are for a purpose. God tells us in 1 Peter that

"in all this you greatly rejoice. though now, for a little while you may suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

I want to jump to the conclusion and throw out the "everything happens for a reason" statement, but I feel like it's not that simple. That there is another element to this. Not everything has a purpose, but everything, good and bad, is the result of the choices that we, as humans, make in our God-granted free will. But furthermore, we shouldn't just take these trials in stride, but should learn from them.

Simply put... something can be learned from anything.