250 – Keeping Your Stuff Together

#faithbites #faithjourney stuff

Life is hard. There are days when I wake up and just want to go back to sleep. I pray and God helps but sometimes, it just feels like too much. Today, I was listening to one of my favorite groups, The Counting Crows, and heard a lyric that touched my heart: If you can’t keep your shit together when God is on your side, what chance do you have when he’s not around? This is from the song Cover Up The Sun.

I apologize for the language, but sometimes keeping our crap together is hard. I don’t ever want to experience what it would be like if God wasn’t around. I could tell you that I would fail miserably. When I fail when God is around, it isn’t because of him, it’s because I failed to live according to his laws. As we’ve said before there are two laws: Love God, Love People. Often I fail at loving people as fully as I should.

Scripture on God Being on Your Side

• With God we will gain the victory, and he will trample down our enemies. – Psalm 108:13
•  for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. – Philippians 2:13

• So we say with confidence,

  “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
  What can mere mortals do to me? – Hebrews 13:6

Reflection

For many years in my life, I said I got this. I have my stuff together. The older I get and the more versed in faith I get, I know I don’t have it together by myself. What is interesting, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, is God is a helper and you have to accept the help.

In life, we have had people offer us help and we turn them down. Sometimes, we say we want help, but not the way they offer it. Think of the Lord in those terms. If you ask for help in finance and God brings a savings plan to you, you should accept it. You may have wanted him to provide more money and he is, just not the way you thought. We have to be active in accepting the help. Then we can fulfill his good purpose.

I am only beginning to learn of how God tramples my enemies both real and imagined. I know I can’t keep my stuff together by myself, and with God it’s hard sometimes as well. Not because God can’t do it, because I in my arrogance, don’t accept his help fully. This is something I need to change.

Charge

Do you have your stuff together? If so, you probably weren’t reading this. If not, ask God for help. He freely gives it. When he does, accept the help. It may not be in the form you wanted, but it is in the form you need.

Lord, help me to accept your help. Help me to put aside my own aims and align them with what you want me to do. Then I will have my stuff together with your help.