Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Spoiled Brat

I have never been one to truly look at God as my Father in heaven. Is He? Absolutely. But I suppose I have always been more inclined to see Him as an authority figure on my life than my Dad.

That said, I had to pray this morning in acknowledging the fact that I am acting like a spoiled brat. To be honest, I am a very selfish person. I like 'my time' to do the things I want to do. I have things I'd like to get accomplished and when other things hinder those plans, regardless of who scheduled them, I tend to get whiny.

Now, did I realize I was acting like this as soon as I woke up? Oh heavens no. But then this happened:

First I was reminded through the devotional app I read that if I am experiencing feeling busy, overwhelmed, exhausted, burnt out, or discontent, it is likely because I am doing things that are not important in the scheme of things and am putting things on myself that I have not been assigned. There may have also been a reference to wearing a surrendered costume that made me think I am still parading around with Wonder Woman UnderRoos on under my clothes instead of putting on the yoke Jesus offers me.

Second I was told that I am not supposed to be anxious about anything and to only think about the good things. This is difficult when I see what I was most looking forward to completely stripped away.

Third I had to acknowledge the fact that by acting like a spoiled child I am not doing anything to add goodness to my faith, knowledge to my goodness, self-control to knowledge, perseverance to self-control, godliness to perseverance, mutual affection to godliness, and definitely not love to mutual affection. As a matter of fact there is more of a decrease than anything and I am stumbling all over the place.

As if that weren't enough, this horrid attitude is keeping my eyes shut to the fact that I am not living as Jesus did giving thanks regardless of His circumstances and am flat out attempting to refuse what God is trying to give me. If He's giving this schedule, why on earth am I even bothering to resist? Oh, that's right. I'm a spoiled brat.

And just to prove His point, I was not so subtly reminded that "the believing disciple learns to look upon Christ on the throne, and when he thinks of his own inner life, and longs for holiness, to live a life well-pleasing to God, or for power to do the Father's work, he looks up, and rejoicing that Christ is his life, he confidently acts on the assurance that Christ's life will work mightily in him all he needs." Except the struggle is real and I have not even for a moment thought about looking up and giving thanks.

But thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession because sometimes you need Him to lead you to the aroma that you need more than anyone else around you.

Sometimes I think I repeat myself way too much when it comes to posts that talk about surrendering to His will rather than pursuing my own. But maybe that's because, like me, you struggle with this, too. So, if that's the case, I'm sorry to say that maybe we both need to revoke our memberships to the spoiled brat club. Because honestly, it's not a happy club. It's miserable. And maybe, just maybe, if we take these words to heart and commit to praying for each other, we'll go from spoiled brats to children of the light and have the heavy burdens we've put on ourselves removed.


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