Reason #451

I love spring days when the wind and dirt isn’t blowing. Days when it’s just warm. Not too hot, not too cold. Perfect! Days when the sun stays up until late evening so that you feel as if the days are longer. And even though there are still 24 hours in each day, it just seems like you have more time.

 

I look forward to spring for so many reasons. Warmer weather, later evenings, walks with Scout, bare legs and sandals, fruit, green leaves on the trees, sundresses, and bright colors. And for some reason, during the spring, it just seems like life is easier. It seems as if I can feel His presence even more. I can’t really explain it, but it just seems to be my season.

 

Last night I listened to a sermon about being content where God has placed you. Maybe, like me, you often times find yourself daydreaming about where you want to be, what you’d like to be doing. Lately, I find myself itching like crazy to go on vacation. I can hardly stand the anticipation. Just the thought of lying on the beach, the warm sun beating down on me, the sound of the ocean in the background, and not a worry in the world is more than I can stand. It’s well known that I’m horribly impatient, and so I drive myself crazy thinking ahead. I’m too much of a forward thinker sometimes, and it’s my downfall.

 

Being content is hard. In some areas, I do a great job of being content. Others, not so much. For example, I am perfectly happy when spring is here. I never wish the season away or hope it would hurry and change. It could be spring all year long and I’d be happy with that. Same goes with the weekend. Work is a different story. I have a hard time being content because I have ideas for myself. I have a plan and so sometimes it’s really hard to wait on the Lord and allow His will to be done. I want to do what I want to do yet I forget that maybe that’s not what God wants me to do. Truthfully, a lot of the time, I want to do what other people are doing. I want to have their jobs, their hobbies, their talents. But the pastor made a comment about being “providentially placed” where we are for a purpose and I suppose I’ve never really thought of that. Maybe if we looked at all of life like that, life would look different. Because what if we realized that where we work, where we live, our circumstances, everything is providential? Everything is intentional. If we’re being obedient, God isn’t going to place us in a spot where He doesn’t want us to be. He won’t put us in a situation that has no purpose or allow us to go through a circumstance where He isn’t going to use us.

 

The truth is, not every season is fun the whole way through. Some days are better than others. But that’s just part of it. God doesn’t always immediately remove us from every situation or skip us forward to the one we want, and for good reasons, too. Sticking through those rough moments, even when it seems like it’d be easier to rush through it or skip over it, makes for a better experience all around. Those moments grow us and teach us and we must learn to be content regardless of how much we’d like to get to the next thing. Because you can’t go back, you can’t re-live it, and so being content helps you keep from wishing you could have a do-over one day down the road.

 

This is a life-long lesson I seem to be learning. Plenty are the moments I’ve been far from content, and oh, how many tears have been shed from that. So I’m trying. Trying to be content and enjoy where I am right now, every day, because time is fleeting and I’ll never get these days back. And even though it’s hard, even though I’d like to do this, do that, fast forward here, and have that, I am thankful for where God has me. Most of all, I’m thank that He has a reason and purpose for placing me here.

 

#451 – Because He providentially places us for a purpose.

 

"...keeping God’s commands is what counts. Each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them." - 1 Corinthians 7:19-20