No Thanks, I'm Just Fine

Have you had those moments when you’re walking through life just fine, not really up and not really down, just minding your own business, not really connected to much but not severely disconnected either. Life is just life and in such moments you just are what you are, or as Popeye the Sailor would say, “I yam what I yam”. Something happens, someone engages with you in this way or that way, the environment impacts you, an injustice occurs, etc, and an event or person just has to throw that symbolic wrench into your complacency, messing up your “just fine” to anything but “just fine”.

Have you ever noticed how God tends to do that throughout His history? People of old are going along just fine, minding their own business, comfortably wrapped up into their own worlds of complacency, minding their own dysfunctional lives, doing just fine, and God throws this wrench into the middle of it all. Adam and Eve are just fine; they only wanted a little fruit from this little old tree. Noah is old and living just fine in the midst of a sinful world, minding his own business. Abraham is enjoying his peaceful existence with his son Isaac, blessed at an old age. Asa is ruling as rulers do, not really focusing on getting Gods people back on track. Ezra existed and survived, an exile, later called to stop surviving and live in God, rebuilding the wall. Twelve regular guys, living regular lives, day to day, doing just fine, fishing, working, being fine, are moved by a simple man from a simple existence, into a life changing event, that changed the course of all mankind.

There is group of people who work every day to live a life of reality and simplicity. They have a saying that the word fine means, “frustrated, insecure, neurotic, and emotional”. It’s never a good idea to say, “I’m fine” when in the presence of this group. And yet this group has it pegged rather accurately. When we are walking in a state of being complacent, not working on our marriage, not standing up for what we believe, not creating a relationship with ourselves and others, not leading and mentoring, not connecting with our God, not living a life of God, we are walking in a state of being fine, until the wrench of frustration, insecurity, neurosis, and dysfunctional emotions come to our door and rock our world.

We have all been blessed by a God who makes himself known to us every day of our lives, if we stop being fine and embrace Him. This God calls us to examine our lives, to drop what is not working and what drives us from Him, to embrace the simplicity of His Love and His Existence. He calls us to deny our sinful lusts from what it craves. He calls us to sacrifice what we feel we cannot live without, or who we feel we cannot live without, that which gets in the way of our relationship with our Creator. He calls us to rebuild our walls of righteousness and obedience that sin has destroyed. He calls us to walk with Him, in and through Jesus the Christ, in all we do and in wherever we go in all we encounter.

God is the great restorer, the loving Father whose children cannot comprehend His love, the loving Father who suffers and so wants His children to realize their blood line and live forever in His presence, in His kingdom. We have walked this season of Christmas focusing on presents and money and parties and fun and self and family and friends. Refocus on the rebirth of your life, the opportunity God brings you through Christ, to rebuild your relational walls with His, to move from surviving to living, letting go of being fine and embracing the reality God lays at your door. I encourage you my friend and reader to see the birth of the son of God in your own life, to break out of the ordinary into the supernatural, God guided and inspired, life the Creator desires for His creation, to live with Him, forever.


(The writings in this post are random thoughts and observations and are NEVER intended as professional or personal advice. Take what works and leave the rest. For information on mental health and/or substance abuse help, visit http://www.rodneyvalandra.com and refer to the links page.)

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