Brace Yourself

Thanks to the comment of someone I don't know (but most likely do, I just don't know their little blogger name), and the felt need to write for my own good, I return to you today, O Blogging world with new thoughts, but mainly, the need to simply release my synapses' firings into my fingertips.

Asking for God to make you a better and more humble man is a horrible idea, just so you know. Because He will do it. This year, I've decided to practice the spiritual discipline of meditation and each week, I pick a new verse or phrase or even just a word that I want to think about for the rest of the week. I was reading Job for class one day, and came across this verse:

"Brace yourself like a man; I will question you and you will answer me." - 38.3

I thought I braced myself. I thought that God would go slowly, that He would take parts of me away and repair those before taking others to the shop as well. Turns out that if you want to move a house even six inches to the right, you've got to take the whole house down to its foundation and rebuild it in its new location. God has provided me with an amazing opportunity this year as a PA to get to know and build lasting relationships with the guys on my floor, but He's also put me on the front lines. I get shot first. But then I remember that I signed up to get shot anyway, why not be in the front lines?

This week, I'm focusing on a verse from John:

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." -1.5 (ESV)

I'm going to be very honest in this post. I've been very discouraged lately by this job. Its not that I feel inadequate or that I'm a bad person. Its more that I just don't think I'm living up to the expectations of the guys on my floor or of anyone else. In some of my decisions, I find myself questioning my actions or my motives, not because I believe that I might have done something wrong, but that people aren't pleased by my choices. I constantly find myself really wondering what the "good" thing to do because, in everyone else's eyes, my decisions don't seem to be "good". But a friend of mine put it well last night "It's all about who you fear most. God or man." I would rather be a man of Truth than a man that is simply likable. In all honesty, I have no idea if I'm doing a good job at that, or if I'm simply missing it on all accounts. What I do know is that I love God and am trying to become more like Him, and that I'm trying my absolute best to love people, even when they don't love back. Here's the prayer I've been praying for awhile now, written by St. Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.