Comforting Challenge

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." ~Phil. 4:4-7

Most of the time, when I reference that passage, I focus on the latter two verses - don't worry, tell God, you'll receive peace. Quite frankly, doing that is difficult enough. But tonight I had a sense that I should check out the preceding verses. And I was blown away by how much a heart can forget.

Rejoice in the Lord always.

Always? God, seriously now, I know what You mean when You say "always" and . . . no offense, but I think maybe there's been something lost in translation here. You can't seriously mean always. I know, "blessed be Your name, on the road marked with suffering . . . You give and take away . . ." all that. Sure. I sing it, I even believe I mean it most of the time. But . . . rejoice? With an exclamation point?! That really, really doesn't make much sense. Or come very easily, I'll have You know.

Psh. And THEN there's verse five. "Let your gentleness be evident to all." HAHAHAHA! WhatEVER, Lord.

*cough* somehow, "whatever" and "Lord" don't seem to fit well together in sentence form. At least not with that inflection. Sorry about that.

But . . .God?? What do You seriously mean by that? Gentleness implies some sort of . . .sweet innocent caring spirit. You do realize that living a "gentle" life in this world is akin to crossing an interstate, blindfolded, on foot, in the dark, wearing black, right? Gentle people don't survive, Lord. They don't stand a chance. And quite frankly, I am sick of being shredded at every crossroad. I'm sick of trying to be gentle. I'm sick of having to retrain myself to be gentle. I'm sick of giving You everything, only to end up hurting, realize I tried to do it on my own and then have to go through the entire thing all over again.

I don't want to feel beautiful, Abba. I want to be beautiful. I don't want to fight against myself and try to quiet my own heart. There are enough externals trying to mess up everything, I don't need to add to the fury.

Why is it that I can know so incredibly clearly what I DON'T want and simultaneously have practically NO IDEA what it is that I DO what?

And, Abba, why do I want You . . . only to find that I am terrified to live what that truly means?