Just a Project?

This is an excerpt adapted from my journal from Sunday.

"Your ways are higher than my ways and Your thoughts are higher than my thoughts. I know that You know what You're doing in my life right now. I know that You are refining me, that You are pruning me, that You are molding me as the potter shapes the clay. I thank You for doing this, for working in and through me to conform me to the image of Your Son. But God, do you care about the pain this is causing me? Right now I feel like I'm one of Your projects. Like you know exactly what You're doing and You know exactly how I'm going to turn out in the end but are unconcerned about the anguish it is causing in the meantime. I know that pain and sorrow produces a harvest of righteousness, but that only barely softens the blows as they come in."

This is a conundrum that I haven't ever really faced before. My view of God's transcendence has never outweighed my view of God's immanence before. I've always been a lot more sure that God was comforter than I have been sure that God is in control. But I've since been reminded that Jesus cares for the church, of which I am a member, as his own body. Ephesians 5:29-30 says, "For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body." Hebrews says that we have a high priest in Jesus who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses (Heb. 4:15). "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God" (2 Cor. 1:3-4). Psalm 147:3 says that He heals the broken-hearted. Psalms 23 and 100 show the image of God as our shepherd. And 1 Peter 5:7 tells me to cast my worries on Him. The reason? Because He cares. The clearest passage, however, has come through as Psalm 56:8. "You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?"

So not only does God know what He's doing, He does also care about the pain that I'm finding in my life these days. Not only that, but His power is made perfect in my weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). It is through the sufferings and the times that I most definitely do not feel strong (like now) that His power is made perfect. So what I 'm learning right now is to be content only in Him. That He supplies all of my spiritual, physical, emotional, psychological and relational needs. I have everything I need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). And the hard part right now is that I'm struggling with believing that applies to my relational status. I am single, and likely to stay that way for a long time yet. But, 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 tells me that I can be undivided in my devotion to God while I am single, unlike when I am married. However, this should also be weighed with the idea that marriage is God's chosen instrument for sanctification (quote from some monk that Waldie and Sharon keep bringing up). Oh well, I know where I am right now and my call is to be content with my current station in life (1 Tim. 6:8). And so I plug on...

I can't wait for Christmas.