Tuesday, December 15, 2009

A Perfect Day

Today when I was lying in bed, I felt so gratified that I was inspired to finish up a lot of my books, and wrap up some papers and essays that I needed to write.  But during the course of the day, I only accomplished two of my eight assignments.  This irritated me, and suddenly my perfect day turned to a bad day.  But I was encouraged by a new thought.

It is not the accomplishment of our plans that makes our day good, but our ability to cheerfully cope with anything that comes in our way, and be grateful for what work we did accomplish.

In my mind, a bad day is looking back at what you did and thinking: "What a lazy, lazy day. All I did was lay around and eat."  That is an awful day.  Sometimes there are days when we need rest, but what about the days where we can do something and won't do it because we don't feel like it?

The temptations of the mind are ever so powerful.  More powerful than anything else.  And our mind governs our actions, because the source of our actions are our thoughts.

We are so constantly assailed by overwhelming problems that prohibit us to exist in a state of perfect bliss.  If only we could be like Bob Wiley and "take a vacation from our problems."

I feel that when I am in our church, worshiping God, listening to godly teaching, and fellow-shipping with other Christians, I have left behind the cares of the world.  True, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath... but I believe that the Sabbath is an escape from our corrupt world that allows us to glimpse a very small view of heaven.  We go to church, and we forget about everything but God.  God is foremost in our minds.  Everything we do is centered around him.  He is the sweet haven that we run to, he is our Rock that defends us, and to be his child is to be in perfect bliss.

A perfect day doesn't exist.  Perfection doesn't exist, except in Christ.  And yet, all the little odds and ends that make our day awful are actually what makes them perfect.  Because all those little things bring about the will of God, and because his will is perfect, so is the day.  But from our selfish perspective, we're not willing to trust that He's got it all figured out, and maybe it wasn't his plan for us to do everything we wanted to.

Submitting to God is a bitter sweet thing.  It is bitter because we leave behind the desire of the flesh... The things that we selfishly yearn for... But it is sweet because we leave behind sin, and accept God's perfect and absolute will.  It is sweet because we find refuge and protection in his sovereignty, for if we denied it, what would we rely on?

I've just been thinking about a lot of things lately, and when my thoughts come together like this I like to write them down here... tell me what you all think, and please give me your thoughts. :)

As a parting thought, upon reading the first sentence again, I am reminded of a wonderful quote by G.K. Chesterton: "Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to color on the ceiling with." You have to love the great thinkers...

3 comments:

EmmaElaine said...

Thanks Ruby, I really needed that right now. :-)

<3 Emma

EmmaElaine said...

Howdy m'dear!
I tagged you over at lovingbigsis.blogspot.com! (I still haven't figured out how to links on here. :-P)

Have a 'perfect' day!
~Emma

Anonymous said...

Very well said. I guess I don't have many additional thoughts to suggest. Enjoyed reading it though.