Inconvenience, Not Tribulation

This weekend was my first time back in church.  What a joy to finally be back!!  I felt like this dry, crusty old sponge, the kind that gets pushed back in the corner underneath the sink and forgotten.  (At least that happens in my house).  But as I saw my church family, as I stood with my husband with lifted hands praising my sweet Jesus, as God’s Word washed over my soul, as I partook in communion…my dry soul soaked up every last drop and I felt alive again.  Thank you, Jesus!  In fact, all week I have been reminded over and over how God’s presence, His Word, His people, are the most restorative thing in the world.  Last night and this morning we sang, “We are hungry, we are hungry, we are hungry for more of you.  We are thirsty, O Jesus, we are thirsty for more of you.”  And tears filled my eyes (and do right now) because that is the cry of my heart right now.  I am so desperately thirsty for more of Jesus, for more strength, more grace, more of Him.  I’ve never felt so weak and in need of Him in my life.

But even as I write that I wonder if I’m exaggerating how weak I feel.  It is true–huge shocker here–I am prone to exaggeration.  Chalk it up to being Bill Zyp’s daughter.  I love stories, and love to tell stories, and when I say that Dutch spread the Boudreax’s Butt Paste over the ENTIRE coffee table (and his face, and his truck), perhaps it wasn’t the ENTIRE coffee table. It was only about 1/3 of it. So there, there’s the truth.  It was still a low moment, as it happened at the same moment I checked my email and found out the house where we lived had sold and I was sitting in shock of the realization that now on top of a toddler, a newborn, an internship and a busy husband, we were adding “move…somewhere” to our list of things to do.  But the reality is the moment passed and it was not the end of the world. 

All that to say that I’m convicted by how self-absorbed I spend the majority of my life being.  Right now I’m doing the Beth Moore study on the book of Esther in our Women’s BIble study at church.  (By the way, where has Beth Moore been all my life?!  She’s hands down the best female BIble teacher I’ve ever heard…I’d recommend anything you can get your hands on by her.)  This last week, we studied how hesistant Queen Esther was to make any move in approaching the king to act on behalf of the Jews, her people, who were to be annhialated.  You can hear in her voice–“The King has not summoned me in 30 days”–that she is in the midst of a personal crisis. Her husband apparently no longer has use of her, and it seems that now is certainly not the time for her to be used by God for a miraculous deliverance of any kind. She’s got issues of her own.  She also has been so shielded from the real world, during her five years as Queen, that she fails to recognize the severity of the situation. Massive genocide is ensuing, and she doesn’t want to risk her neck.  She really just wants Mordecai to take off his sackcloth and get properly dressed.  She was too shielded from true hurt and tragedy.  Beth Moore writes this about the situation:

Esther has also detached from the common man’s need. We tend to detach from the sights and situations that make us feel badly about ourselves–especially when we feel powerless.  If we think we can’t do anything about a bad situation, we’d just as soon not have to see it. 

HEre’s the trap, however: If we distance ourselves long enough from the real needs, we replace them with those that aren’t.  Pretense becomes the new real and suddenly a delay in the deliver of our new couch becomes a terrible upset. We are wise to force ourselves to keep differentiating between simple inconveniences and authentic tribulations.  The more detached and self-absorbed we become,the more we mistake annoyances for agonies. It happens to all of us.

Oh conviction rests on me so heavily! This is where I’ve been living.  The reality is that I’m in a season, a situation, with some invconveniences.  We had some disappointments this past week with four different house hopeful situations falling through. The reality is simply that I don’t know where we’re going to live and yes, there are quite a few things on my plate right now.  But truly, friends–these are not tribulations.  They are minor, very minor, inconveniences that only become tribulations if I let them.  And how detached I’ve let myself be from the real hurts and sorrow of the world that I’ve let my little inconveniences become huge tribulations.  Perhaps post-partum hormones play a role too. 🙂

The message at church drove home this point even further.  As we finish our study of Colossians, we went through chapter 4: 2-6, focusing on praying that the gospel message will go out, and that God will use us to speak boldly and clearly.  Pastor Joel shared how sad it is that we become so absorbed in our trivial little matters that we lose all focus on what matters–souls being added to the Kingdom of God.  Guilty as charged.  SO guilty as charged.

Anyway, I’m only half focusing on his post as both kids are awake, so perhaps it doesn’t all make sense. But I’m just trying to say, to myself, Kari–don’t let your mole hills turn into mountains.  God will not let you sleep in the street. He’ll provide a place to live, and I will survive this silly season.  He knows my weak frame, and He’s faithful.  Remember it’s inconvenience, not tribulation.