Here's what I mean: ever feel like you can't turn off the TV, radio, or other media even when you're not actually listening/watching? I noticed this years ago when I had to commute to work in the car. Even on days when I wasn't really paying much attention to the radio, or when I wasn't really that interested in what was being said or played, I had to have it on. It was like turning it off made me uncomfortable - I couldn't handle the silence.Why, I wondered? Maybe because I didn't want to be alone with my thoughts. Perhaps if I was alone with them they would wander to the chronic pain in my home, or the goals Amy and I (mostly I) had set that didn't get achieved in our time frame. Maybe the constant background noise was a way of crowding out serious reflection and thinking.
Maybe I wanted it that way.
But perhaps that's not the Biblical way of seeing life's disappointments. Maybe there's a healthier, more God-honoring way of responding to them. That's where the following quote from John Wesley, which I found just recently, really struck me. Wesley talks about what it means to really submit to the kingship of Jesus in our lives. He writes:
Whether it be higher or lower, a prosperous or afflicted state: be content that Christ should both choose your work, and choose your condition; that he should have the command of you, and the disposal of you: make me what you will, Lord, and set me where you will…I put myself wholly into your hands: put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to suffering, let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you, exalted for you, or trodden under foot for you; let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing, I freely and heartily resign all to your pleasure and disposal
There it is: a whole different perspective on life's disappointments. Not something to be crowded out by noise, but something to be embraced as the road our Lord has ordained for us. But I cannot think this way, not truly, unless I have embraced the kingship of Jesus deeply.So I wrote a short devotional Bible study for the Colson Center, based on this quote from Wesley, that draws us in to the Scriptures and what they say about living a Prostrate Life. I hope you find it as meaningful as I have.
