An Aha Moment

Through the difficulties of last week, with illness and needy children, as well as keeping up with day job work and my house, I felt (and still feel) frustrated that I couldn't spend more time drawing and blogging.  When I did sit at the computer it twas to browse because I couldn't bring myself to be constructive   I didn't put in an entry last week for Illustration Friday because I felt so drained.  I sketched something, but failed to move forward with it.

But even as I had all these feelings of failure, I see an over arching theme at play here that I know is not a coincidence   I think this last week was a lesson in pushing through and not giving into laziness or procrastination.   In the future,  Lord willing,  I will have assignments and I will have to push through what ever blocks I come up against.  I will have to grit my teeth and keep going.

I keep going back to what James says in the first chapter of his book in the Bible; "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endureance."  I may not have brought any great witness this week for the cause of Christ or done anything noteworthy that involved me talking about Jesus, but I think I might have moved a step closer to maturity,

By realizing I have not given up, even for fatigue and distraction, I have learned something really special about endurance and persevering which are God's specialties.

God has persisted in maintaining life on earth despite our unbelief and out right hostility as we have blamed him for our terrible behavior.  Yes, wars are waged, hurricanes happen, and babies die and I don't make light of the grief of losing a baby or anything else for that matter, but babies continue to be born and life for humanity as a whole continues, in spite of our best efforts to destroy ourselves.  In it all, God endures with the love he has for all man kind.

And he promises to keep it going.  He also promises to be the companion, guide, teacher, and savior of those who will trust him.  Most of the time, I'm a pretty shabby follower of Christ, yet that promise is for me too.  And the fact that I can see past my grumpy feelings of wanting to walk away from any future creative endeavors and blame every one in my house for my failures, to the beautiful lesson of pushing through and enduring is not from my own ability to understand.  Most times, I can't get past myself to get the big picture.  I'd rather be mad or feel sorry for myself.

Instead, God seems to have heard me this morning when I asked for wisdom.  I give God all the credit if I have figured anything out at