Painful Disconnect....

"You can measure the degree to which your heart beats with His by your visible, active concern for the needy." Indeed devotional on Ecc. 4


This was in my devotional reading this morning and I need to say, it is like the final blow of the hammer hitting the nail on the head of a painful lesson. I know that we are called to be comforters to those around us in their times of need. "God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us." 2Cor 1:3-4 I have been comforted more by God and others, than I will ever to be able to repay. My hearts desire is to share that comfort. I want to help others receive the hope and peace that I have found in Christ. One of my favorite prayers is the prayer of St. Francis. It is a prayer asking God to make me a instrument of His peace. In there is the request asking him to help me to seek to comfort rather than to be comforted, and to love than to be loved. In other words it is a prayer asking to be more like Christ.

This is impossible to do if I am disconnected from the only one who makes that possible.

Over the last couple months I have failed countless times to fill this desire of my heart. I've felt like Paul. "I have discovered this principle of life-that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God's law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh what a miserable person I am! Romans 7:21-24

That power within me is anything I allow in my life that takes my primary focus away from my relationship with God. These last couple of months I let many of my old ways take me on a downward spiral. I allowed old attitudes, thoughts, behaviors and feelings, take my focus off Jesus. I got self-absorbed in my "stuff", (& it really is all small stuff,) and my feelings, at the same time I started taking on responsibilities that weren't mine to take and started trying to 'fix' circumstances or people that weren't mine to fix. Though my heart meant well, my mind and eyes were not focused on Christ.

I could see and feel myself making choices that I didn't want to make, doing things I didn't want to do and neglecting what is really important, loving God and serving others. I didn't' start fighting back hard enough or soon enough and this weekend I imploded. If you've ever done that you now how painful it is. I know and have seen how God has worked it all out to His glory. Because of the choices I made I have missed many blessings, but I got the lesson. It's a lesson I don't wish to repeat, ever. So I will work harder and press onward. May it be to His glory that it will stick this time. "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." Matt 6:33

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace;
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
Amen.

Taken From Chapter 11 (Page 99) of the "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions", a book published by Alcoholics Anonymous* World Services, Inc.