Just what does a really healthy person experience in regards to delighting in their God-given design and the life He has given them?
When I discharge people from the day hospital, I sometimes tell them that my goal for them is that, in a couple of years, they might wake up, sit on the edge of their bed and feel intensely sorry for everyone else on the planet because the other people can’t be them, and being them is just so cool! Still, being them is OK because they have you in their life and because they can be themselves and that is pretty cool too!
Of course, they laugh out loud at the absurdity of the possibility that they might like being themselves so much that they would feel sorry for others who can’t be them.
In Acts 26 29 Paul says, ” I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am!” Now he was rejoicing in his being a Christian, but I think it went deeper and he had come to accept who he was, his time in history, his past, God’s unique design for him, the tasks at hand etc. and he really could recommend to others “I wish you could be as I am”. I Corinthians 11:1 Be ye followers of me as I follow Christ. Galatians 4 :12 Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am. I Corinthians 7:7 For I would that all men were even as I myself. (single and celebate) This is what he was called to and he rejoiced in it, not feeling sorry for himself. I think, “Yes, but, he was the apostle Paul, of course he liked being who he was!” Then I remember that being who he was included persecuting the church, knowing the he was the chief of sinners and being abandoned by pretty much everyone later in life.
When feeling wonderful about all that is true about me, seem ridiculous. Maybe I need to take who I am, where I am, when I am, those who are in my life, what I am able to do, what I do have, who I am in Christ: take ALL of it and be filled with gratitude, be specifically affirming of, and delight in all the above.
I must walk the second mile of gratitude.
The first mile would be to stop resenting my reality. I often feel that it is somehow spiritual to put myself down, but I am God’s workmanship and he has done a good job on each me. When I believe that I am the least, I am actually the most important!
The second mile is to rejoice and be grateful for all my current realities especially the ones I can do nothing about.
The third mile is to seize ahold of those realities and enjoy what I have, minister to and love on and receive from who I have, and whatever my hands find to do, to do with all my might.
The fourth mile is to delight in what the Lord has done in making me and in using life events to prepare me to be the right one for the job and lastly bringing him glory by sharing with others how cool it is to be me and how cool it would be if they would let the Lord have his way in their reality as well.
Now I seek to grab the present reality and live it for God with enthusiam. This does not mean that I don’t try to grow and set limits and alter that reality as God leads. It just means that I start being grateful for the current reality and follow God’s lead from there. If I am grateful and peaceful and resting in what now is, then I will delight in whatever is to come. If I am negative, then even if things get “better” I will still be negative.
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