LESS THAN EQUAL

There is nothing that weighs heavier on the heart to me than the sense of feeling inadequate. It doesn't matter how much talent you have if you don't feel where you live.

And if you truly can't see yourself as other than worthless how can you trust God for blessings for the future? Just hard to have faith in hope and improvements if you don't feel you deserve it.

Why is it when you are down and really sad that people seem to come out in droves to give you grief? It is like they can sense your pain and want to add to it.

Which never improve the problem. Just makes you feel worse. And if you are really down you are going to get even farther down the scale of feelings.

What is hard to find are those who care and encourage. They really are rare. So truly a small part of life.

And it can be so hard to believe them if you are buried under an avalanche of criticism. Then you can really find it impossible to dig out from that mound.

Regardless of how we feel about ourselves, the one thing that is true is God loves us. He sees in us the gold.

Oh he also sees the sins, but loves us just the same. And will be part of our lives as long as we don't give up on Him.

What is a difficulty with this is when trusting God doesn't bring the blessings we think we deserve. If we are expecting Him to somehow take away all the wrong in our past and give us our idea of success then we are most likely going to be disappointed.

That is because we have selfish motives. We think we can get even with those who caused us pain.

And that God will somehow make that happen. But the path of faith is about following God's will.

It means doing so no matter where it leads. And that doesn't mean it will lead to the places we expect.

But then part of surrender to the Lord is to embrace His wisdom. He may or may not bring to life changes that we think of as blessings.

However, the trip is always one that leads to Heaven. And that will always be a better future than any of our dreams.

Which one can cling to when the past gnaws at our thoughts.