Perspective for today's activities!

Off to work as usual, headed for stresses, people, challenges, complainers (usually me), pressures, obstacles to peace and sense of fulfillment, unpleasant surprises, etc. etc. What an attitude! What have I come to expect from life? And what good do I expect if this is what I have come to anticipate each day! Wrong.

The pressures are quite real in all their forms, but a change in my perspective is beginning to show me a different attitude towards them. There is a purpose attached to each of these "unpleasantries". These difficulties can become the good works we were created for in Ephesians 2:10 because they are designed to show me the powerful work of Christ in me. The works are not thank you notes or cookies and flowers, but the ability to respond to the trials knowing that they were planned for my benefit and for the reflecting of Christ to others. The many good works He has planned are just beginning once we can appreciate purpose in trials.

Nothing can reach me unless the Lord says "yes, send it to him now, it is what he needs. It will cause him to turn to me and recognize the strength I have given him for just the time as this. He needs to see this and so do those around him. And he needs to see the person of Christ in his daily pressures."

Learning to welcome the stresses of life as expressly sent to be beautifully met by the strength of God within me is the discovery of these days! They are not intruders to be avoided at all cost. They are agents to show me the sufficiency of Christ. Christ in me, the hope of glory. The reality of the present world is met by the even more powerful reality of Christ in me, his mind, his wisdom, his skill, his kindness, his patience, his love, etc. Nothing the job can throw at us can separate us from Him, his plan, his conforming, his love.

Today was full of opportunities for me to lay aside my life-long reflexs of anger, frustration, discouragment, fear, etc. and begin to see the Lord's strong and loving hand walking me through each moment. His grace is way more potent than we think, and at the end of the day always accomplishes his ultimate plan of conforming and transforming us to the likeness of his Son.

This good news however has been slow to sink in. Too many years of neglect, blindness and hardness. But the word of God is powerful and effective in penetrating even the most stubborn of hearts such as mine. A change in my response to very irritating people, obstacle courses, etc. have been the amazing proof that He is real and that his busy work in us is full-speed-ahead as long as life shall last.