A WORD FOR TODAY, November 3, 2014 “Preserve me, O God; for in thee do I take refuge. O my soul, thou hast said unto Jehovah, Thou art my Lord: I have no good beyond thee. As for the saints that are in the earth, They are the excellent in whom is all my delight. Their sorrows shall be multiplied that give gifts for another god: Their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer, Nor take their names upon my lips. Jehovah is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: Thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; Yea, I have a goodly heritage. I will bless Jehovah, who hath given me counsel; Yea, my heart instructeth me in the night seasons. I have set Jehovah always before me: Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth; My flesh also shall dwell in safety. For thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life: In thy presence is fulness of joy; In thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” Psalm 16, ASV I saw a meme on Facebook today that said, “Beware of destination addiction—a preoccupation with the idea that happiness is in the next place, the next job and with the next partner. Until you give up the idea that happiness is somewhere else, it will never be where you are.” I have had a problem the past few days. My cat, Delilah, loves my office chair. I’m not sure what it is about the chair that she likes so much. Perhaps it is in the shape of the seat, which is a little rounded and in which she curls up perfectly. Perhaps she just likes to be where I’ve been. Cats are like that sometimes. They are comforted by the smells that remind them of our presence. Of course, there is always the possibility that she settles on my chair to be difficult. She has a tendency of being exactly where she should not be at exactly the moment when she shouldn’t be there. Just last week she decided to jump into the laundry basket and settle in for a nap just as I was collecting the laundry to wash. She never sleeps there! I’m convinced she did it to get in my way; sometimes I think that’s exactly why she jumps on my chair. She has always enjoyed sitting on my chair, but it seems lately she is jumping on it more often. The other day I got up, walked four feet to unlock a door and in the time I returned to my chair, she was already lying down as if she were napping for hours. If I go to get a drink, she is there when I return. If I go into the studio for a minute, she jumps at the chance to take over. If I need to go to the bathroom, I’m sure to find her happily snuggled on my chair when I return. She’s perfectly content in other places. As a matter of fact, when I return to my chair after dealing with the door, getting a drink or doing other things, she jumps off and goes to a pillow or another chair. Yet, the minute I get up, she runs back to the chair. People are not so content. Like the Facebook meme says, we tend to chase after the things that we think will make us happy, and we aren’t content if we can’t have exactly what we want. If Delilah were a person, I’m sure she wouldn’t jump off the chair so easily when I ask her to. I’m sure she’d stand her ground, tell me “first come, first served!” or insist that it isn’t fair that she can’t stay. If she were a person removed from the chair, she’d sit nearby, stare me down and cry until I gave in to her demand. If you don’t think this is true, try sitting in someone’s long-held seat at church! It can be frustrating to have to move Delilah so often during the day so I can sit at my desk and work, but there is definitely a lesson in her patience with me. She finds her happiness wherever she ends up; right now she is happily napping on a pillow in the window, just feet from where I sit. I wonder how many times we go chasing after something, thinking that it must be better than what we have, only to discover that it is not the right place or the right time. How often do we jump into things only to be moved by God somewhere else? How often do we try to get what we think we want only to be stopped because God knows what we need? Delilah is probably just playing a game with me, and though it can be frustrating at times, I have to admit that I enjoy it. Unfortunately, when it comes to this game we play with God, trying to get Him to allow us to go where we think we need to go and do what we think we need to do, we find that our persistence will lead us down the wrong path. God loves us so much that He stops us, directs us, guides us, even pushes us in the right direction. We don’t need to chase after happiness, because in God’s grace we dwell in His joy.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 17:04:23 +0000
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