Hard On Myself

You know I am the person that is most hard on myself. Today, I am spying this really nice backpack on the web. The past couple weeks I have been selling stuff on eBay to have the money for this pack. I’ve done the work, sold the items, have the cash yet, every time I go to the website to purchase the pack I back out. I even went all the way through the check out process to the page that it says click this button to place your order and canceled out of the page.

What is it? Why can I not give myself the permission to enjoy. Its almost like I’m telling myself that I don’t deserve it. That I haven’t worked hard enough for it. That I still have work to do to “earn” it. I am a decent gift giver but a lousy gift receiver.

Im sure this has to do how I see my Father in heaven. Have I done enough to receive His favor, His love, His acceptance of me? Im sure there are more hoops to jump through somewhere. And yet, how more wrong could I be of His love? He loves to offer me mercy, love, grace, and tenderness.

My prayer is that I would enjoy today more, not looking for hoops to jump through, enjoying my time with my Father.

Authenticity

Today Christine and I were clothes shopping and we decided to go into Hollester. We were trying to grab her a pair of jeans yet every pair of jeans she picked up had the “distressed “look to them. Holes in the legs, frays at the pockets (man, I sound like my parents).Heck I can remember in college when we would get a new baseball hat it felt as though before we could wear it we had to do open heart surgery to it before we could wear it. We’d cut the webbing out the front, wear it in the shower, put it in the dishwasher. Anything to make it look worn and experienced. I never dipped in school but some of my boys did, and all they cared about in their jeans is if you could see the ring impression in their back pocket.


Doesn’t that feel a lot like our hearts and lives now. We want the evidence of experience and time yet we are not willing to wait on it. It’s like we want to buy the jeans already broken in, the hat already tore up. One of the greatest things today that is being stolen from us is the value of the process, the importance of actual experience.

There are specific ways God grows a man. And the most important ingredient is time. Do we have the patience it takes to let God make us into His men? And not become impatient? Frustrated and give up?