knowing how to handle yourself

In the most recent edition of The Falls Church newsletter, John Yates shared a quote from Martyn Lloyd-Jones that really hit home with me . . . funny how the Holy Spirit knows what we need to hear & when we need to hear it, right?!  Reading this quote was timely for me because I've been thinking lately about the pieces of my life where reality doesn't match up with my expectations . . . all of us experience this, whether it has to do with our family, church, job, marriage, singleness, kids, geography, etc.  There are always parts of life that are difficult, that aren't what we expected/wanted, and that prompt us to wonder exactly what God's purpose is in the midst of it.  I feel like I am sloooooowly learning what trust really looks like (or more often - what it doesn't look like!) as I wrestle with some of these things in my own life.

The Lloyd-Jones quote speaks directly to this:
"Most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself.  The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself.  You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, question yourself . . . You must say to your soul . . . 'Hope thou in God!' instead of muttering in this depressed unhappy way.  And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, who God is, and what God has pledged Himself to do" (italics mine).

I want to be someone who is more focused on God's character & promises than on my own circumstances.  Not because my circumstances aren't important to Him, but because the former makes all the difference in the here-and-now of the latter.  Do I want to go through my daily life - the places & situations God has called me to, even when I don't know why - without the reminders of who He is and what He has committed to me as His child?  Of course not.  And yet so many days, I trade His promises for my own questioning and apathy.

So this entry is one reminder to myself to "hope thou in God!" - anticipating His unfolding purpose, even when I can't see it.