One Lesson Learned

As I sit here in this dark hospital room it is hard to watch your wife and unborn child deal with what is going on. Feelings begin to set in over known faith and it becomes easy to want the pain to go away. Through this experience God has taught me two things (He probably wants to teach me more but I am to hard headed to learn). The first is that I am very blessed. God has granted me a wonderful wife. I know a lot of times I take for granted how awesome of a wife I have. I allow my schedule to get filled up with "important" things but I allow the truly important things to slip by un-noticed. Its sad that it took an experience like this to realize what a blessing and joy God has given me with Christa. I have also learned what a blessing I have with this family. I know that all parents think their kid is the best but to be honest I am blessed with not only a great wife but an awesome child.

The second thing that God has taught me is that life isn't about my comfort. The reality is that life as we know it is broken because of our sin (my sin). We suffer in this life because of all of our selfishness (my selfishness). To many times I think that since I am a believer than I am do the "good things" in life but the reality is that God never promised the "good things" that I am thinking of. God did promise His Son, strength, wisdom, and eternal life. I read Philippians 4:4 this morning and Paul tells the church at Philipi to Rejoice, and again I say rejoice. Its easy to rejoice when your finances are good, jobs are steady, vacations are enjoyed, health is good, and things are "stable." But when you look at when and where Paul was when he wrote this it takes on a whole new angle. Paul was in prison and had just been beaten for his faith and this wasn't the type of prison we have today. This prison was beneath the ground with no light and had all kinds of rodents running around with a stench that was worse than a port-a-john on an over crowded work site in the summer. WOW! I find it hard to rejoice when a kid calls out of work or the coke machine goes out at least I have a nice home with a/c to go home to.

I find myself too many times longing after the "good things" in life and miss out on the simple yet life giving things that God has promised. I pray that God would grant me the desire to seek after Jesus and the things He longed for and not for the "good things" that I think will make my life complete.