Underpinings

::mood.::floundering::
::music::End of October from the album "The Lime CD" by The David Crowder Band::

Do you ever have the feeling, albeit misleading, that everything is just fine. That, as it is, you need nothing more to feel good about yourself and about life? You say to yourself, "I am happy with my life right now." And the wise person also goes on with his statement, "I realize this is all an illusion, so I will focus on God and really strive to have Him as the center of my life, not all this stuff that makes me feel good right now."

Wow!!! does that make you feel even better! Not only do you feel good, but you have risen above your circumstances, regardless of whether they're bad or not, and you have found your happiness and joy in something outside the material present.

Then, about that time, is when something happens. Something personal, something material, something emotional, something expected, or not, something tragic, or trivial. Regardless of what it is, what it does is of more importance. This something tears away one of these sources of our good feeling, just as a flood washes away the stilt of a rainforest dwelling. It removes one of our underpinnings of purpose, takes away a little bit of what we were living for.

It is then that we are faced with the dilemma. The realization of the dilemma may take time to impress itself upon us. But come it will. The dilemma is this: "I told myself one thing; that my happiness and fulfillment were coming from XYZ. But now I feel the effects of another; namely that my sudden lack of a sense of purpose indicates that it's source was not what I thought it was."

Enter Recalibration Phase One. Yes, as drastic as it may seem, you must face this dilemma with a change of your paradigm; with a realization that your derived sense of worth came from something other than that which you meant it to, that now you are in a state of unhappiness, and that this is not something bad. Rather that is is just a prompting to get recalibrated so that you are deriving this purpose, this sense of happiness, this joy, this direction of focus from the correct source.

With the proper attitude, resilience, and dedication to truth, this recalibration takes only a short time. The trial itself may take it's sweet time. But the joy returns. And once again, you find yourself rising above the circumstances.

But then something really funny happens. Only, not so funny, not so ironic, not so puzzling, as it is devastating.

Yes, you guessed it: yet another underpinning of this happiness gets knocked out from beneath your very feet. "GOOD LORD, HOW MUCH MORE OF THIS CAN I TAKE?!?" seems to be the instinctive cry of the heart at this point. You thought you had it all together. Then you were proved wrong, and you put it back together again so that you were sure it was right this time. But no, the long series of recalibration phases is only starting.

If all I do is jump from one superficial stimulus to another, from one sinking piece of wreckage to another...I'll never really get to the point where I really, truly find my fulfillment in HIM. Maybe that's why He has me where I am. Perhaps my focus has been on building my house on enough stilts that a few can go down and I won't have to worry. Maybe God really wants me to trust him in faith that He is enough to keep this house safe from the storm of life. I really want to believe that. And I do. But do I live it? Do you?