Reflection: What I am hoping for

My last post revealed a couple things to me.  First of all, from the comments I have received, I have a lot of near and dear friends who care about me.  Thank you all for your concern.  The second thing revealed to me was that I needed to clarify a little bit regarding a few of the things  I said.  Let me tick off a few:

First of all I should have used "...yet." a lot more.  Self reflection is not a project I intended to complete in a few days.  In fact I only intend to be beginning the process during these first few weeks.  Reflection is the next season of my personal spiritual growth journey, and it is a process. Several key sentences from my last post really should have ended with a hint of how reflection is intended to impact the subject I was talking about.  This would have made my post a much more accurate description of how I am struggling to grow. Please understand I don't say "struggling to grow" as if I feel I can't grow.  I say it with the thought in mind that growing is work.  It can be hard, even exhausting, work and it always takes time to complete.  I firmly believe that God has a plan for me which he is preparing me for, and by adding the "...yet" to those key sentences the tone of the whole post changes. For example if I had been more accurate I would have said it differently:

• "I'm not very good at (reflection)...yet" 
• "I can't seem to gather enough focus to get anywhere ...yet"
• "I honestly wish I could say I made grand leaps of comprehension about how my life has gone in the last few years and where I want it to go in the next few, but I haven't ...yet.

The second thing I would like to point out is about hard times.  Right now I am wrestling with myself over who I want to become and what I want to do.  This is a hard task for me, but I do believe deep down that God will get me through.  It's just difficult for me to see his provision sometimes, which is why I am trying to use this reflection as an opportunity to step back and look at the big picture.  I want to reevaluate my purpose and plan to better align it with Gods.  This is the whole point of a period of reflection.  A point which is not communicated well when I make the mistake of writing a blog during a VERY frustrating week at work.  I have talked to some of you about it so I won't rehash it here, but suffice it to say that there are some issues and problems that keep recurring at work which force me to do a LOT more than is normal, and do it in a much harder way than would be ideal.  It has been so frustrating that I have, more than once,sent a text to my wife from work simply seeking encouragement.

What is this encouragement? That there is more to me than as I said in my last post when I said I'm ugly on the inside.  Do I mean ugly as in "I hate myself?"  No.  More as in the closer I look at God, the more I see how I fall short of perfection.  Under God's brightly lit inspection, every tiny flaw and imperfection is glaringly obvious.  And when those imperfections are compared to the truly perfect example of His son... well it's not pretty but it's necessary.  If I am going to honestly compare myself to Jesus (which is the standard God sets) it's bound to be an ugly comparison.  It doesn't take much guessing to figure out which of the two of us is going to look bad.  It also doesn't take much guessing to figure out where I have room for improvement.  Some people call the feelings that this comparison will stir up as being "convicted" of sin.  Right now, I'm feeling that, and so I want to press in to work on the parts of me that need to improve.

Lastly I am on a journey.  This process is going to take a while, and I see the need to clarify as proof that I need this reflection all the more.  If I had waited another day or two perhaps I would have been better able to communicate my journey the first time.  Perhaps I wouldn't.  It's possible that I would never have seen it at all without input from all of you.  Thanks for that input, and please, keep it coming.  It helped me to get text messages, phone calls, emails, video links, and Facebook posts.  All of it together showed me what I needed to see to take the next step in reflection.  So I am continuing to press on and seek out what I can do better to become like Christ in all I do.  I will keep being brutally honest.  I will keep listening.  I will keep reflecting.

-Dave


Philippians 3:14 "I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."