I am thinking about Herod:
for some reason I can sympathize with him. Not that I am blood-thirsty enough
to demand the lives of a community’s children, but I can see my defensiveness
with his. Sometimes goodness is painfully disruptive. Christ warned Nicodemus about
how light both guides the path forward and reveals the faults of those walking
in the light, upsetting the social strata of believers like the
presence of a new king threatened Herod’s social paradigm. God, please help me
to cast aside my defensiveness of the way that I live and work and plan for the
future and instead be pliable in Your hands: ready
to be tied in a knot if that is how You desire to shape me. Help me to embrace
the disruptive nature of goodness with a full repentant (ready to change) heart.
I like the honesty here - it's uncomfortable to realize Gods plan might just be for us to experience loss and learn to react humbly to that. Loss of health, reputation, resources, comfort, etc all come to us. But I love the principle that God's ultimate goal is to foster our growth and development - to enlarge us in unfathomable ways until our character, goodness, love, abilities and resources become like his own. So the losses that come are temporary and growth is the eternal path we have to look forward to. Reflecting on this and holding onto faith are a comfort in the challenging times.
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