My wife’s favorite movie, Lost in Yonkers, is one most people didn’t get that excited about. (She just has better taste than most!) The main character, played by Mercedes Rule, is Bella, a woman in her mid-thirties living in New York in the 1940s. Bella has a very childlike personality and is a bit on the slow side. After meeting a guy who wants to marry her, she decides to get her family (mother, aunt, brother and nephews) together to announce the big news.
After dinner she begins to seat everyone in the parlor just where she wants them to be. All of this is driving her brother, played by Richard Dreyfuss, absolutely crazy. He keeps pacing around the room, refusing to sit down. Bella pleads with him to come over and sit in his designated spot, but he refuses. Finally, in desperation she cries out, “No, no! You can’t sit there. This is not the way I pictured it.”
The truth is that this is the way a lot of us are about life. We get attitudes toward other people or we get attitudes toward God because things aren’t working out “the way I pictured it.” We practically canonize our own expectations and treat them as the 67th book of the Bible. We somehow think God has the responsibility to make it all work out just as we pictured it.
We need to change our minds about life. Life is a gift. It comes from someone else, and it comes to accomplish his purposes, not ours. When you change your mind about this, it changes the way you look at a lot of things.
Focus Scriptures
Romans 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Isaiah 29:16
You turn things upside down,
as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,
"He did not make me"?
Can the pot say of the potter,
"He knows nothing"?
Wow,great point. I have been struggling over how I pictured my life lately. I have gotten back in touch with old friends I haven't had connection to in over a decade,and I've been reminded of how different my life is than I had imagined it would be when this was my group. I tend to want to design my own life, and forget I am the clay, and God needs to design my life.
ReplyDeleteI just got off the phone with a young woman who is struggling with the way her engagement is going. She said and I quote, "It's not going the way I expected it." I will be sharing this with her. Thank you for the reminder.
ReplyDeleteWonderful article Tom. Thanks for your insite.
ReplyDeleteThanks bro. Things are going very tough for me. There´s a little girl living with us who I don´t want to be with us. She´s kind of my stepsister. I want her out of our lives. I wish we could just live our lives in peace and with each other(my own family, wife and two kids). It´s so tough. This is definitively not the way I pictured it and many times I think it´s not the way I want to live. This whole situation has been very tiring, stressing, and irritating to me. I have felt and at times keep on feeling much anger at her. Please pray for me.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous.