Learning a Lesson

I talked in my last blog about seeing myself the way others see me.  Something happened this weekend to reinforce that thought.  We had friends visit from Ohio, and had the BEST TIME!  I’m so glad all three of them got to come down.  We did several things with them – but one day we went shopping.  One of the ladies bought a beautiful sweater, in two different colors.  It fit her perfectly, and looked great on her!

When we got back to the house, I asked her to bring in the teal sweater into my room, so we could look at some of my jewelry to see how it would look with it.  She told me she thought that I wanted to try it on.  The truth is, I see her in a totally different size category than I see myself.  If I were by myself in a store, I would try on a sweater that I liked, not really worrying about the size.  And I do have a couple of tops in a medium size.  But since this sweater looked SO GOOD on her, and I see us so differently when it comes to size, it never occurred to me that I could wear that sweater.  She pushed me to try it on…and it fit!  Proof that once again, what I see when I look in the mirror isn’t what other people see, and it isn’t necessarily reality.  I was amazed!  And it has made me look closer at the things I think I “KNOW” about myself.  There might be a lot that I need to rethink.

The sermon in church on Sunday was very, very good.  One point in particular has been on my mind.  A lot of people ask how a loving God could let evil and sorrow and bad things happen.  The truth is, that isn’t part of God’s plan at all.  We’re the ones who invited evil in – and we’re the ones who continue to perpetuate evil.  God tried to remove evil once – but only partially.  He destroyed the world and everything in it – except the eight people on the ark:  Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives.  But because God didn’t destroy ALL of mankind – evil still existed, through the very people He saved on the ark.  God has promised that evil will one day be wiped out – but when that happens, it will be ALL evil, including the evil in my life.  I may want other evil destroyed, but I’d kind of like to keep some things, you know?  And WHY does God refrain from destroying all evil, right now?

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.  Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.  But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.  The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.”  (2 Peter 3:9-10, NIV)

God doesn’t want ANYONE to perish, although He knows many will perish in that final destruction.  What a loving and patient God He is.  Perhaps instead of criticizing Him and His choices, we should be praising Him for not obliterating mankind and all of our problems and whining and wars and cruelty.