June 12

“Have I learned to be content in Christ in the midst of anything?...We can learn.  Paul did not have a ‘corner on the market’ of the obedient heart.  Anyone can obey God.  Even the weakest among us.  Particularly the weakest among us, according to Paul.”  Eugenia Price, S.P.S., 6/12

Because I’m a “recovering perfectionist” I can always find something to be unhappy about.  I stopped calling myself a perfectionist the day I decided it wasn’t working for me.  Now I’m a recovering perfectionist.  It’s no longer my driving force, but because it was for so long, I can slip back into it quite easily.  They say that addiction to alcohol can be overcome easier than an addiction to food because you can totally abstain from alcohol while you can’t totally abstain from food.  I find addiction to perfectionism falls into the category of food because perfectionism presents itself in all facets of one’s life.  In order to abstain from perfectionism I’d have to abstain from life!  So God showed me this morning just how silly I can be.  I suddenly could see that I am not only discontented about some of the situations in my life I am discontented with being discontented!  It was in that revelation that I saw God’s solution.  I have to learn to be content even with being discontented.  As long as I fight being discontented I’m feeding it.  I have to take the fuel off the fire.  I can do that by learning to be content in ALL things--even with myself, just as I am, because it’s then that God’s grace can do its work in me.

“...but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”  1 Corinthians 1:27-29