Life Reflections

1 Corinthians 13:12-13 "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

As human beings, we want to know everything! We are rarely content to wait, or accept when things are out of order. We feel the need to figure things out, fix things, and organize our lives so everything around us runs smoothly. These are not necessarily bad things, but what happens when no matter how hard we try things just don't work out?

The fact is, we try to control our own lives, forgetting our limitations, losing sight of God's sovereignty. God created us in His image. When we come to Him; we become his children. He loves us and wants us to love him in return. He becomes our Father, our loving parent, guiding, molding, teaching, and disciplining us for the rest of our earthly lives in order to shape us to be more and more like Him.

Think about your own children, or when you were a child. The curiosity, the know it all attitude, the desire for control over your own life and the feeling of invincibility is the drive. We are very much of that attitude with God at times, especially when things are going well. But just as a parent can see the foolishness of a child. God also sees our foolishness when we operate from that attitude.

We can't possibly explain or understand every situation that comes our way. We can only see as a poor reflection, dim and cloudy in the capacity of our humanness. We can only see small parts of the big picture, little bits of Gods glory and plan; But what comes next in the verse just amazes me. THEN we shall see face to face it says. THEN I will know fully, just as I am fully known. Understanding that our time on earth is our shaping period, a time of being raised up into the perfect image of God and knowing we not be able to figure it all out right now keeps us grounded in reality. Knowing that, God our Heavenly Father, is in charge, that He is our authority, the ruler over our lives, having our best interest at heart, helps us to surrender our need to control. It lifts a heavy weight from our shoulders when we are willing to give up our need to control to Him, trusting His direction, because we know we are on our way to see Him face to face and all our millions of questions will be answered THEN!

You're probably thinking...well that sounds great, but how? It's a long time here on this earth for most. There's a lot of things to let go our control of. But God, our Great God, has left 3 very important tools for us to use as we walk through life...These three things remain...Faith, Hope, and Love...and the greatest of these is Love.

Having faith in God and His Word pleases God, putting your complete faith in Him give us Hope, hope for a future, hope that we will one day know all things just as God does, this hope carries us through the rough spots in our lives, God gave this gift to all who choose Him. And then the greatest of all these is Love. He not only gives us His love but He wants us to love Him. In loving Him and others He covers over our shortcomings, mistakes, control issues, and our humanness, it's Love that drives us to keep going. There is great power in His love. We have access to this power.

So what I am saying is, when we realize that we will never have it all figured out while we're here on this earth, and that we are children of the Most High God, being raised, nurtured and loved by Him, we can be content in living, and striving to be the best we can for God without having to control every aspect of our lives. God has got it all under control. We just need to do our part, which is loving Him, following His ways, learning what He expects, and desiring to be more like Him. Getting to know God and His character will make it easier to give your need to control over to Him because you will find He always has your best interests at heart. He wants you to become like Him and see as He sees. Keep on surrendering and seeking and He promises that THEN you will!