I try not to fall into the latter category. I try to trust that everything happens for a reason and that everything that God sends me is indeed a gift no matter how difficult to handle.
A beautiful approach to life as a passive recipient, however, can become a mind-crushing vice in taking action. As usual, I can best find examples from my life to illustrate my meaning: in this case, I have set out to create a work of art in honor of the Epiphany. For weeks I have trusted that it would all come together even though I was lacking certain necessary elements (i.e. actors). Now it seems a bit as if everything is falling apart. What do I do?
I begin to wonder if that will be the cry of my life. Is that not the cry of all our lives? What do we do when things don't go as we expect? What do we do when God does not provide what we think we need? We could give up. We could decide it wasn't God's will after all. We could take it merely as disappointment and try to thank Him for that gift.
Or we can go on.
Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.
For some reason lines from Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" often come to mind in these times of struggle and darkness.
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
It isn't our right to command, nor to control the destiny of our lives or the lives of others. We could flee in terror, cowards that we often are. Or we can hold our ground, we can advance, we can charge forward when it seems like folly, when it seems that all is lost. That is trust. That is faith. And that is one of the hardest things we can ever do.
What will He do with it?
That remains still to be seen, but He will do something glorious with it. That we must believe.
When can their glory fade?
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