Fully Blessed

"I need a heart operation."

IV, a nutritionist friend I was lunching with, looked at me, goggle-eyed.

Realising I had unthinkingly ignored the more obvious context (again!), I laughed and repeated, "I need a heart operation - in the hospital of heaven."

We laughed.

I had shared many of my uncharitable thoughts and discontentment with IV at this particular lunch and she was lending me her sympathetic listening ear as I aired my grievances and talked aloud the practical options open between removing myself from temptation and standing up to it. Yet whether I have an answer, this much intellectual clarity His Grace has given me (no doubt coming from your (IV's) prayers):

"...train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. " (1 Tim 4:7-8)

"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." (1 Tim 6:6-10)

And funnily, right after the moment of complaining most about what I don't have - when I felt the most sulky, discontented and unworthy - paradoxically, it was that moment when I felt the most beloved.

For the all-knowing, holy and sovereign One - who by nature, should have been so far from me - had never failed to care enough - to guide, to comfort or to rebuke (much as I outwardly plead against (and inwardly is pleased by) His nagging) so that I may be a new creation.

The truth is:

I stand before the great eternal throne

The one that God Himself is seated on

And I, I've been invited as a son (err.... daughter)

Oh I, I've been invited to come and ...

Believe the unbelievable

Receive the inconceivable

And see beyond my wildest imagination

Lord, I come with great expectations

(From Steven Curtis Chapman's "Great Expectations")

And it is this struggle against my sin - this struggle that I am resisting - that also brings me the most comfort, because it is the proof that I am always in His mind and He is with me.

And this is why I am fully blessed. :)