The fight for a blessing

In the first few pages of chapter 7 from Ann's book I read this quote that Ann so beautifully states, "That God tries to gently drive the words of Caussade from the knowing of my head to the bleeding of my heart." Oh how I long for the knowledge that sits in the brain to make its way into the veins. To live the knowledge... the yes.... that my head knows. The quote is strong, makes me think hard, and I want this quote to make it all the way down to the heart, and I want my heart to pump it to ever corner of my being.

"You would be very ashamed if you knew what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances, and tedious annoyances really are. You would realize that your complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies - though that never occurs to you. Nothing happens to you expect by the will of God, and yet (God's) beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is." 

If I cling to that truth... that all is His will.... then I will see Him in everything. And then I read this, "I'm blind to joy's well every time I really don't want it." So I don't see joy because I chose not to, never because it isn't there. Joy.... grace.... God..... is always there, but I don't always want to see Him. She takes it a step further. When we reject joy it is not just joy we are rejecting. It is Him, the giver of joy, that we ultimately reject. And when we reject Him we are really saying that don't want God. Never will He withhold joy from our lives, we withhold it from ourselves.

I read on..... she tells the story of Jacob. Oh how I love the story of Jacob, I am a Jacob. Jacob the rusher, the one who believed the lie that He wouldn't fulfill His promise. Jacob, the man who thought God needed help. And Jacob, the one known for his fight with an angel.

"All that while Jacob hadn't known who he was wrestling. Just a man in the dark, a man he couldn't see. And in the black, all that night, it was the face of God over him that he was struggling again. God is behind the faces."

He is behind it all... even in the dark He is there. It is up to us to seek out His face. And sometimes we have to fight for the blessings.... fight through the dark in order to reach the light. 


* I wrote about chapter 6 here
* All quotes are from Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts