(*DISCLAIMER* If you're looking for the Krav Maga post, this isn't it. This one was due a few weeks ago, but I needed to finish and edit this one first. This is more of a doom and gloom post. It's also intensely personal; even more so than I usually get. I'll post my Krav Maga experience post soon, so stay tuned!)
I must confess that I have never actually read straight through John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," myself. However, due to circumstances which would take too long to explain, I am very familiar with the story.
That story being, of course, a huge, glorious, fictional allegory of the Christian life written by the English preacher, John Bunyan, during his years of imprisonment. There are many retellings of the story, put into simpler English, or even written for children, and these I have found very helpful.
Far into the story the main character Christian and his fellow pilgrim named Hopeful are walking along the King's road, the straight and narrow path on their way to the Celestial City. At one point the ground becomes increasingly hard and stony. But beside the path, just over a little rail fence running alongside the road is By-Path Meadow. The ground is smooth and green over there, and the Pilgrims stop to consider crossing the fence just so they can walk alongside the path to ease their aching feet.
While they're discussing it, a fellow meets them whose name is Vain-Confidence. He greets them and explains that By-Path Meadow is actually a shortcut to a point further along the King's Way and offers to lead them there. Christian and Hopeful look down the King's Way and see that it does indeed look as if the King's Way does curve along the outward rim of By-Path Meadow. So they accept his offer and they climb the fence together.
Vain-Confidence leads them across the meadow, but the field turns out to be much bigger than it seemed at first. But Christian and Hopeful keep following Vain-Confidence anyway. Night comes on and with it a nasty storm, so that as they slog along, they can barely see each other and have to shout to hear one another. Then suddenly, Vain-Confidence falls into a pit in front of them. Christian and Hopeful hear him scream as he falls, but they are unable to help him, and they realize Vain-Confidence didn't really know where he was going after all. Now, lost and drenched from the storm, they lament their foolishness in leaving the King's Way, but it's too dark to see their way back, and there may be more traps that they could trigger if they try. So they seek shelter on a large rock and fall asleep waiting for morning.
The gray, cloudy morning comes at last, but before they wake up, they are found by someone they did not expect. You see, By-Path Meadow is just the beginning of the grounds surrounding the gloomy Doubting Castle, all belonging to the terrible Giant Despair. Every morning (weather permitting) he patrols his grounds with his massive club, and he is not fond of trespassers. Old Giant Despair finds Christian and Hopeful, and he drags them into his castle and locks them in the dungeon. Christian and Hopeful are trapped there for nearly a week. Giant Despair beats them with his club and feeds them only bits of bread and water. He tries to get them to renounce their faith in the King and even gives them ways to kill themselves. Weak and starving, Christian and Hopeful wonder what will become of them. Bones of many pilgrims lie on the floor of the dungeon around them.
The thing I love about Pilgrim's Progress is while it is a fantasy and an allegory, it is so wonderfully relatable. The Christian life is indeed a dangerous journey, and though we don't see the monsters and traps with our physical eyes, the danger is real and so are the temptations. We meet characters like Vain-Confidence, or Mr. Worldly-Wise Man, or Unbelief, or Mistrust or Timorous from time to time. Sometimes we find ourselves walking through times that remind us of the Hill of Difficulty, or the Valley of the Shadow. Sometimes we face Apollyon, or fall into the Slough of Despond, sometimes called The Swamp of Sadness. There are good places on the road, of course, where the King's servants welcome pilgrims and teach them before sending them on their way.
This last week was one of those weeks that feel like a century long. It was a horrible, awful week. It might have been the Slough of Despond, but this felt more like an spiritual attack. It was sadness, certainly, but it was also a crushing sense of despair and abandonment. It was just like being locked up in Doubting Castle.
Without going into too much detail, let's just say I had a lot on my mind. Coming back from a missions trip to China during the last few weeks of June, questions and conflicting ideas about my job, frustrated desires, and confusing emotions were the circumstances themselves. But pervading it all was this anxiety and feeling of hopelessness. Even now as I type this out, this feeling of anxiety is coming on me again. My heart flutters strangely and I'm feeling squeamish with nausea---and my food settled just fine a few hours ago. (I've just put on some "uplifting" music to help me ;)
All this week I've felt overwhelmed by my personal failings. The Lord used my trip to China to expose a lot of sin in me. Being forced to stare at that ugliness in the face always tempts me to despair. I keep seeing how many times---how absurdly many times---I blow it. I'm such a selfish person. It seems I only do things from selfish motives. I'm aware of it, but just being aware of that doesn't necessarily help to make it better. But it makes me afraid to take any action. I'm so afraid of doing things for the wrong reason that I won't do anything at all. Then when the shame and guilt comes over me, I withdraw even more, trying to figure out what would be the best thing to do, and it feeds off itself into a vicious cycle. I told someone recently that it didn't seem to matter how often I confessed my sins to God, I kept falling into them again; that it didn't seem to make any difference.
I've had this nanny job for a while, in fact, I've been going through cleaning houses and nannying children jobs ever since I quit my job at the clinic three years ago. And while I am passionate---to a certain extent---about those things, well, what I mean is, I want to be a wife and mother more than anything else in the world. I've never wanted to be the best at any career or even to be a "successful," individual. I chose not to go to college because I saw no reason to invest in those things. And, while I didn't exactly expect God to just have a husband pop up as soon as I'd been out of high school a few years, I thought that I'd invest in actively preparing myself to be a wife and mom until that time came. So I've been content with cleaning and nannying jobs, with traveling, and with the little comforts that I could afford being a single girl.
But this week, I wondered, "But what if I don't get married for another five or ten years? Do I really want to keep doing these jobs---indefinitely?" 'Cause I'm not going to lie to you, nannying is a tough job. It is hard, and maybe I shouldn't get so emotionally involved in my work.
Like I said, the circumstances don't sound all that bad. It just sounds like another problem to be solved in a logical, methodical manner. But steeped in these issues is this whole feeling of, "But I want to be married! Being single is great, but to be married and to have a family of my own is all I've ever wanted! But what if I don't get married? Should I start looking for a career? But what could I do? What would I want to do? Does that mean I'd have to go to college?"
Everyone tells me that I need to "chase my dreams." That's a nice phrase. Sounds so lovely, so exciting...too bad it goes against everything I've trained myself to live by. Perhaps because ambition has had so little appeal to me, I've taken the warnings that I've heard all my life against "vain ambition" a little too much to heart. Or...perhaps I was always struggling so hard with schoolwork that I convinced myself that I am not capable of higher education, and so convinced myself that I wanted nothing to do with it. Perhaps all this time I've been building walls around myself, basing them on good ideas such as, "I don't want to be part of this world's scrabbling for the upper hand," and that I should "beware of vain ambition," and that my duty---my allegiance---belonged first and foremost to my home, to be handed over to my husband when I married. Why invest so much time and money in an education that I wouldn't use anyway? Why try to provide for myself instead of just trusting God to provide for me---probably with a husband? And surely since being a wife and mom is all I want to be, won't He honor that and provide me with a husband soon?
And yet, I know ladies who could say the same about their desires, and yet Mr. Right hasn't come along yet, so they are busy helping people while they wait.
I never wanted to be one of those single girls. I guess in my pride and naivety I assumed that I'd never have to face up to that. Or maybe some perverse part of me was just hoping it would happen so that I could prove all the Worldly-Wise people, er, well-meaning but discouraging people wrong.
The point is, I don't know what's going to happen to me. I'm trying to wait patiently, but it's hard. It's so, so hard. What if the Lord really will ask me to go out and pursue my dreams? I know you may not believe me, but I'd rather scrub scummy floors with a toothbrush than drag out all of my old dreams that I locked away long ago.
Because that's what I did. Years ago I was convinced that my dreams were childish and wrong. I thought that I needed to outgrow them. All of them. I thought it would please God. I thought that it would please my parents and best prepare me for my life ahead.
So I did. One by one, I folded them and locked them somewhere deep inside me and tried to forget them, tried to settle for better or smaller dreams. It hurt. More than anyone ever knew. It hurt trying to forget them. It hurt to try to change myself into someone else. But I did.
Years later, however, after I graduated, I was revealed for what I was; a dispirited, spineless creature, set adrift on a sea of uncertainty and insecurity. Everyone who saw it was dismayed, including me. Wasn't that a nasty surprise! I'd sacrificed everything for what I thought was right, and it turns out it wasn't what anybody wanted! Few things that have hurt me as much as that did. But I shoved it deep inside me so no one could see. And I guess ever since then I've just tried to move on, stay busy.
What people don't realize is that when they urge me to "chase my dreams," they're asking me to unearth my old dreams that I've hammered down into memories, and bring them to the light of day, unleashing all the pain with them. That's why I'd rather scrub tile with a toothbrush than talk about my dreams, let alone pursue them. Dreams are for other people.
Reflections like these have been haunting me all this week. I've been locked in Doubting Castle, beaten mercilessly by Giant Despair.
I am incapable of doing anything with right motives. When I try to do what's right, I fail. I've drawn so many lines around myself that I must not cross that I've built myself into a little box. A cage. And though I dream of freedom, it stays out of my reach. I cried out to God all this week, but He felt so far away. And why should He listen? He's disappointed in me, He's punishing me, He's sick of me, just like I am, and just like everyone else.
And...Oh, God, whatever am I to do?
You see what Satan does? He took my past regrets and wove them into my present struggles with sin and into my fears of the future. Just reading over it now, I can see that I'm borrowing trouble from next year at least, and Jesus says in Matthew 6 not to worry about tomorrow.
When I think back to after graduation, I also must remember that while I had no clue what to do, God directed my steps. It was the autumn after I graduated that He provided that wonderful job for me at the clinic. He's provided me with jobs like stepping stones. As soon as I was ready to move on, the next one came up. And when they stopped showing up, that was right before the opportunity to go to India came up. After India, He provided jobs and fun times, too. And friends. And opportunities. And I have certainly learned much from my time as a nanny. I can't just discount all that.
But most importantly, I've seen how He has provided for me. My life may be radically different from everything I could have expected, but when I look back, it's perfectly clear that He has a plan in mind. Each step has prepared me for the next ones. He's not going to abandon me. And just because I don't feel Him near me doesn't mean He isn't.
So I've been in Doubting Castle all this week. Feeling depressed and anxious and weighed down by sin and worries. But as you can probably guess, Christian and Hopeful don't die in Doubting Castle. Many pilgrims had, but they still had many miles to go on the King's Way.
I reminded myself of the rest of the story one day as I was sitting on the floor of my messy room, leaning against the side of my bed, without even the energy to get up and function normally.
Christian and Hopeful were lying in the dungeon, sore from the beatings that Giant Despair gave them. And every day the Giant would speak with them and advise them to kill themselves. He gave them poison, a knife, and a rope, any of which could end their sufferings. One day, Giant Despair takes them out into his courtyard and shows them the bones of all the pilgrims he has destroyed. And of course he beats them with his cudgel until they can hardly move.
Christian is sorely tempted to end his life, but his friend Hopeful reminds him that this would not please the King. He encourages him by recalling all that they've been through, and how the King provided for them every time. He reminds Christian of his courage against Apollyon, and of his strength in Vanity Fair, and in the Valley of the Shadow. Hopeful urges him not to give up, that Giant Despair doesn't control everything. The King does! They spend the night in earnest prayer together. Just before dawn, Christian remembers that all along he has had in his jacket a key called Promise. He is sure it will work against any lock in Doubting Castle. So he pulls it out and tries the cell door. It comes open, and they hurry through. They find their way into the castle-yard, but as they try the Key of Promise against the main gate, they find the iron lock to be so old and strong and rusty that it takes all their strength to turn. But the Key does open it at length. They fling themselves against the gates and push, and the gates make such a creaking screech that Giant Despair hears it and wakes up! He snatches up his cudgel and starts to rush after them, but when he gets outside, a strange fit comes over him that paralyzes his arms and legs. Because, you see, sunshiny weather often brings these fits upon him. He cannot overtake them, and Christian and Hopeful make it safely back to the King's Way.
If you are familiar with the story of Pilgrim's Progress, you may remember that one of the first troubles Christian fell into was the Slough of Despond. That time the King sent one of His servants, whose name was Help, to pull Christian out. Help tells us that the King has placed stones in the swamp that you can step on to get across. Those are the promises of God. Sometimes the weather and the swamp cover up the stones, but they are there. It's interesting that the way out of the slough and Doubting Castle are the same; you have to trust in God's promises, no matter what things appear to be like.
This week God sent quite a few Helps that have given me the right perspective. But I have to remember God's promises in His Word. That means I have to let go of my perspective and trust God's. So very easily said, and so very hard to do! And yet, it's good to think that even though I can get myself locked up in Doubting Castle, God doesn't leave me there. He has given me the key. I don't have to stay in there, it's not like He's punishing me or keeping me in there Himself.
It's not like thinking of the story in Pilgrim's Progress makes all my anxiety go away, you know. But the thing is, it made me remember that I don't need to worry about tomorrow, let alone next week, next year, the rest of my life. There's no need to borrow that trouble, since God's got everything mapped out already, and He's promised to get me there.
I'm trying to think of a way to close this without sounding too annoyingly preachy. It really needs a better closure, but no matter what my intentions are, it'll come out in little cliched Christian phrases that either you've heard before or won't understand, and I see no need for that now. Congratulations for getting through this post! Till next time, then!
~Cadenza
I must confess that I have never actually read straight through John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," myself. However, due to circumstances which would take too long to explain, I am very familiar with the story.
That story being, of course, a huge, glorious, fictional allegory of the Christian life written by the English preacher, John Bunyan, during his years of imprisonment. There are many retellings of the story, put into simpler English, or even written for children, and these I have found very helpful.
Far into the story the main character Christian and his fellow pilgrim named Hopeful are walking along the King's road, the straight and narrow path on their way to the Celestial City. At one point the ground becomes increasingly hard and stony. But beside the path, just over a little rail fence running alongside the road is By-Path Meadow. The ground is smooth and green over there, and the Pilgrims stop to consider crossing the fence just so they can walk alongside the path to ease their aching feet.
While they're discussing it, a fellow meets them whose name is Vain-Confidence. He greets them and explains that By-Path Meadow is actually a shortcut to a point further along the King's Way and offers to lead them there. Christian and Hopeful look down the King's Way and see that it does indeed look as if the King's Way does curve along the outward rim of By-Path Meadow. So they accept his offer and they climb the fence together.
Vain-Confidence leads them across the meadow, but the field turns out to be much bigger than it seemed at first. But Christian and Hopeful keep following Vain-Confidence anyway. Night comes on and with it a nasty storm, so that as they slog along, they can barely see each other and have to shout to hear one another. Then suddenly, Vain-Confidence falls into a pit in front of them. Christian and Hopeful hear him scream as he falls, but they are unable to help him, and they realize Vain-Confidence didn't really know where he was going after all. Now, lost and drenched from the storm, they lament their foolishness in leaving the King's Way, but it's too dark to see their way back, and there may be more traps that they could trigger if they try. So they seek shelter on a large rock and fall asleep waiting for morning.
The gray, cloudy morning comes at last, but before they wake up, they are found by someone they did not expect. You see, By-Path Meadow is just the beginning of the grounds surrounding the gloomy Doubting Castle, all belonging to the terrible Giant Despair. Every morning (weather permitting) he patrols his grounds with his massive club, and he is not fond of trespassers. Old Giant Despair finds Christian and Hopeful, and he drags them into his castle and locks them in the dungeon. Christian and Hopeful are trapped there for nearly a week. Giant Despair beats them with his club and feeds them only bits of bread and water. He tries to get them to renounce their faith in the King and even gives them ways to kill themselves. Weak and starving, Christian and Hopeful wonder what will become of them. Bones of many pilgrims lie on the floor of the dungeon around them.
The thing I love about Pilgrim's Progress is while it is a fantasy and an allegory, it is so wonderfully relatable. The Christian life is indeed a dangerous journey, and though we don't see the monsters and traps with our physical eyes, the danger is real and so are the temptations. We meet characters like Vain-Confidence, or Mr. Worldly-Wise Man, or Unbelief, or Mistrust or Timorous from time to time. Sometimes we find ourselves walking through times that remind us of the Hill of Difficulty, or the Valley of the Shadow. Sometimes we face Apollyon, or fall into the Slough of Despond, sometimes called The Swamp of Sadness. There are good places on the road, of course, where the King's servants welcome pilgrims and teach them before sending them on their way.
This last week was one of those weeks that feel like a century long. It was a horrible, awful week. It might have been the Slough of Despond, but this felt more like an spiritual attack. It was sadness, certainly, but it was also a crushing sense of despair and abandonment. It was just like being locked up in Doubting Castle.
Without going into too much detail, let's just say I had a lot on my mind. Coming back from a missions trip to China during the last few weeks of June, questions and conflicting ideas about my job, frustrated desires, and confusing emotions were the circumstances themselves. But pervading it all was this anxiety and feeling of hopelessness. Even now as I type this out, this feeling of anxiety is coming on me again. My heart flutters strangely and I'm feeling squeamish with nausea---and my food settled just fine a few hours ago. (I've just put on some "uplifting" music to help me ;)
All this week I've felt overwhelmed by my personal failings. The Lord used my trip to China to expose a lot of sin in me. Being forced to stare at that ugliness in the face always tempts me to despair. I keep seeing how many times---how absurdly many times---I blow it. I'm such a selfish person. It seems I only do things from selfish motives. I'm aware of it, but just being aware of that doesn't necessarily help to make it better. But it makes me afraid to take any action. I'm so afraid of doing things for the wrong reason that I won't do anything at all. Then when the shame and guilt comes over me, I withdraw even more, trying to figure out what would be the best thing to do, and it feeds off itself into a vicious cycle. I told someone recently that it didn't seem to matter how often I confessed my sins to God, I kept falling into them again; that it didn't seem to make any difference.
I've had this nanny job for a while, in fact, I've been going through cleaning houses and nannying children jobs ever since I quit my job at the clinic three years ago. And while I am passionate---to a certain extent---about those things, well, what I mean is, I want to be a wife and mother more than anything else in the world. I've never wanted to be the best at any career or even to be a "successful," individual. I chose not to go to college because I saw no reason to invest in those things. And, while I didn't exactly expect God to just have a husband pop up as soon as I'd been out of high school a few years, I thought that I'd invest in actively preparing myself to be a wife and mom until that time came. So I've been content with cleaning and nannying jobs, with traveling, and with the little comforts that I could afford being a single girl.
But this week, I wondered, "But what if I don't get married for another five or ten years? Do I really want to keep doing these jobs---indefinitely?" 'Cause I'm not going to lie to you, nannying is a tough job. It is hard, and maybe I shouldn't get so emotionally involved in my work.
Like I said, the circumstances don't sound all that bad. It just sounds like another problem to be solved in a logical, methodical manner. But steeped in these issues is this whole feeling of, "But I want to be married! Being single is great, but to be married and to have a family of my own is all I've ever wanted! But what if I don't get married? Should I start looking for a career? But what could I do? What would I want to do? Does that mean I'd have to go to college?"
Everyone tells me that I need to "chase my dreams." That's a nice phrase. Sounds so lovely, so exciting...too bad it goes against everything I've trained myself to live by. Perhaps because ambition has had so little appeal to me, I've taken the warnings that I've heard all my life against "vain ambition" a little too much to heart. Or...perhaps I was always struggling so hard with schoolwork that I convinced myself that I am not capable of higher education, and so convinced myself that I wanted nothing to do with it. Perhaps all this time I've been building walls around myself, basing them on good ideas such as, "I don't want to be part of this world's scrabbling for the upper hand," and that I should "beware of vain ambition," and that my duty---my allegiance---belonged first and foremost to my home, to be handed over to my husband when I married. Why invest so much time and money in an education that I wouldn't use anyway? Why try to provide for myself instead of just trusting God to provide for me---probably with a husband? And surely since being a wife and mom is all I want to be, won't He honor that and provide me with a husband soon?
And yet, I know ladies who could say the same about their desires, and yet Mr. Right hasn't come along yet, so they are busy helping people while they wait.
I never wanted to be one of those single girls. I guess in my pride and naivety I assumed that I'd never have to face up to that. Or maybe some perverse part of me was just hoping it would happen so that I could prove all the Worldly-Wise people, er, well-meaning but discouraging people wrong.
The point is, I don't know what's going to happen to me. I'm trying to wait patiently, but it's hard. It's so, so hard. What if the Lord really will ask me to go out and pursue my dreams? I know you may not believe me, but I'd rather scrub scummy floors with a toothbrush than drag out all of my old dreams that I locked away long ago.
Because that's what I did. Years ago I was convinced that my dreams were childish and wrong. I thought that I needed to outgrow them. All of them. I thought it would please God. I thought that it would please my parents and best prepare me for my life ahead.
So I did. One by one, I folded them and locked them somewhere deep inside me and tried to forget them, tried to settle for better or smaller dreams. It hurt. More than anyone ever knew. It hurt trying to forget them. It hurt to try to change myself into someone else. But I did.
Years later, however, after I graduated, I was revealed for what I was; a dispirited, spineless creature, set adrift on a sea of uncertainty and insecurity. Everyone who saw it was dismayed, including me. Wasn't that a nasty surprise! I'd sacrificed everything for what I thought was right, and it turns out it wasn't what anybody wanted! Few things that have hurt me as much as that did. But I shoved it deep inside me so no one could see. And I guess ever since then I've just tried to move on, stay busy.
What people don't realize is that when they urge me to "chase my dreams," they're asking me to unearth my old dreams that I've hammered down into memories, and bring them to the light of day, unleashing all the pain with them. That's why I'd rather scrub tile with a toothbrush than talk about my dreams, let alone pursue them. Dreams are for other people.
Reflections like these have been haunting me all this week. I've been locked in Doubting Castle, beaten mercilessly by Giant Despair.
I am incapable of doing anything with right motives. When I try to do what's right, I fail. I've drawn so many lines around myself that I must not cross that I've built myself into a little box. A cage. And though I dream of freedom, it stays out of my reach. I cried out to God all this week, but He felt so far away. And why should He listen? He's disappointed in me, He's punishing me, He's sick of me, just like I am, and just like everyone else.
And...Oh, God, whatever am I to do?
You see what Satan does? He took my past regrets and wove them into my present struggles with sin and into my fears of the future. Just reading over it now, I can see that I'm borrowing trouble from next year at least, and Jesus says in Matthew 6 not to worry about tomorrow.
When I think back to after graduation, I also must remember that while I had no clue what to do, God directed my steps. It was the autumn after I graduated that He provided that wonderful job for me at the clinic. He's provided me with jobs like stepping stones. As soon as I was ready to move on, the next one came up. And when they stopped showing up, that was right before the opportunity to go to India came up. After India, He provided jobs and fun times, too. And friends. And opportunities. And I have certainly learned much from my time as a nanny. I can't just discount all that.
But most importantly, I've seen how He has provided for me. My life may be radically different from everything I could have expected, but when I look back, it's perfectly clear that He has a plan in mind. Each step has prepared me for the next ones. He's not going to abandon me. And just because I don't feel Him near me doesn't mean He isn't.
So I've been in Doubting Castle all this week. Feeling depressed and anxious and weighed down by sin and worries. But as you can probably guess, Christian and Hopeful don't die in Doubting Castle. Many pilgrims had, but they still had many miles to go on the King's Way.
I reminded myself of the rest of the story one day as I was sitting on the floor of my messy room, leaning against the side of my bed, without even the energy to get up and function normally.
Christian and Hopeful were lying in the dungeon, sore from the beatings that Giant Despair gave them. And every day the Giant would speak with them and advise them to kill themselves. He gave them poison, a knife, and a rope, any of which could end their sufferings. One day, Giant Despair takes them out into his courtyard and shows them the bones of all the pilgrims he has destroyed. And of course he beats them with his cudgel until they can hardly move.
Christian is sorely tempted to end his life, but his friend Hopeful reminds him that this would not please the King. He encourages him by recalling all that they've been through, and how the King provided for them every time. He reminds Christian of his courage against Apollyon, and of his strength in Vanity Fair, and in the Valley of the Shadow. Hopeful urges him not to give up, that Giant Despair doesn't control everything. The King does! They spend the night in earnest prayer together. Just before dawn, Christian remembers that all along he has had in his jacket a key called Promise. He is sure it will work against any lock in Doubting Castle. So he pulls it out and tries the cell door. It comes open, and they hurry through. They find their way into the castle-yard, but as they try the Key of Promise against the main gate, they find the iron lock to be so old and strong and rusty that it takes all their strength to turn. But the Key does open it at length. They fling themselves against the gates and push, and the gates make such a creaking screech that Giant Despair hears it and wakes up! He snatches up his cudgel and starts to rush after them, but when he gets outside, a strange fit comes over him that paralyzes his arms and legs. Because, you see, sunshiny weather often brings these fits upon him. He cannot overtake them, and Christian and Hopeful make it safely back to the King's Way.
If you are familiar with the story of Pilgrim's Progress, you may remember that one of the first troubles Christian fell into was the Slough of Despond. That time the King sent one of His servants, whose name was Help, to pull Christian out. Help tells us that the King has placed stones in the swamp that you can step on to get across. Those are the promises of God. Sometimes the weather and the swamp cover up the stones, but they are there. It's interesting that the way out of the slough and Doubting Castle are the same; you have to trust in God's promises, no matter what things appear to be like.
This week God sent quite a few Helps that have given me the right perspective. But I have to remember God's promises in His Word. That means I have to let go of my perspective and trust God's. So very easily said, and so very hard to do! And yet, it's good to think that even though I can get myself locked up in Doubting Castle, God doesn't leave me there. He has given me the key. I don't have to stay in there, it's not like He's punishing me or keeping me in there Himself.
It's not like thinking of the story in Pilgrim's Progress makes all my anxiety go away, you know. But the thing is, it made me remember that I don't need to worry about tomorrow, let alone next week, next year, the rest of my life. There's no need to borrow that trouble, since God's got everything mapped out already, and He's promised to get me there.
I'm trying to think of a way to close this without sounding too annoyingly preachy. It really needs a better closure, but no matter what my intentions are, it'll come out in little cliched Christian phrases that either you've heard before or won't understand, and I see no need for that now. Congratulations for getting through this post! Till next time, then!
~Cadenza
