Week Eleven - Weaving to Music

I look forward to the end of things.  Like a sewing project—to see the beauty of the finished piece.  Or an event.  The planning is fun, the execution wearing, but the end is best when you settle back and know the plan came together!  I think that is why I push so hard!  I’m in a hurry to finish.  But when I do, I miss out on some things and fail to see the beauty of the process.  I’ve been collecting a few thoughts on this.  We will see if they all weave together!

Pinned up by my computer is a Spurgeon quote. “My soul—be thou in love with the way as well as the end, since thy Lord is the one as well as the other.” 

That says to me, “Gail, take your time.”  It could also say, “It isn’t about whether you win or lose, but it’s how you play the game!”  But most of all, it reminds me that everything is a process.  I need to let it all play out and enjoy each God-ordained step.

Then, both of my current devotional books began talking about a similar subject.  Spurgeon, again, entered with, “All things work.”  Earth and nature are always at work for a purpose, working out God’s purpose, and we work, too.  All things work together, no matter the conflict.  “There is harmony in the most discordant parts of your life. You will find, when your biography is written, that the black page did but harmonize with the bright one.” (p 126)* Look at that!  Again, the process is a part of the beauty, even when things look bleak. Even when we aren’t happy about what is happening.  Even when we think things are at their worst, it all has a purpose and becomes a part of our story.

Then, I read, “Blessed are they who feel sure that there is a pattern; who hear and trust the directing voice, and so weave the changing threads to music.”  WJ Hart (p 56)** I can envision a weaver working to music, changing the threads in count with the rhythm! It also reminded me about life being a tapestry.  We only see the messy side.  God sees the work He is accomplishing.  We are better to rest ourselves in the process and allow Him to weave us as He sees fit.

I don’t know about you, but my thoughts and work occasionally get muddled up. I get too many irons in the fire and then grow discouraged in my attempts to finish.  My problems get more twisted as days pass, and I wonder how in the world I will get them straightened out.  Probably, I am sticking in my own hands too often, pushing the Weaver aside, and deafening my ears to His music. 

“A young man writing to his father about a personal problem said, ‘Once again, just yesterday, I have put this whole matter in the Lord’s hands, and asked Him to guide me about it all.  I often think of how I’d get my fishing line all tangled up.  The more I pulled the worse it got.  Finally, I’d hand the whole thing over to you, and you’d smooth it all out.  So I generally do that with my problems now; and I’m trying to learn not to pull at the line much, before I give it to Him.” (p 58)***

Are you guilty of pulling at the line in the problem that troubles you today?  Are you in a rush to get to the end?  Are you weighed down by the process? Why not hand it over to your heavenly Father, and allow the music of your life to weave to His design.  He will swiftly and lovingly untangle the crisscrossed and knotty impossibility that has troubled you so and put harmony back into your life.

*Spurgeon, C.H., Words of Cheer for Daily Life

**Cowman, L.B., Springs in the Valley

***Cowman, L.B., Springs in the Valley